Applebees will give you a $50 gift certificate if you forward an email to nine other people.

See the hoax here.

Applebees says so:

A fraudulent e-mail chain message promising Applebee's gift certificates for forwarding the message is currently making its way around the Internet. The message promises a gift certificate and a confirmation number after forwarding the message to a specific number of e-mail addresses. Applebee's International, Inc. does not sponsor or endorse this activity and is unable to fulfill these requests.

from Applebees.com

Other reasons why this is a hoax:

• Forwarded email can't be tracked.
• There is no free lunch, especially at Applebees.

There is more information why forwarded email can't be tracked as claimed here.

There was a time not so long ago that hardly a week or two could go by without a new email forwarding hoax being spawned. The Urban Legend Zeitgeist welcomes the recent drop in spawnings.

Unfortunately, given the staying power of hoaxes like "Good Times" and legends like Craig Shergold, we'll be seeing these email forwarding stories for some time to come, just hopefully less of them.

The Urban Legend Zeitgeist will now grade the anonymous author of the Applebees email forwarding hoax:

Attention to detail: B

Congratulations, you've mastered basic spelling and grammar skills. Kudos for discovering that Bill Palmer was one of the original founders of Applebees but that's information that is readily available on the Applebee's web pages.

Adding the third party testimonial ('It really works, I tried it and got my Gift certificate confirmation number in 3 minutes') is a nice touch but you failed to attach a name to it (names are great skepticism-reducers) and you failed to make the testimonial appear to be the later spontaneous addition of a successful participant.

Internal consistency: C-

The supposed justification for forwarding the email, "an attempt to get our name out to more people in the rural communities where we are not currently located," doesn't add up. Why give away gift certificates to all and sundry when you're trying to target rural communities?

Why cite the URL of the Applebees home page in the hoax? Any semi-skeptical reader might be inclined to visit the Applebees home page to verify it and immediately would notice the disclaimer about the hoax.

Technical plausiblity: D

No explanation is offered on how Applebees is going to detect and count all these forwarded emails. Mental telepathy? Big Brother-like monitoring of each and every email floating around the Internet?

Creativity: F

You copied the faux testmonial 'it really works, I tried it and got my Gift certificate confirmation number in 3 minutes' verbatim from another email forwarding hoax.

'Forward this email to get free stuff' hoaxes lack the pathos and credulity-suspending power of 'Forward this email to help a sick child' hoaxes.

Overall: C-

Why shouldn't you forward these emails?

• If you do, your friends who know these are hoaxes will think you are a credulous newbie.
• Conserve precious network bandwidth.

• Urban Legend Zeitgeist: Email Forwarding for Fun and Profit
• General resources on Internet hoaxes:
  • "Computer Virus Myths Home Page"
  • "CIAC Internet Hoaxes" from the US Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability

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