Thanks Catspaw.
(I guess the Joe Clones can lose this thread.)
The e-mail was sent to me by my mother, a senior getting up in age and relatively new to the internet and e-mail and I think she meant well.

Unfortunately I missed out on hearing about this particular hoax 6 months ago, and thought I should err on the side of caution. Now I feel stupid. In any event, I e-mailed my mother the link you provided and told her that her heart was in the right place, but not to fret over this and that stuff like this happens on the net from time to time.