Fact or Fiction

Claim:   Warner Bros. will contribute money to the American Red Cross every time you forward an e-mail message to a friend. 

Status:   Not any more. 

Examples:   [Collected on the Internet, 2000] 

Warner Bros. would like to honor the real-life heroes of "The Perfect Storm," and we need your help. Every time you forward this e-mail to a friend, Warner Bros. will contribute five cents to the American Red Cross. Help us reach our contribution goal of $50,000.

Origins:   Finally, after all those bogus messages about how you can help raise money for the treatment of sick children or receive cash and free merchandise simply for forwarding ane-mail, along came one that was for real. You could help raise money for the American Red Cross by forwarding e-mail to your friends, but Warner Bros. has discontinued the promotion. 

You started by visiting the Warner Bros. web site for The Perfect Storm web site and clicking one of theForward This E-Mail links. Then you filled out the form, and for every message you sent, Warner Bros. donated fifty cents to the American Red Cross, up to a total of $50,000 (although for some reason they stopped the program after announcing they had made a $10,000 contribution to the Red Cross). 

Warner Bros. said they would not be collecting e-mailaddresses nor sending unsolicited mail to the addresses submitted to them.