Hoaxes Are Far From Harmless Fun!

Terrorists created doll hostage hoax in 2005.

Top 15 Hoaxes up to 2009

Hoaxes can dupe even the most trustworthy people and this site warns against falling for them.

You cannot get AIDS from food.

Hoaxes are usually malicious in nature to at least some degree. They are attempts at getting attention and a laugh at the expense of other people. They are not funny except to the sick and/or very immature individuals who originate them, and to those who actually like being hoaxed or seeing it happen to others.

Stupid practical joke chain involving Australian police

Rick Astley is not dead the hoax was committed by lulz-addicted losers at 4chan, a troll site.

A harmless prank just between friends where people not included in that circle of friends don't get involved, is one thing. But when pranks become hoaxes, effecting innocent people, that's a whole different story.

Pranks meant to be just between friends sometimes do end up getting turned into full blown hoaxes.

Ashley Flores, Evan Trembley and Yohana Ravelo Evan Trembley may have only meant to circulate a missing kid alert among just his friends for a laugh. That makes sense. The trouble is that it didn't stay just between him and his friends. He had posted it on Myspace, where contacts of his friends could see it, and basically strangers to him thought it was for real and began forwarding it.

How Evan Trembley's prank turned into a nightmare for other people

The most harmless hoaxes only fool, inconvenience and annoy people while wasting time and resources.

Shane Fitzgerald's hoax about composer Maurice Jarre Bigfoot Facebook Republican Army Party Crashers a Big Hoax Kyle Doyle Twilight TV series hoax Science Fair Project Fraudulent Chain Letter The Girl Who Turned into a Beast is a topic on a forum that discusses how a waxwork was passed off as a real picture in a hoax that claimed a girl was turned into a hairy part animal part person thingie by Allah for disrespecting the book of Islam.

Others take the foolery to a more mean-spirited level and try scaring us into actions that destroy our own property. The Teddy Bear Virus Warning is a perfect example of this type of hoax. Hackers and Hoaxes and Spyware, Oh My! This article explains how belief in a hoax such as the Teddy Bear Virus warning can ruin your computer.

The majority do a lot worse than that, from damaging reputations to severe and needless emotional and psychological battery.

Matthew Biel Responsible For Impersonating Missing Claudia Lawrence My sorrow to both the Lawrence and the Biel families for the terrible emotional distress this hoax caused.

Abusive Mail Tarnishes Image

Cronicle of a Flame War Site explains how someone became the target of hoaxes started by trolls that typically have no life.

Bamba Under Atack Bamba is a Middle Eastern peanut butter treat and somebody started a chain letter claiming it was harmful to babies.

In the form of forwards, hoaxes range from Chain Letters About Sick and Missing Individuals to rumors about individuals and entities. These forwards typically slander, lie about, misquote or otherwise falsely attribute words and actions to people and entities that didn't say or do them.In addition, most forwards of the sick/missing person variety are out of date, misguided, or weren't even true to begin with.

The Kimberly Anne AOL Disk Hoax obviously got going when AOL was still mailing out free floppy disks. The hoax claimed that a little girl was sick and she wished to collect the most number of AOL cds before she passed into the great beyond. A mailing address had been given, but was deleted here to prevent the hoax from bombarding some hapless person or company with a continuing avalanche of AOL disks they never asked for to begin with.

Kaycee Nicole Gina Pepe Yummy Mummy and aliases, B and Baby April Rose personae that turned into extremely cruel online hoaxes. While not exactly chain letters unless they were virally advertised, the same sick forces of manipulation and betrayal were at work, but taken to a newer hight, and many people were needlessly, badly hurt.

If the Munchausen by Internet wasn't already heinous enough, the Josh Evans hoax was even worse, at least for one girl and her family.

Justice For Haleigh blog Missing 5-year-old girl, what's for real and what isn't is obscure, however, Somebody named Pia started a hoax about it Pia is on that forum. Haleigh Cummings Museum Of Hoaxes forum Questions about the varacity of a blog that was soliciting donations For additional links: Search - Haleigh Cummings hoax

The Heene Balloon Boy Hoax Everyone was fooled by the story and footage of a runaway balloon that was said to contain a six-year-old child. It wasn't true. It was a sick stunt to land a "reality TV" show.

Michael Longo Impersonated Aaron White on Myspace and ruined his life as a result!

It's already unbelievably grievous when people spread false tales about others as being racists, or are suchdisgusting raving racists themselves, but Mark Hendricks Victim Of Cruel Hoax! Fatima Mohamed started a chain letter about her friend that contained pictures of him and claimed he was a dangerous human trafficker!

the Skinner Box slander that maliciously accuses someone of child abuse. Not a word of these rumors is true, but people continue being willingly gullible and passing along this trash. It doesn't help matters when some famous people themselves fall for and parrot these rumors. Lauren Slater wrote a book full of slanderous crap about the Skinner family, and Spike Lee bought into the Liz Claiborne racial rumor. But famous people can be just as wrong as the rest of us and just as gullible.

Jackie Christie did not get jealous of a female nurse so that she nearly caused her husband NBA player Doug Christie's death. That is yet another wildly vicious rumor.