Hoax Museum Blog: Business/Finance

Rumormongering Traders — Britain's Financial Services Authority has found a new group to blame for the financial crisis: naive traders spreading rumors. It cites one example of a trader who "spread a piece of 'hot news' to 10 to 12 of his friends over a messaging system without making clear that it was a rumour. One of his contacts then did not hesitate to spread the message on to 150 of his contacts."

To counter the problem, the FSA is urging companies to adopt policies "on how to deal with rumours and monitoring chat sessions, phone calls and emails from traders."

Good thing it's tackling this problem. And once it's succeeded in making the stockmarket perfectly sane and rational, perhaps it would consider cleaning up the internet as well.
Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008.   Comments (2)

Is Bank of America cancelling the majority of its customers’ credit cards? — This rumor is going around:

BoA to close credit cards for approximately 60% of customers?

"I work in Credit Department at BoA (Senior Level Credit Analysist Boa Bldg 3rd fl, Char, NC). We just received memo indicating that all BoA credit cards are being closed as of 10/1. Credit score and income do not matter, all accounts are closed as of 10/1." Executive VP Bank of America

"This is true, but not as bad as he/she says. We are closing accounts, but only ones with credit scores under 750. We will reopen cards within a year as long as crisis lessens." - J.mcmanus / VP Credit Dept BOA

The news is sourced to iReport.com. If true, it would be another sign of the deepening financial crisis on Wall Street, but Bank of America doesn't have any info about this on their website, so my guess is that the rumor is false.
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008.   Comments (29)

Weird Fragrances — I stumbled across this site, weirdfragrances.com (I'm not linking directly to them, so I won't boost their google rank), that promises to send you a free sample of cologne. In return you simply provide them with your email and mailing address, and promise to later answer a few questions about the fragrance. You can choose from a variety of offbeat scents such as Grease Monkey, Burning Rubber, or Ash Tray.

Is it a legit offer? I would guess not.

First, it strikes me as odd that the site is registered anonymously through domains by proxy. Why would a legitimate company be trying to hide their identity?

Second, a quick google search reveals people posting on forums about how they submitted their info but never received anything except spam. So it appears to be a spam trap.
Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008.   Comments (2)

It’s Right-Sizing, not Down-Sizing — Media Agency Carat recently decided to lay off some of its employees. PowerPoint and Word documents somehow leaked out detailing how management planned to inform employees and clients of the decision. They offer an example of corporate b.s. at its finest. Details include:

• The agency wasn't going to be down-sizing. Instead, the documents repeatedly described the moves as a "right-sizing" of the agency.

• Clients were to be informed of the "staffing change" with this script: "Mary Smith will be moving off your business. Now that we understand your business better, we are replacing her with someone whom we feel will be a better partner for you."

• The remaining "critical talent," who might understandably be "questioning if this is the right place for them to build their careers" were to be reassured with this script, "The actions we had to take, although unfortunate, were necessary to right-size the company and ... bring in the skill sets we need to effectively service our business and future client needs."

Full details at AdAge.
Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008.   Comments (11)


Thieves Steal Fake Money — Thieves used a hammer to break open a plexiglass box being used as a Drop-A-Note donation box in the Kentucky Theatre's lobby, and they stole the money inside. Unfortunately for the thieves, the money they took was fake. From kentucky.com:

"It's sad when idiots can't tell fake money from the real thing," said Steve Brown, president of Kentucky's Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Organ Project, a group dedicated to restoring a Wurlitzer organ and returning it to the Kentucky. Proceeds from the Drop-A-Note box, which is three wood organ pipes with a space for donations in the middle pipe, go to the restoration project. The fake bills looked similar to real ones, but they didn't have serial numbers and were black and white, Brown said. The thieves, who struck early June 2, made off with little or no money because the box had been emptied that weekend.

The thieves were probably former convenience store clerks, fired for accepting too many George Bush and Santa Claus bills.
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008.   Comments (1)

Santa Claus Currency — The Daily Record reports on a stupid counterfeit scheme that almost worked:

A FORGER convinced a cashier a £20 note was real - despite Santa Claus and his reindeer being on it. Stacey Rice's self-made Santa Christmas Bank note promised to pay the bearer nothing and listed Santa as the bank's "chief operating officer" with his address as the North Pole. But Rice, 27, was still able to pass it off as genuine in an "astonishing" scam, a court heard. She duped a gullible cashier at a gym and the woman gave Rice change of the £20 in smaller denominations.

It reminds me of the phony $200 George Bush bills that people often try to pass off. Here's a question to ponder: Is it dumber to accept a bill with George Bush on it, or Santa Claus?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008.   Comments (7)

Man overuses fake funeral excuse — I'm guessing there's at least one guy like this in every company. The Mainichi Daily News reports:

A tax inspector has resigned after being punished for telling bosses that relatives had died in order to claim compassionate leave on 11 occasions, officials said...
His bosses discovered the scam when he told them in September last year that his grandmother's funeral was being held at a funeral hall, which was found not to exist.
It was learned that he'd taken 10 more days off between 2004 and 2007, falsely claiming a relative had died each time. Moreover, it emerged that the man also went home on 11 other occasions in 2006 and 2007 by faking business trips.

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008.   Comments (5)

How To Make Fake Gold Bars — Recently the national bank of Ethiopia discovered that much of the gold in its possession was fake. It was simply gold-plated steel. It found this out after it sent a shipment of gold to South Africa, which promptly sent it back.

Theo Gray, writing for popsci.com, points out that it's incredible that a national bank fell for a fraud like this, since simply by picking up the gold bars someone should have noticed that they were too light to be real -- gold being much heavier than steel.

Gray then considers a potentially very useful question: how could you create a fake gold bar that would be convincing enough to pass the pick-up test? The solution he comes up with is to use tungsten, which is about as heavy as gold, but much cheaper:

start with a tungsten slug about 1/8-inch smaller in each dimension than the gold bar you want, then cast a 1/16-inch layer of real pure gold all around it. This bar would feel right in the hand, it would have a dead ring when knocked as gold should, it would test right chemically, it would weigh *exactly* the right amount, and though I don't know this for sure, I think it would also pass an x-ray fluorescence scan, the 1/16" layer of pure gold being enough to stop the x-rays from reaching any tungsten. You'd pretty much have to drill it to find out it's fake.

Gray notes that it would cost about $50,000 to produce a fake gold bar in this way. But the bar, if accepted as real, would be worth around $400,000 -- which would be a pretty good return on your investment.
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008.   Comments (15)

Amerimark “Passport to Health” Scam — At the beginning of January I ordered a seat cushion from a company called Amerimark. I got the cushion. It was fine. I'm sitting on it now. But a little over a month later I was looking at my credit card statement, and I noticed that in addition to the charge for the cushion, Amerimark had posted a second charge three weeks later for $3.99. I had no idea what the additional charge could be for. I asked my wife about it. She didn't know either. But I figured it must be postage, or something like that, so I didn't think any more about it. After all, it was only $3.99.

But today I was looking at my credit card statement online, and I noticed that Amerimark had recently posted a third charge to my account, this time for $29.99. Now I decided to call Amerimark to find out what these charges were for. I reached a customer service rep who told me I had subscribed to their "Passport to Health" program.

Suddenly I remember. I had received a sales call from Amerimark back in mid-January trying to get me to sign up for their "Passport to Health" program. I told them I wasn't interested and thought that was the end of it. But they had my credit card information since I bought the cushion from them, so apparently they signed me up for it anyway.

The customer rep told me that the charges were in error and that he would cancel them immediately.

But after I hung up with him, I decided to google Amerimark, and I discovered I'm not the only person who has been "mistakenly" signed up for the "Passport to Health" program. They're pulling this scam on a regular basis.

"Passport to Health" appears to be a program that offers no (or very few) benefits, except the benefit of getting charged $29.99 every month (the first month is only $3.99). The really slimy part is that many of their customers are elderly people who may be less likely to look carefully at their credit card statements, so they never notice they're being charged $29.99 every month.

For instance, 800notes.com has an entire message board full of people complaining that they were ripped off by Amerimark. One person describes how they've been "charging my 87-year old mother $29.99 a month for 'Passport To Health' that she supposedly signed up for in April '07 when they called to 'make sure her Amerimark mail order arrived safely.'"

In addition, Tom from California has posted a report on ripoffreport.com describing how he was subscribed to the "Passport to Health" program after his wife bought a pair of shoes from Amerimark.

I didn't trust Amerimark to actually credit back what they had billed me, so I called my credit card company (Bank of America) to contest the charges. While I was on the phone with the billing dispute department, I described how Amerimark was scamming elderly people, and I urged Bank of America to do something, like stop accepting charges from Amerimark. But the service rep just gave me the run-around and didn't promise to do anything.

So I'm posting about it here to help spread the word. Hopefully if someone is considering making a purchase from Amerimark, they might come across this post and decide to shop elsewhere.

In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out who else I can report Amerimark to. The FTC? Better Business Bureau? I want to bring this company down.

Update: I checked out AmeriMark's listing on the Better Business Bureau's site. It turns out that the BBB has already received a lot complaints about them (I filed one more), and particularly about their Passport to Health program. The BBB page about AmeriMark notes:

Many complaints processed by the BBB concern confusion over the company's membership renewal policy in the Passport to Savings program and the Passport to Health program (formerly known as Family Health Network program). Many consumers claim they are not aware that the company automatically bills their accounts for the renewal fee unless they notify them to cancel. Many of these consumers complain that they were not aware that they had been enrolled in the program. The company has responded to these complaints by canceling the membership and issuing refunds. In January 2005, the Cleveland BBB met with company representatives. The company has indicated its willingness to work to correct the cause of consumer misunderstanding concerning enrollment and cancellation of these programs.

Apparently AmeriMark's meeting with the BBB didn't have much impact on the company, because they're still working the same old scam.
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008.   Comments (64)

Business opportunities I have squandered — When someone wants to rent a midget, I'm apparently the first person they contact. I say this because I receive A LOT of email inquiries from people wanting to rent midgets, such as this one I got yesterday:

do you know any midget strippers that would do a wake up at a bachelor party

or this one from a few weeks ago:

Do you know if I could get 2 male midgets at my Lounge for a party this Friday Jan 25th in Chicago IL.  I would appreciate a response.

It's my fault. I posted about a rent-a-midget service years ago, and ever since then the emails from people seeking midgets to rent have continued to trickle in, usually at the rate of about one a month.

I also receive many inquiries from people who want to buy tapeworms for the purpose of dieting, who want to know if I sell marzipan babies, who are looking to buy a fake sun roof, or who want to join the Nigerian navy.

I'm really missing out on good business opportunities by not offering these services.

Once upon a time I was receiving emails almost daily from people seeking fake doctor notes, but no longer. Apparently someone has usurped my position as the preferred source of information about this product.
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008.   Comments (7)

Joe Herrick of Gutterman Research — Following the release of a company's quarterly earnings report, analysts get a chance to participate in a conference call with the company's management. When I briefly worked in a pr firm, years ago, I had to listen to quite a few of these calls. I thought they were usually mind-numbingly dull. But it sounds like someone has figured out a way to have some fun with them. The Wall Street Journal Reports:

At least seven times just the past three weeks, a mystery caller has cleverly insinuated himself into the normally well-manicured ritual of the quarterly calls. As top executives of publicly traded companies respond to securities analysts’ questions about their balance sheets, he impersonates a well-known analyst to get called upon. Then, usually declaring himself to be “Joe Herrick of Gutterman Research,” he launches into his own version of analyst-speak.

“Congratulations on the solid numbers — you always seem to come through in challenging times,” he said to Leo Kiely, president and chief executive officer of Molson Coors Brewing Co., on February 12, convincingly parroting the obsequious banter common to the calls. “Can you provide some more color as to what you are doing for your supply chain initiatives to reduce manufacturing costs per hectoliter, as you originally promised $150 million in synergy or savings to decrease working capital?”


The question is: Is Herrick a prankster who's trying to mock the corporate-speak of conference calls, or is he just a nutcase who's obsessed with grilling CEOs about corporate efficiency?

Giving weight to the nutcase theory is that Herrick's questions don't seem designed to be humorous. They're excessively focused on obscure details, but they are serious questions. One CEO speculates that he's "'some minion' at a consulting firm trying to do clandestine research on companies’ use of Six Sigma techniques." So if Herrick is intending to poke fun at corporate-speak, he's doing so in a very, very deadpan way.

The Wall Street Journal article has a link in a sidebar to an audio file of Herrick's exchange with the management team of Molson Coors Brewing. So you can listen for yourself and try to figure out just what Herrick is up to. (via Art of the Prank)
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008.   Comments (5)

Tom Jones’s Million-Dollar Chest Hair — Last week the Daily Mirror reported that 67-year-old singer Tom Jones had insured his chest hair for £3.5million:

With tough tour schedules and big money at stake, It's Not Unusual for stars to insure their bodies. So it should come as no surprise to learn that Sir Tom Jones, 67, whose mop of luxurious curly brown hair has made him a hit with the ladies, has had his chest hair insured - for the princely sum of £3.5million!
Top insurance house Lloyd's of London was approached about the deal and, after initial concerns that it might prove too much of a risk, went ahead.
"Like a vintage wine, Tom just gets better with age," says our body hair mole.
"Even at the grand old age of 67, the ladies love his hip-thrusting moves and catching a sneaky peak of his famously rugged chest hair."

The story was soon picked up by other media outlets including AOL, Fox News, and the Miami Herald.

I remember seeing the headline and thinking it sounded odd, but I figured it was a publicity stunt. Turns out it's not even that. David Emery of About.com has debunked the report. He writes:

I contacted Lloyd's of London and they said no such policy has been issued. A note from Tom Jones' management on the singer's official website confirms: "No such insurance policy exists or has ever been considered." The story is based, in fact, on years-old scuttlebutt about a policy drafted for an anonymous male celebrity who never actually purchased the coverage.

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008.   Comments (2)

The Unrecognised States Numismatic Society — The Unrecognised States Numismatic Society (USNS) describes itself as a "group catering to numismatists whose collecting interests largely focus on coins minted by groups purporting, pretending or appearing to be sovereign states, but which are not recognised as such by established governments."

They've got examples of coins from a bunch of unrecognized nations, including the Principality of Sealand, Atlantis, the Confederation of Antarctica, and the Dominion of West Florida, which apparently is "an internet-based micronation created on 29 November, 2005... founded on an eccentric interpretation of actual historic events." The Dominion has a website!

My favorite coin is that of the Ultimate State of Tædivm (the thumbnail image).

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008.   Comments (3)

Clarkson’s Account Gets Hacked — Jeremy Clarkson, host of Top Gear, (which you can see in America if you get BBC America on cable) publicly mocked a story about some computer discs being lost that held the bank details of 25 million people. He claimed that there was no way hackers would be able to use the information to withdraw money from people's accounts. To show how certain he was of this, he published his own account code and routing number.

A few days later, according to Clarkson:

"I opened my bank statement this morning to find out that someone has set up a direct debit which automatically takes £500 from my account. The bank cannot find out who did this because of the Data Protection Act and they cannot stop it from happening again. I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake."

The money from his account was being debited to the charity Diabetes UK.

I've often wondered what prevents criminals from withdrawing money from bank accounts in the same way businesses can when you set up automatic payment plans with them. All that's needed is the account and routing number -- which is at the bottom of every check. But I assume there must be some system to prevent this happening.
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008.   Comments (8)

Prairie Tumbleweed Farm — Back in 1994 Linda Katz created a website which she named the Prairie Tumbleweed Farm. At the time it was just a joke. She didn't really have a tumbleweed farm. She had dreamed it up as something to do while teaching herself web design. But it turned out that there really are people out there who want to order tumbleweeds. For instance, movie studios or people hosting wild-west parties. And they started to place orders for tumbleweeds with Linda. Now, according to Yahoo! News, Linda is earning over $40,000 a year selling tumblweeds. I find this quite inspirational, and I've been racking my brains trying to think of ways to duplicate her success. But the only idea I've been able to come up with so far is to start a San Diego Street Trash Farm. I don't think it would enjoy the same success. (Thanks to Cranky Media Guy for the link).
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007.   Comments (8)

What’s in a name — Qamar Mohammed Malik, a Pakistan-born engineer, submitted his CV to the Amec Group construction company, but was told that the company had no suitable vacancies. He then submitted a similar CV with inferior qualifications, but using a fake Welsh name, Rhyddir Aled Lloyd-Hilbert. This time he was told there was a job vacancy and was offered an interview.

Malik has now filed a lawsuit against the Amec Group, accusing the company of racism. The company defends itself, saying that, ""Mr Lloyd-Hilbert" was contacted for interview with regard to the quality inspector vacancy and not Mr Malik because the former indicated he was about to move to Wales whereas the latter had a Reading address."

Regardless of who's in the right, Malik's experiment represents a variation on what I'm calling the spurious submission hoax. (I made up this term for it, but if anyone can think of a better name, let me know.) Spurious submission hoaxes usually involve the submission of a disguised piece of work (typically the retyped text of a famous work) to a publisher, who inevitably rejects it. The most famous example of such a hoax was when Chuck Ross submitted the manuscript of Casablanca to over 200 movie agents, many of whom rejected it, saying the script needed work.
Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007.   Comments (7)

$3 trillion in bonds could be fake — Police in the Philippines have found a chest in a banana grove that contains $3 trillion in Federal reserve notes and certificates. However, they're warning that the notes could be counterfeit. From Cebu Daily News:
The chest which is 27.3 inches long, 10 inches wide and 14.4 inches in height has the markings of Federal Reserve Bank, Cleveland,Ohio, series of 1934. Total Face Value: three trillion USA.” On top of the markings was an engraved seal of the United States. The opened compartments contained seven film clichés, 12 bank certificates, 12 redemption act certificates, 12 treasury certificates, 12 inventory lists, 12 gold reserve act certificates, 11 insurance certificates and 12 gold bullion certificates. The fourth compartment contained 200 pieces of US federal bond interest coupons, with each coupon stating it was worth $1 billion.

I like the fact that the police are only willing to say that it "could" be counterfeit. Apparently they're not sure yet, despite the grammatical errors on the certificates and the lack of an embossed seal on the documents.

With $3 trillion you could buy an entire country somewhere. But where would you cash the certificates?
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007.   Comments (4)

Enormous Green Diamond Found — imageA Cape Town property developer, Brett Jolly, is claiming that a mine he owns shares in has found what could be the largest diamond ever, weighing in at 7000 carats. Plus, it's green.

By contrast, the largest diamond found to date is only 3106.75 carats. And the largest green diamond only 40.7 carats.

Initial reports said that this new diamond was as big as a soccer ball, but a photo of it has now been released, and in the photo it doesn't look quite that large. I'd say it looks only about as big as a softball. Which is still pretty big. In the photo it's sitting on a table next to a cellphone.

However, most experts are extremely skeptical of the find. No one is being allowed to examine it. So far, the photo is the only proof of its existence, and in the photo, as News24.com notes, "it looks conspicuously smooth on top, almost like a paperweight."

Experts also note that it comes from an area not known for producing large diamonds.

It all sounds very fishy to me. (Thanks to Eric Laurence)
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007.   Comments (12)

Fake Money For Strippers — Damon Armagost probably thought he had a pretty good scam going. He had printed up some fake $100 bills from an image he downloaded off the internet. He was then using this counterfeit money to pay for lap dances at a strip club. He must have thought the strippers would never notice the money was fake. Unfortunately for him, they did and alerted the police, who arrested Armagost and charged him with manufacturing and passing counterfeit currency.

Carl Sifakis, in his book Hoaxes and Scams, reports on a similar scam called "tishing a lady." It involves paying a prostitute with tissue paper instead of real money. The con artist flashes a large bill at the prostitute and makes a show of stuffing it into her stocking. But in reality he palms the bill and stuffs in tissue paper instead.

Sifakis writes that the con-artist Count Victor Lustig frequently used this scam. He would "warn the female that he had given her trick money, and if she removed it before the following day it would turn to tissue paper. The lady would promise to comply with the rules, but as soon as Lustig left, she would remove her reward; alas, it had indeed turned to tissue paper."
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007.   Comments (7)

Fake Lottery Winner Disappears — Fergus Frater told everyone he had won the Euro lottery jackpot. His son was so pleased, believing that his dad would cut him in on a share of the winnings, that he quit his job. Frater's sister also looked forward to getting some of the money. But then the REAL winner of the lottery stepped forward with the winning ticket, and Fergus promptly did a runner, skipping town to avoid the wrath of his relatives.

Pretending to win the lottery is, of course, not a new hoax. Our own Cranky Media Guy has done it before. But what I find odd is that Fergus made his own family the primary victims of the hoax. His son said:
"I could kill him ... but he's gone to ground and I've no idea where he is. He's never done anything like this before. We just can't work out what possessed him but he was telling everybody and the whole town thought he'd won. When I find him, we'll have words but at the end of the day he's my dad."
Fergus's friends are explaining it as a "prank that went too far."

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007.   Comments (2)

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