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How do you politely tell one of your friends to stop forwarding you chain e-mails?

Many of them aren't even true, having been debunked by snopes.com. They clog my inbox and I don't like them. What's the best way to handle this?
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michelleld...
michelleld...
Marked as Best! October 22, 2009 05:35 AM
What I personally do is go to snopes, find where it was debunked, copy and paste a snippet and the link and hit 'reply to all'. Usually, it's been forwarded to everyone in their address book, so this way, my debunk gets sent to them all too.

It hasn't stopped my stepmother from sending them out--but it did make her take MY email address out of the address book.

It's not rude to debunk something someone sent you. It's no ruder than it is to have them send it to you without your wanting it.
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jillbeth
jillbeth
October 22, 2009 10:35 AM
I like this idea! So much misinformation gets passed around, and people tend to believe whatever they read on the internet, for some reason!
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vicgoodwin...
vicgoodwin...
October 22, 2009 03:54 AM
My daughter just told me in a laughing way to not send me those darn emails again. She said if I want to write her then she will read those, but if it was one of those it is being deleted.

I took the hint.
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jillbeth
jillbeth
October 22, 2009 10:34 AM
Politley. Send them a message of this nature: "I appreciate that you want to include me in your email forwards, but I just really don't have time to read them. Will you please take me off the list?"
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pats
pats
October 22, 2009 07:36 PM
The best polite way is to just "delete" the mail or change your mail settings, to get all your friend's mail to junk folder!
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bilza
bilza
October 22, 2009 07:51 PM
i think its best just to reply to one of them, saying,
"i know you may think these are real, but i do not wish to recieve these from you. please stop sending them to me, im sure you can find 1 other different person to use."
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silverhamm...
silverhamm...
October 22, 2009 09:14 PM
"Please remove my address from your mailing list." But keep in mind that some spyware programs pull their info from people's address books and they LOOK like they came from your friend but they may not have.

Create a new email address that is only used for important contacts.

I have one for subscriptions (opt-in lists), billing, personal, clients, website and a temporary one that I use when in doubt that I can delete if the contact isn't legit. Having 10 inboxes allows me to control where my information is coming from and who it's from.

But I get far less spam now from family that I reply to with the snopes.com link that debunks their spam WITH links to how spammers use the CC-All line to harvest email addresses with AND instructions on how to forward with BCC (blind CC) if they really feel it's important.

Asking someone to remove me from their list has worked the best though. Even telling them I have a NEW email and giving them the temporary one (and creating a filter on my old address to auto-delete anything from them) now gives me a way of cutting them off completely if they don't get the clue. Besides, they have my phone number if they REALLY need to get in touch, right?
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jkepler
jkepler
October 22, 2009 09:20 PM
The easiest thing to do is simply delete them over and over when they come in. However, a slightly more passive aggressive tactic is to forward them one of those chain letters that complains about and makes fun of chain letters. The worst are the holiday-based chain letters. If you get really tired of it, you could always send them this, but I wouldn't recommend it:
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dsaldridge
dsaldridge
October 22, 2009 11:26 PM
Nothing really works. I have one friend I've asked time and again to take me out of her address book, because asking her not to send me forwarded messages and religious chain mail has gotten me nowhere. Guess what. I got one today. I politely told her that I was going to block her if I got one more, because I did not know any other way to get her to stop.
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intrepid
intrepid
October 23, 2009 12:21 AM
I usually explain that I get too much email to sort through it all so please don't forward anything to me. I also tell people that don't seem to understand that "if you didn't type it, do not send it to me" that worked for my dad.
Source(s):
http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/song-chart-memes-chain-mail.jpg
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