Alex Kinch

I saw a press release about this the other day, but didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to get involved – that is, until someone forwarded me the email believing they’d get a free laptop.

So here’s the deal. An email pops into your inbox saying something along the lines of “Ericsson are distributing free laptops for their brand promotion. They are hoping to increase their popularity and sales with this campaign”, and then goes on to say you should forward it to eight people and you’ll get an Ericsson T18 laptop (a what? Yes exactly – the T18 was an ancient Ericsson flip phone from way back when – pictured right). Oh, and copy in anna@ericsson.co.uk to make sure they know you’re busy promoting their non-existent laptop.

Of course it’s all total bollocks. There is no such promotion, no T18 laptop, and apparently no-one at Ericsson with an email address of just ‘Anna’. In fact, this particular version of the chain mail has been floating around since 2007 (with the original version surfacing in 2003) – so goodness knows how many disappointed people there are out there.

Anyway, here’s the official word from Sony Ericsson’s press team, dated 12th May 2009:

Sony Ericsson has been made aware of an online email campaign claiming that Ericsson will give away a free laptop computer to users who forward the promotional information. The same campaign includes a photograph of the Sony Ericsson logo and mentions an Ericsson contact name and email number.

Sony Ericsson confirms that this email campaign is a hoax. In addition, Sony Ericsson confirms that the Ericsson contact name does not exist.

All competitions and promotions involving Sony Ericsson are run through official channels such as Sony Ericsson’s website or Sony Ericsson’s partners’ websites. Please be wary of any competition or promotion that appears to come from outside of Sony Ericsson or Sony Ericsson’s partners official channels. Examples of these include via spam emails or SMS.

Please do not reply to or forward the email if you receive it.

UPDATE: Hat-tip to Lee for the details on the 2003 version.

Related posts:

1. Sony Ericsson and T-Mobile ‘drive’ Fast & Furious into Spring with the W705 Zeemote® edition phone Better Burnouts. Better Handling. Zeemote JS1 Bluetooth Mobile Gaming Controller...
2. Sony Ericsson posts £260m loss, cuts 2000 jobs A day after Nokia posted a 90% drop in...
3. Sony Ericsson unveil new ‘green’ handsets and headset Sony Ericsson have unveiled three new products as part of...
4. 12 megapixel Sony Ericsson Satio arrives on 3 12 MegaPixels is a lot – it doesn’t seem that...
5. Lebara offers free texts and calls during April If you’ve a Lebara Mobile customer in the UK, here’s...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.