Kidnap bid: Just an e-mail hoax

Refer to post about a kidnap attempt in one of the Doha shopping malls wherein apparently the 'kidnappers drugged the girl, shaved her head to lead her out of the mall'.

Some great work (read: thinking) done by Qatar's leading newspaper this morning. Whosoever's brainwave it was, was just brilliant.

Kudos.

At a time when no one was confirming if the incident is actually true or not, niether the supermarket nor the cops, the newspaper did a simple search on the net for an 'urban legend' such as this circulated via e-mail.

And bang.

They got the same e-mail circulated in America apart from several other countries just replaced by the name of the local supermarket wherever applicable.

'A search of 'urban legends' on the Internet has proved that identical rumours have been spread since at least 1999.

In the latest case, the name of Doha supermarket has been simply substituted for an American one while retaining the text of the letter.

Another version is reportedly doing the rounds with Wal-Mart as the supposed scene of the incident.'

And a stupid idiot anonymous fool came on my blog and commented: "I know someone who was there and saw the whole thing. The girl was not ten she was 4 years old. Also it happened like 2 weeks ago. It is not a hoax it is true."

To which I replied: "Listen dude... before u make claims like that you're ought to leave your name or a blog address. Don't think you can just enter this blog leave a comment saying you know everything and just be believed. Without a name, to me you're nothing but a fuck all chute. Get it?"

Great work GT!