Bryan Warner Make-A-Wish Foundation Hoax

This message claims that the Make-A-Wish Foundation will donate the sum of 7 cents to help pay a young cancer sufferer’s medical bills every time the email is forwarded. In this case, the supposed recipient of this charity is 21-year-old Bryan Warner. However, these claims are completely false and, like other variants, the message has been denounced as a hoax by the Make-A-Wish Foundation itself.

The message is simply a rehash of an earlier hoax that requested help for 7-year-old Amy Bruce. In fact, there have been a number of email forwards that use the same scenario, including versions involving children named Chad Briody and Kayla Wightman. From time to time, someone apparently reworks one of the older versions by substituting a new name and a different age for the supposed cancer victim. All versions of the message are equally false.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation does not participate in fund-raising campaigns based on how many times a particular message is re-posted. Nor would any other legitimate organization.

There is simply no reliable or ethical method of tracking an individual message that may be forwarded many thousands of times. Accurately tallying the amount of money to be donated would be virtually impossible. Moreover, considering how many times such a message may ultimately be re-posted (a figure quite possibly in the hundreds of thousands), the resulting financial obligation may well be enough to deplete the coffers of even the largest of charities.

It is simply absurd to suggest that any organization would lend itself to a completely random, unpredictable, and totally uncontrollable scheme based on the haphazard forwarding of an email. Any message that claims that donations are dependent on how many times the information is forwarded to others is almost certainly a hoax.

Please do not pass on messages that make such ridiculous claims. Such messages help no one and are intended only to fool gullible recipients into clicking the “Forward” button.

Example