Email example contributed by Michele Sawyer, 05/27/00:

Comments:  Ho-hum, it's another "email tracking" scheme offering free merchandise for forwarding a chain letter — of which there are now more than a dozen in circulation. They are all pranks, and all follow roughly the same formula.

Compare the language in the first part of this newer message to the "Newell Company" chain letter making the rounds since February 2000. Consider the absurdity, evident in both messages, of an executive of the very company from which the email supposedly originated saying, "I, too, thought this was a hoax until I tried it myself."

Piffle.

One of the secrets to the longevity of such chain letters, obviously, is that a lot of people neither read carefully what's in them nor think about what they've read.

There happens to be an advertising firm doing business under name "RH Power" in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but we doubt they had anything whatsoever to do with this email.   And there is, of course, an Outback Steakhouse restaurant chain in the U.S., but this message did not originate from them. A statement on Outback's Website states:

If you are contacting us about a chain email you have received please note that the email is not in any way affiliated with Outback Steakhouse. As with Gap, Bath and Body Works, etc. many large companies are targeted with such fraudulent problems.

No reputable companies use chain letters to distribute free merchandise, period.

Related articles:

Further Adventures in Email Tracking
A brief genealogy of email "freebie" hoaxes

'Freebie' Chain Letter Hoaxes
Lots more specimens for comparison