Long circulated message claims that people have died after being bitten by a spider hiding under a restaurant toilet seat in Florida.

Message warns that medically trained criminals are stealing kidneys from living victims to sell on the black market.

Email claims that AOL and Zdnet will donate money to help a child with brain cancer every time the email is forwarded.

At any one time, there is likely to be many thousands of completely bogus hoax messages travelling via email.

Email claims that bad luck or even death will befall those who do not forward the email to ten other people within three hours of reading it

Email asks recipients to “sign” and forward the email to help stop deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest

Circulating message warns that a serial killer is using a recording of a crying baby to lure potential victims out of their houses.

Back in 2003, this hoax email caused major problems for the Cambridgeshire Police Force in the UK.