WARNING! Did you hear about the car thieves who are drugging women in parking lots with fake perfume samples? Or that collecting soda pull tabs will earn time on a dialysis machine? A friend of my cousin swears this is true!

I am sure you have gotten hundreds of similar e-mails forwarded from well-meaning friends and family warning of the latest scams, viruses, health issues, etc.. While they are often entertaining and would make a great episode of CSI, I am skeptical of these e-mails and thus rarely forward them on.

It’s not that I don’t want to warn my friends about perfume car-jackers, it’s just that 9 times out of 10 these stories turn out to be bogus. In trying to find out the validity of some recently forwarded e-mails, I found a great website that researches these e-mail urban legends and lets you know whether or not they are indeed true and worth passing along to friends.

The next time you receive one of these e-mails and feel compelled to pass it along, do yourself (and your friend’s e-mail inboxes) a favor and visit: snopes.com and see if it’s legit or not.

Believe me, I would love to help find missing children, but it does not help if you are forwarding around false e-mails with pleas for help.

I will leave you now with this story and you can guess if it is fact or fiction:

Hairbands manufactured in China are being made out of recycled (used) condoms and string. Click here to see if it’s true or false?