My father-in-law received this email and asked me about its truth. I’m not sure what to tell him. Any ideas? It seems implausible to me, but I don’t know how to fact-check snopes itself, especially with no actual examples.
(The email looks like it has comments from a couple of people mushed together - I’m not who wrote what.)
Snopes says this isn’t true.
Ok, after putting in my two-cent joke response, I decided to actually look and see if Snopes has adressed this. As of yet, they haven’t – however, Truth Or Fiction has. I’m sure that the persons sending out this drivel won’t be happy to find that the site they cited has called them on their bullshit.
Actually, I couldn’t find it on snopes. After posting this, I did think to check the alternative site that they recommended, and it says that it’s not true, so I sent that link to FIL. I’m not sure if there is anything else to say about it, though.
Snopes is not owned by anyone. It is (they are) a little old couple who have somehow become the internet’s arbiters of truth. Oddly, they seem to do it pretty well too.
Too late for more editing…
Sorry dinks, About.com’s Urban Legends debunks you as well. Obviously they’re now part of the conspiracy as well.
And yet, shockingly, they fail to list any of those things, which would go a long ways towards proving their case.
I see cause and effect here, but maybe that’s just me. 
Sometimes Snopes does sort of get it sort of wrong. An example of this concerns a chain-email which has been doing the rounds in the UK for the last three years. This concerns a story about receiving a postcard from a courier company asking you to phone them about an undelivered parcel. The email then goes on to say that when you do phone that number you are immediately charged £15, and there is no such parcel waiting for you.
There is an element of truth in this story, but not the part about the £15 charge. Back in 2005 a company was running such a scam but you had to stay on the line for six minute and you were charged £9, This company was closed down that same year and fined several thousands of pounds.
If you check this story on Snopes it says right at the top"true", but only because this scam did sort of happen. But you have to scroll down the page to discover that the scam is no longer operating and there was never a £15 instant charge. Thus people have gone to Snopes, seen the “True” tag and have not only believed the legend, but have passed it on all over the net.
I prefer Hoax-Slayer. At the top of their page dealing with this same urban legend you see this :-
Status:
Was true, but the scam was shut down in late 2005.
Yeah, that should be clue #1.
I’ve always thought that Snopes was deficient on political questions because they went too easy on Bush for his Texas Air National Guard and Cocaine and “Who cares what you think stuff” because it could not be prove to their satisfaction. At least if they apply equal skepticism to either side, as now appears the case, they seem to be using a Fairness Doctrine.