Mumbai: Last week, thousands of email users got a mail about a free cell phone scheme apparently launched by Ericsson, a leading mobile phone manufacturer. The original mail sent by one Mukund, who claimed to be the zonal manager of Ericsson, also requested the recipients to forward the mail to eight friends with a copy marked to in order to get a second-hand Ericsson cell phone free.

Whats more, it went on to add that if the mail is forwarded to 20 persons one will get a new mobile phone free. According to the mail, Ericsson, a major competitor to Nokia and Samsung, has launched this free mobile phone scheme to create awareness about its product among the Indian public.

Responding to the email sent to Ericsson communications director (Asia-Pacific) James Luo to confirm the promo, Ranjivjit Singh, a company official, denied any such scheme. Ericsson is not giving away free phones. The chain email you have received is a conmans job and there is no person with the name of Mukund working as a zonal manager at Ericsson. We kindly ask you not to forward the chain email further.

Gone are days of chain mails in the name of Lord Venkatachalapathi and Jesus Christ, threatening dire consequences if the recipient does not make copies of them and forward it to others. Now the technique is to fool people evoking worldly interests or even sympathy.

A couple of weeks ago there was a chain mail about some athlete being assured of sponsorship by the ministry of sports if the mail is seen by some specified number of people.

A few days later there was another mail; it was about raising funds for treatment of a baby suffering from a dreaded disease. The message said AOL has agreed to pay 32 cents per email to the childs parent towards medical expenses. There was a mention that AOL has developed the necessary software to measure the number of persons who have read the mail.

In the wake of millions of systems crashing due to virus-carrying mails, net browsers should be careful with mails that carry provoking subjects.