This is what that email read.\n-------------------------------- \n\nDear Friends,\nPlease do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.\n\nWhen you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period.\n\nFor every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two week! s, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque.
211456
Yes, hoax.  There is currently no way for Microsoft to track your email.  And why would they give away money?
152763
I have done it. You have to join witch is free. They send you e-mails that say paid e-mail. Then it tells you to claim your earnings to click on the link. When you do it tries sends you to a bunch of advertisements. You have to buy something or join something to get paid. I have not pursued this any further. It's a scam to get people to buy more crap. If it sounds to good to be true then guess what it is!
627607
This is fraud.  alot of people I know have gotten this email. They tell you you've won a large amount of money, but you need to pay them something to recieve it. Delete this, do not click on any links, do not send the money or call any phone numbers. It is fraud. \n\nIf you copy the first couple lines and put it in a search engine it will tell you it's fraud.
334095
I really think its a scam. I had a friend who tried to get a free ipod on one of those things and it never happened. They ask for other people's emails so they are probably trying to get emails to send people junk mail. Or perhaps when you click on those ads, they put spyware on your compter. I think its best to avoid them.
284125
yeah these are just scamming emails trying to get as much money out of u as possible. \nif you google for 419 emails. this will show you what really is going on with these scammers normally from lagos nigera. etc
78095
It's hilarious -- you should open it.  It's not a virus, it's something that careerbuilder.com sponsors/runs.  it's a monkey in an email that will talk to you.
100207
I to did the same work{reading emails}in the past but I havent payed my payouts its all waste of time .\n If you are still intrested in such kind of work\nits better to surf in surfing sites like 12daily\nin which u have to invest money & they giv some more extra money for surfing there provided sites\n{like wise for investing money for 12days they provide you 12% of intrest for that money}
111926
*sigh* This email has been going around for what, 5 years now? At least. It's as fake now as it was then. \n\nEdit: Actually it looks like 7 years now, in one form or another
79464
It's best to NEVER respond to these. Microsoft didnt become a multi-billion dollar corporation by giving easy money away. This is either a scam, spam, or both.
383243
Wow, thanks for the spam.  I don't feel I am advertised to enough.  What with the 1/3 of TV time, Buses, Radio, E-mail, Webpages, Pop-ups, and Magazines that I pay money for.  I think you should be shot.
423840
you shouldnt advertise your email like that. theres a lot of pervs on this website, and you could get a lot of them this way.:(\nso stop, before you get hurt.
375317
Well, myself and I heard others say same thing, would not trust that email.  I don't do any of those things including surveys or whatever.  Some reports it creates a large amount of unwanted emails, some reported phone calls, some said having sent a few emails to get paid and never received a reply, some says they don't paid very much, if at all or are not getting what they were promosed....so up to you what you want to do, your choice.  On the other hand, I work from home and if interested you can email me at rpelley5@yahoo.com.  Nothing to do with on-line business.
324629
The old addage goes that "most things are worth what you pay for them", also "if it sounds to good to be true then . . . " and so on.  Whenever I've checked into these offers it involves answering a few questions which means getting your email on a gazzillion email lists, do you want that?
272810
Yahoo is cool about letting you set up POP 3 accounts to re-route to their mail. I have three accounts that I read with Yahoo. It's great to have it all in one place. You just need to know your log-in and password. IF AOL will not let you retrieve mail with Yahoo (or any other POP3) then in my opinion you are being held hostage. All that money per month and they still force you to use their services so AOL can determine which ads you see. For $25/month you ought to be able to do anything you want!
317104
Its a scam!\nLotterys work like this:\n1)10,000 people pay 1 dollar/euro/pound/yen....etc\nThe lottery company now has 10,000\n\n2) the lottery company holds a draw and gives out 7,000 in winnings (and keeps the profit 3,000)\n\nScams work like this:\n-1)nobody pays money (there is no money to win)\n\n0)a scammer sends out 10,000 spam emails to tell people they have won a lottery they havn't entered.(they pretend they work for real lottery websites)\n\n2)The Scammer asks for your Personal details (be prepared! your inbox is going to be full of emails asking for you personally...and dont get me started on what they are gonna do with your Bank details!)\n\n3)The scammer tells you that you have to pay fees before you can accept the "winnings" (and NO,you cant pay out of the winnings! they dont exist!....silly maga)\n\n4)The scammer manages to con 3 people out of 1000 and gives all his profits to a charity for orphaned goats (he dosn't really...he keeps it ;) )\n\n5)Your inbox gets more mails than help@microsoft.com\nEverything from "You have won anotther sooperdooperlottry" to    "CHAN U B A NEXT OF KIN" to "Please join our company,cash our checks,send us the money until your bank realises you are laundering money for us?)\n\nThe moral of the story is...If it sounds too good to be true... It probably is
137300
These West African get these addresses copy & pasted from a whole variety of free email sites as yahoo, hotmail, msn, etc.\n\nBy experience, I should say, that they surprised me with a letter of a supposed inheritance or lotto won.  All with the trick of getting advance fees from you. I became victim from them and never got the supposed inheritance. Note that they try to seem as real as posssible.\n\nJust Go to yahoo Options, click on filters, and write the clue words that u would find in letters that come from them.\nAlso, I have been forwarding these letters to the FTC at spam@uce.gov & 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov
625786
No! There are many hoax e-mail messages (such as the one you are describing) on the Internet, claiming that Microsoft or some other company will reward anyone who forwards the message to as many people as possible. Always ignore these messages. No one gives money to anyone for the hell of it and you cannot win a lottery you did not buy a ticket for. That's the basic rule of any lottery.\n\nIf you ever get messages that promise you of unbelievable riches, do not believe them. If you get a message from someone you do not know, do not open it and do not read it. Delete the message.