Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

The number of bogus claims circulating in email land never ceases to amaze the research team here at RR Headquarters.

The world has always been plagued by hoaxes and pranksters, but the development of email seems to have accelerated the spread.
Early versions of the bogus email stories started well before the advent of electronic communications. In a time long ago, before texts and emails, these stories were spread by a primitive form of communication called ‘conversation'. This consisted of one or more human beings, face to face, making noises which emanated from their mouths, known as ‘speech'.
There were also vital communicative keys at work during this face to face conversation, which involved body language and facial expressions – an art largely lost in today's world of expressionless and impersonal electronic communication. Laugh out Loud.
A more sophisticated version of this verbal communication was in the form of ‘handwriting' and, then they got really technical, advancing to ‘printing and publishing'.
Anyway, I digress.
Remember the legend of the plastic drink bottles half filled with water that were supposed to discourage dog droppings on the front lawn?
Some atheists I know would argue that the entire God concept is based on similar shaky ground. They'll be struck by lightning.
The bogus stories highlight how gullible we can be. Just because it's in writing, doesn't mean it's true. It's a battle that we fight on a daily basis in the news business. Constantly trying to verify every little piece of information is a huge task and one that we can never hope to get perfectly right all the time. However, at The Sun we do better than most.
It is usually information supplied to us that provides the most inaccuracies.

Brains in gear?
However, now and then we read material which is just so far askew you have to wonder if the people repeating the information have their brains in gear at all. It's as if they really want to believe it.
Recently a club newsletter arrived with a couple of extraordinary claims.
The first, on the subject of cellphones, described a secret key code that magically tapped into a ‘reserve battery'. A quick check on the snopes website, which investigates and dispels urban myths, confirmed it untrue. Yet there's a whole bunch of people out there with nearly flat cellphones, punching in some digits in the hope it will miraculously breathe new life into their dead battery.
The second claim:
'If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN in reverse. For example, if your pin is 1234 then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognises that your PIN is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location.”
A quick check with the local bank manager confirmed that this is indeed, a large amount of cobblers.
Snopes also rubbished the claim. Not only will there be no money dispensed, but there is no procedure in ATMs to alert the police. The concept was an idea touted by a businessman in the early ‘90s but has never been implemented.
Still, these ideas have been bandied around the country and the world as if they were gospel.
You have to wonder how it all starts, whether by innocent mistake or mischievous intent.
In the case of the robbery, this sort of nonsense is pure danger. If you are ever robbed, follow the police advice: give them what they want. Unless you happen to be an ex-commando who can kill with your eyebrows, the police advice is clear and sensible.
Here at RR we are thinking of starting some myths ourselves to see how far they'll get.
Perhaps we could dispel the ATM story, saying the police won't arrive, but Batman will jump out of the money slot and punch the robbers on the nose. Kapow!