Amy Bruce Charity Hoax

Outline:
Email claims that 7-year-old Amy Bruce is dying of lung cancer and a brain tumour and that the Make-A-Wish Foundation will donate money every time the email is forwarded.

Brief Analysis:
The email is an absurd hoax that has circulated since 1999. Forwarding the email will help nobody.

Detailed Analysis:
This absurd hoax message first began circulating way back in 1999 and is still being passed from inbox to inbox many years later. The information presented in the email is a total fabrication. There is no 7-year-old Amy Bruce who is dying of both lung cancer and a brain tumour.

Furthermore, the Make-A-Wish Foundation is certainly not donating money every time the email is forwarded. The Make-A-Wish Foundation would never lend its support to such a ridiculous email-based charity campaign. In fact, for many years, the organisation had a page on its website debunking the Amy Bruce hoax and a long list of other similar hoaxes.

Later versions of the hoax include a graphic of a child’s face (shown in the above example) along with other decorative element such as a dancing angel animation. Some newer versions also include a photograph of a child with pig-tails. Since the real identity of the child in the photograph is unknown and her image may have been added to the hoax without the permission or knowledge of her parents, I have not included it here.

The concept of individual emails being “tracked” as they journey through cyberspace is a common theme for  hoax emails. The only way to keep track of the random journeys of a particular email would be to embed some sort of hidden script in the email. To be effective, this hidden script would have to remain intact and working through thousands of subsequent forwardings. In reality, the message would be very unlikely to remain in a format that allowed the script to continue working for long. Moreover, many modern email programs would remove or disable any sort of tracking script for security reasons. Thus, it would be simply impossible to collect any accurate or meaningful data about an email that could ultimately be forwarded many thousands of times and therefore impossible to calculate the amount of money to be donated.

In any case, tracking an email in the way described would be considered by many to be a significant privacy infringement and it is highly unlikely that any ethical charity organization would knowingly participate in such a practice. Furthermore, it is absurd to suggest that any responsible organization would base the amount to be donated on how many times an email was forwarded. There is simply no valid reason whatsoever for imposing such a cruel and callous restriction. If an organization is willing and able to offer financial help, they will do so directly and the amount donated will not depend on the random forwarding of an email. Any message that claims that an email is being tracked and that money will be donated for every forward is virtually certain to be a hoax.

There has been a long series of hoaxes similar to the one discussed here. Another hoax that uses the same tactic is the Debbie Shwartz Charity Hoax, which also claims that money will be donated every time an email is forwarded. As well, the Jasmine Thomas Charity Hoax claims the American Red Cross will donate money when the email is passed on.

Hoaxes like these do nothing more than cause trouble for our charitable organizations. Charities such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation have to devote valuable resources to answering queries about their supposed involvement. If you receive one of these hoax messages, please delete it without forwarding and ensure that you let the sender know its true status.

Last updated: March 28, 2017
First published: September 14, 2004
By Brett M. Christensen
About Hoax-Slayer

References
Make-A-Wish Foundation – Chain Letters
Debbie Shwartz Charity Hoax
Jasmine Thomas Charity Hoax

Original Source : https://www.hoax-slayer.net/amy-bruce-charity-hoax/