You may have seen an email about a woman who has a great cookie at Neiman-Marcus, asks for the recipe, is told the charge will be "two-fifty," and then discovers a two hundred fifty dollar charge on her Neiman's bill the following month. The story goes, she was so outraged that she decided to email the recipe all over the world to shame Neiman's while destroying the future retail value of the recipe.
Nice story, very righteous and satisfying.
Just one problem. It's totally spurious. Just plain false. Fiction. All made up.
Just like lots of other email hoaxes: the Bill Gates email-tracing software hoax, the "Good Times" or "Win A Holiday" virus hoaxes, the Caribbean-hotel-burglary-with-camera-mysteriously-left-behind-and-photo-of- toothbrush-shoved-up-ass legend, the involuntary-kidney-transplant story, you name it. All false.
I recommend this site for information on hoaxes and urban legends. These people are really good:
Back to secrets of really good chocolate chip cookies!