Hoax Museum Blog: Business/Finance

Win Toilet Paper — Enter the Win-Toilet-Paper sweepstakes, and the toilet-paper delivery man could soon be knocking on your door. I'm not sure if this is for real or not. I don't feel like supplying them with my email address to find out.

Update: Apparently it's real. Strange, but real.
Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2003.   Comments (2)

Buy Land on the Moon — Can you buy land on the moon? According to this website you can. It's the home on the internet of the Lunar Embassy, which claims that it is "the only company in the world to possess a legal basis and copyright for the sale of lunar, and other extraterrestrial property within the confines of our solar system." And if you believe that, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Their basis for this claim is that the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbid governments from owning extraterrestrial property, but it didn't mention anything about individuals or corporations! Ah Ha! Sounds like a clever loophole. Unfortunately this argument doesn't hold water, because individuals and corporations can themselves only claim ownership of land through governments. There's a good article debunking the Buy-Land-On-The-Moon Scheme over at CNN, explaining that it's the creation of con artist/entrepreneur named Dennis Hope. The British National Space Centre also denies it's possible to own land on the moon. And Space.com has a good article about this scam as well. What it all comes down to is that for the $30 bucks you'd pay to buy a plot of land on the moon, you'll gain ownership of a piece of paper, and nothing more.
Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2003.   Comments (1)

The Great See ID Credit Card Hoax — Do you have 'See ID' written on the back of your credit card, or know someone who does? I used to, until I had an unpleasant run-in at the post office because of it. Turns out that the idea that it's safer to write 'See ID' on the back of your credit card rather than sign it is just a weird hoax that's floating around. (I used to have this blurb about my experience at the post office on my LiveJournal account, which has now become defunct. I've moved it over here so that it'll have a more permanent home, and because I keep getting comments from people who have had the same experience).
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2003.   Comments (22)

Hooty Corp. — Here's another hoax website: Hooty Corp. It's the creation of a visitor to my site (a young one, I suspect). Hooty Corp might be a little unpolished, but it's all the more endearing for being so. I particularly like the Hooty shop where you can buy products such as the Clothes Desmellerizer and a book titled How to Drive a Laidlaw Bus in 12 Simple Steps. You get a nice, subtle message if you click on the 'buy' button to purchase any of these products.
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2003.   Comments (0)


Eurorest is a scam — A visitor asks if Eurorest is a hoax? Well, if not a hoax, then it's definitely a scam. The premise of Eurorest is that if you agree to send a message promoting their business to seven of your friends (i.e. if you agree to turn yourself into a spammer acting on their behalf), then they'll send you a 'cheque' that you can use to get 14 free days of stay at participating European hotels. But here's where it gets fishy. Sending off the emails doesn't automatically get you a 'cheque.' It only enrolls you in a lottery with the possibility that you'll receive one of these cheques. Who wants to bet that the cheque would never arrive? Plus, when you investigate these cheques more closely, you discover that the stay at the hotels isn't even free. It's only discounted at some of the hotels, while others charge an 'obligatory catering rate.'
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2003.   Comments (8)

Send Steve a Gift — SendSteveAGift.com is the latest website in which a guy brazenly asks people to send him money, just for the hell of it (his argument: give a buck to change Steve's luck). An anonymous visitor asked me if the site is for real. My response: Of course it is! I'm 100% certain that if you choose to surrender your cash to Steve, he'll take it. But if you're in a mood to part with some money, why not give it to me?
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2003.   Comments (2)

Fake Sale Prices — I knew retailers did this: marking items on sale, when the sale price is actually the regular price. Now retailer Suzy Shier gets slapped with a fine for doing it.
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2003.   Comments (0)

Fake Fags — Fake Fags. It's not what you think, unless you're British.
Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2003.   Comments (0)

Nonprofitabletech — Nonprofitabletech. A software company dedicated to raising lots of venture capital money.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2003.   Comments (0)

The Celebrated Ceramic Toad of Osaka — From the Financial Times, the search for the celebrated ceramic toad of Japan:
Few stories encapsulate the madness that was Japan's economic bubble as neatly as the tale of the most powerful ceramic toad in stock market history. At one point in the late 1980s, this toad controlled a Dollars 20bn portfolio, having received trading tips via messages from the gods. This amphibian George Soros has since disappeared, and its owner, a former bar hostess-turned-restaurant owner, is in jail. But on the basis that the gods might still be sending it messages, the Financial Times travelled to Osaka, Japan's most entrepreneurial city, to try to track down this slippery metaphor for all that went wrong with Japan. The toad was owned by Nui Onoue, herself an extraordinary product of the 1980s. Having started out as a hostess, she invested funds derived from her relations with a powerful construction magnate in a restaurant in Osaka's entertainment area of Sennichimae. It was on the fourth floor of this restaurant, called Egawa, that the toad held court. Mrs Onoue had developed a reputation around the tables of her restaurant for astute stock market purchases and her customers demanded to know her secret. She led them upstairs and showed them the one metre high ceramic toad. She asked them to lay their hands on its head, chanted some mantras, and dispelled the toad's wisdom in the form of stock market tips. If the toad's influence had ended there it would have been little more than a story of unusual reptilian resource. But as word spread she was visited by senior executives from the Industrial Bank of Japan, Nomura Securities, Yamaichi Securities and others. According to Alex Kerr, an author, by 1991, IBJ had lent her Y240bn and 29 other banks and financial institutions had advanced her more than Y2,800bn. Lines of limousines were parked every night outside her restaurant awaiting the toad's pronouncements. Her portfolio collapsed alongside the Nikkei 225 in 1989 and Mrs Onoue was eventually sentenced to 12 years in jail for using fake certificates of deposit as collateral for loans. The chairman of IBJ, one of Japan's most powerful men, was forced to resign as a result of his trust in Mrs Onoue's web-footed friend. But the whereabouts of the toad remain unknown.
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2002.   Comments (0)

Terrorist Funny Money — Here's an odd report from the frontlines of the war against terrorism in Argentina (quoted from Agence France Presse):

"Authorities said they found fake US dollar bills bearing the portraits of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the home of a possible suspect in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center here. Presumably meant for propaganda purposes, the fake money was found along with numerous Arab documents and visa forms filled out by Lebanese citizens at the home of a Lebanese national, court officials told reporters Thursday. The suspect, whose identity was not provided and who is apparently out of the country, is sought in connection with the July 18, 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people -- Argentina's worst terrorist attack."
Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2002.   Comments (1)

Securities Fraud — Securities regulators announce that there's a "bull market in fraud."
Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2002.   Comments (0)

South Sea Bubble — The Guardian reviews a new book about the South Sea Bubble of the 1720s, titled A Very English Deceit by Malcolm Balen. It seems pretty timely, given all the financial scandals of today. Apparently all the Enrons and Worldcoms don't even compare to the South Sea Bubble when it comes to truly world-class fraud on a grand scale.
Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002.   Comments (0)

Get Paid Driving — A reader sent in this hoax website, though it actually seems more like a scam website than a hoax website. It's GetPaidDriving.com. For just $24.95 they'll let you access their database of companies that will pay you to drive your own car. This brings up memories of the Freewheelz hoax. I think people would be well advised to save their money and not shell out any money for info on how to 'Get Paid Driving.'
Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2002.   Comments (4)

Legal Urban Legends — Bob Levey of the Washington Post debunks a few internet legends about people who have received huge financial awards for mishaps that were very minor or their own fault. Such as the one about the woman who threw a soda at her boyfriend in a restaurant, then slipped on the puddle, and successfully sued the restaurant for $113,500. It never happened.
Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2002.   Comments (0)

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2002.   Comments (0)

Time Travel Mutual Fund — I once read a science fiction story that theorized that we never die. We just grow more improbable. Whenever we face a life/death moment, there is always a probability, however remote, that we could survive. In one universe we might die, but in an alternative universe somewhere that branches off from our reality the remote probability that we survive is followed. It was a neat theory for a science fiction story. This site has found a way to make money from a very similar idea. Just before you die, they promise, you will be sucked into the future by time travellers. You guarantee this by putting $10 now into their time travel mutual fund. Over 500 years that $10 will turn into millions of dollars, thanks to the miracle of compound interest. This will pay for the expense of sucking you into that future world. Somehow I doubt that they intend to keep any money given to them in a mutual fund for 500 years. But at least they give you a certificate in exchange for your cash.
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2002.   Comments (4)

Fake Euros fool shoppers — "A publicity stunt by a German firm which sent out fake 300 and 1,000-euro notes adorned with naked women has backfired after people began using them as legal tender. The firm Planet-Present said it had permission from the Bundesbank and European Central Bank. Only close scrutiny shows the notes are fakes. Michael Leidig, Vienna." Found on the Daily Telegraph site.
Here's a picture of Planet-Present's fake euro (page is in German).
Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2002.   Comments (1)

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