A few months back, I received this e-mail in my account, marked as "highly important". Here are the details:
From: Sankhala, Suresh Singh
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2008 12:48 PM
Subject: UK Requirement
Dear Friend,
Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test. When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period. For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two week! s, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque.
And now I shall present my analysis on this e-mail:
Firstly, if you noticed, the subject is written as "UK Requirement", which had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the e-mail in any way.
Secondly, it was not appropriate for the sender to address me as "Dear Friend", as I do not even know the sender nor have I even heard of him. I believe we all agree that the usage of a more formal tone is recommended when communicating with someone for the first time.
Now as for the content of the e-mail, it obviously does not follow all 7Cs of writing. To begin with, the sender should introduce himself first and state who or which organization he is representing since he is a complete stranger to me. The objective of his e-mail was also not stated at all in the first two lines.
The next flaw that I want to point out is the language used. The grammar and vocabulary used is simply inappropriate. For instance, it is stated in the e-mail that "If you ignore this you will repent later." I know it must sound kind of funny right now, but the right word to use should be "regret" and not "repent". The tone and phrasing of that particular sentence is also too strong; if the sender really has something useful to share, maybe he can write something like "Do read on further as I believe the information below will greatly benefit you."
Besides that, the content of the e-mail itself lacks both completeness and concreteness. No details are provided regarding the "e-mail beta test" or why is it being run. There is no further information concerning how this whole "payment scheme" will work as well. The recipient of such an e-mail will not know how Microsoft will "track" them down and deposit money into their bank account. Moreover, even if this e-mail was really genuine, the sender should have attached reliable sources or links for the recipient to refer to.
Apart from that, under normal circumstances, the sender should have provided his contact details (Although we probably could figure out why he didn't in this case).
On the whole, if we look at the overall format of the e-mail (even if we ignore the content), somehow the mail looked as if it had been prepared really sloppily. Although it is short, appropriate paragraphing will make this mail a whole lot easier to read. Last but not least, he did not even bother to end the mail with "Yours Faithfully" or "Yours Sincerely" and sign off with his name as well as job position.
Let me conclude by saying that reading this e-mail in the very first place was not a very prudent way to use my precious time.
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Hi Alvin,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the email appears more like one of those junk mails that pack into our mailboxes. After reading this email, the immediate impression I got was one filled with skepticism and suspicion to the authenticity of their claims. I should say this is largely due to the points that you have mentioned such as the poor choice of words used and the incompleteness of information that was provided. I would like to add that the monetary enticement that was used, was also a major factor that made me suspicious of the mail. I suppose it was because there was a lack of explanation why Microsoft was going to fork out such a substantial sum of money just to pay people who forward such a poorly written letter.
In addition, I feel that it is rather common for people to be deluged with junk mails. Thus, should companies or individuals intend to convey important information to a large number of people, emails may not always be the best channel to do so. In fact, employing the mass media such as news broadcast or newspaper advertisements, may be more well received as they are formal and commonly perceived to be more credible sources. However, should there be a need to send an important mail to a stranger, with a request for the latter's action, the sender should try to establish credibility by being mindful of the 7Cs in writing. Otherwise, it would be poor received just like this email which you have described.
Caroline
Hi Alvin,
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of this email was to convince people to forward this email so to be paid by the Microsoft. However, the sender failed to provide extra information on the e-mail beta test, the exact payment scheme and how they keep track of the numbers of forward emails we sent. With that, it is highly unlikely for the writer to achieve his purpose of writing this email as it was not convincing at all.
Although it is a rather short email, flaws can be spotted easily regardless of content, language or letter format used. Therefore, I agree with you that it would be a waste of time reading this email in the first place.
Cheers,
Chau Ting
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Alvin,
ReplyDeleteI find that the biggest flaw in this mail is its lack of concreteness. The sender did not provide concrete evidence that he or she is from microsoft, making the mail highly suspicable. I agree with you that the sender should have stated which organization he was from and should have signed off with his name and job title. In fact, the lack of these details portrayed that the sender was afraid of identifying himself.
Hi Alvin,
ReplyDeleteI feel that this mail lacks concreteness as what Raydon has pointed out. There are no supporting evidences to back up the incentives mentioned. Furthermore if the company is really intending to pay the people who participate in this kind of testing program, they should be using a more formal tone. The first sentence in itself already raise suspicions about what will follow and the first thing that I will do when I see this kind of emails is to delete them.
Really strange and why UK requirement for subject? The lack of background given and flouting of letter conventions might all be part of the ruse. The information Mr S is giving is very farfetched so perhaps he wants to give the impression that you are one of a select few 'in the know." I suppose one in every few thousand may actually believe him.
ReplyDeleteMrs Richardson
I forgot to mention in my blog that by the time this e-mail was forwarded to me, it had already been forwarded by more than a few thousand people before it reached me. It's kind of strange but I think some people are secretly "wishing" that the e-mail is true and that they might actually receive some monetary benefits. Maybe they think there's no harm in forwarding this kind of e-mail if somehow it is "miraculously" true...
ReplyDelete