You see this from time to time. Some celebrity or big time CEO is giving away a thousand dollars to everyone who shares their post for some lame reason or another. "It's not a hoax! A friend of mine saw the story on the Channel 6 10pm News."
When a mutual friend points out kindly that it's total BS, your friend who shared the Internet chain mail usually replies "LOL yeah I thought so, but you never know."
No, you didn't think so, yes I do know. You're an idiot for thinking some body is going to give you a lot of money for doing absolutely nothing. That does not happen. What does happen is people make you look like a complete moron by getting you to share a bogus status.