The above e-mail is one of many Internet hoaxes and is completely false.
The true facts are:
America Online (AOL) merged with Netscape (1998) and Time Warner (2000)
not with Intel. Intel is a manufacturer of computer micro processors and would be of no asset
to AOL. Mergers of this kind must also be approved by the company's shareholders, and of course
no shareholders have been notified.
The tracking of e-mail has not yet evolved to the realm where it
can be tracked; however it can be traced back to the sender's Internet Service Provider (ISP). From there, with help of the sender's
ISP (usually not forthcoming unless some law has been broken), the person who sent the e-mail can be identified by the order in which he or she logged on to the ISP.
Also, in certain instances, thanks to Microsoft's GUID encoding, the e-mail's author can also be indentified (this is how they
caught the author of the Melissa virus).
If AOL and Intel are the merging entities, then why would Microsoft be paying you? This in addition to Intel also sending you a check as mentioned in the e-mail. The author of this hoax forgot to change the company name. This hoax is a bad take off from the previously reported AOL/Microsoft Merger Hoax.
AOL is already the largest Internet provider with some 24 million users. Its recent merger with Time Warner makes AOL the largest media company as well. Even if AOL were to merge with Intel, this would not increase the number of AOL users as Intel has none.
PepsiCo and General Electric are not involved in any litigation with each other nor have they been. PepsiCo is a beverage and snack company whereas General Electric is an electronics and appliance manaufacturer. The two companies would have nothing to sue each other over. In addition, a class action lawsuit involves one person suing another on behalf of a particular class of the general public. Class action status must first be obtained by court order. There is no record of any such court order being entered anywhere in the Nation nor are there any press releases mentioning the lawsuit from either company.
The e-mail address jpiltman@baylor.edu, as listed in the e-mail, is also bogus. Baylor University has never issued an e-mail address under the name of "jpiltman." If you send an e-mail to the address you will receive an instant automatic reply from the Baylor University server informing you that the e-mail is a hoax and asks you to visit this page before you forward it onto others.
In view of the above,
Nothing in the above e-mail even comes close to being true; and based upon all
of its inconsistencies and falsities, it has been dismissed as a really bad hoax. It is yet another
myth attempting to make people think that the Internet will make them a millionaire without any
effort, which is simply untrue. This e-mail runs around in varying forms every few months.
Don't let yourself be fooled!
