The messages speak to frustrated motorists who have seen prices at the pump creep upward but are powerless to do anything about it.

The protests come in anonymously written e-mail chain letters circulating the country. Some urge motorists not to buy gas from the largest oil companies or companies that import oil from the Middle East. Many urge recipients to forward the message to 10 people, with the goal of mobilizing millions of people who will force oil companies to respond to consumer demands for lower prices.

"Isn't it funny how the prices skyrocketed as the storm approached the mainland, even though the gas in the tanks at local stations had been bought and paid for long before that," says one e-mail. "Nobody begrudges fair profits for any company, but taking advantage like this is criminal!"

One e-mail suggests such a collective effort could get the world's largest oil companies to "choke on their stockpiles." Another suggests it would "hit the entire industry with a net loss of over $4.6 billion."

High ambitions, to be sure. But despite the enthusiasm of the participants, such electronic activism has never succeeded in hurting gas companies or lowering prices. According to many consumer groups and oil companies, such e-mails are often based on false premises and take advantage of consumers' ignorance about the oil industry and why prices go up.

David Mikkelson, co-founder of Snopes.com, a Web site devoted to debunking urban myths, said such e-mails circulated any time gas prices rose but that they generally had little, if any, impact. "People seem to really be taken in by symbolic protests," he said. "They want to change things, but they don't want to actually put out anything in time or effort. It just means instead of buying gas today, you buy it tomorrow."

One Internet-led effort in the spring of 1999 tried to hold a "gas out" to protest prices that had risen to an average of $1.64 a gallon in California, but it failed miserably as gas companies reported seeing no difference in sales that day and as newspapers reported that consumers continued to fill up their sport-utility vehicles. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's trade group, said one-day boycotts ended up hurting only gas station owners, many of whom operate as franchisees and have little power in pricing gasoline.

Maureen Reynolds, who works for a Democratic state legislator in Maryland, said she was forwarded an e-mail about not buying gas on Sept. 10 and thought it made sense, even though she knew it would hurt only the retailers. She said she had not bought gas from Exxon Mobil Corp. since the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 out of protest. "I still do think it's worthwhile," Reynolds said. "If one station suffers, its a minor thing. ... When it's a national thing, it starts to hit home."