Here are yet more hoaxes in the Forward For Money pattern. These two free phone hoaxes each fit this pattern exactly but many people who should know better have been willing to believe that such offers are possible.

There are far too many such hoaxes for us to list them all so please, PLEASE, when you see an offer of something for free, some donation made or anything at all good happening as result of forwarding an email, you can safely assume it's a hoax!.

Both of these hoaxes promise a free phone for forwarding an email. The second hoax actually tries to draw upon the first hoax to give both hoaxes some credibility. Amazingly, I've had people tell me that they know this is a real offer because they also saw the other hoax. This is currently the most common version of the first of these two hoaxes:

              Hello dear customer   We from Nokia, are very happy to
              see that the people on the  internet are
              visiting our page often.  To keep the customers
              who use the internet happy, we have  developed
              a new series of mobile telephones called WAP (
              wireless  application protocol).  They are made
              for people who are on the road often and  don't
              have the internet with them, they can now get
              the  information on there telephones.
              Unfortunately, not many people have heard about
              WAP, that's  why we are spreading this e-mail
              around the net. 'What's in it for me?',you'll
              probably think.Well, everyone who forwards this
              message 10  times, will receive  the Nokia
              3210.Everyone who forwards this message 25
              times or more, will  receive the Nokia 7110,
              the first WAP telephone.   2weeks after you've
              forwarded this message Nokia will  contact you
              about your adress. This message is only for
              Microsoft  Windows(c) users,  Nokia can only
              see how much you've forwarded the message if
              you use Windows 95 or newer.


              Good Luck  James Dorfeld  Vice President of Nokia
              Communications   The contents of Nokia World
              Wide Web pages are Copyright (c)  Nokia
              Corporation 2000.  Any rights not expressly
              granted herein are reserved.  Reproduction,
              transfer, distribution or storage of part or
              all of the contents in any form without the
              prior written permission of Nokia is
              prohibited except in accordance with the
              following terms. Nokia consents  to  you
              browsing Nokia World Wide Web pages on your
              computer or printing  copies  of extracts from
              these pages for your personal use only and not
              for redistribution unless consented to in
              writing by Nokia. Individual  documents in our
              World Wide Web pages  may be subject to
              additional terms indicated in those documents.

The above hoax was followed by this hoax:

              Subject: Free Wap Ericsson Phones

              Our main competitor, Nokia, is giving free mobile phones
              away on the Internet. Here at Ericsson we want to counter
              their offer. So we are giving our newest WAP-phones away
              as well. They are specially developed for Internet happy
              customers who value cutting edge technology. By giving
              free phones away, we get valuable customer feedback and a
              great Word-of-Mouth effect. All you have to do, is to
              forward this> message to 8 friends. After two weeks
              delivery time, you will receive a Ericsson T18. If you
              forward it to 20 friends, you will receive the brand new
              Ericsson R320 WAP-phone. Just remember to send a copy to
              Anna.Swelund@ericsson.com
               That is the only way we
              can see, that you forwarded the message. Best of luck Anna
              Swelund Executive Promotion Manager for Ericsson Marketing
              Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved.
              Reproduction,> transfer, distribution or storage of part
              or all of the contents in any form without the prior
              written permission of Ericsson is prohibited except in
              accordance with the following terms. Ericsson consents to
              you browsing Ericsson World Wide Web pages on you computer
              or WAP-phone and printing copies of these pages for privte
              use only. <

As we have mentioned before, there is no email tracking that would enable the actions claimed in the Nokia version of this hoax. (The Ericsson version actually provides a more believable situation by asking that you CC a third party.)

Anytime you see something that offers you (or someone else!) money or some benefit for forwarding an email, you can assume it's a hoax.