Hoax Museum Blog: Business/Finance

Stock Performance Tied To Ease Of Pronouncing Company’s Name —
Status: Unusual Research
There's nothing hoaxy about this story. It's just another example of how non-rational people can be... especially investors in the stock market. Two Princeton researchers, Adam Alter and Danny Oppenheimer, have discovered that the ease with which a company's name and its ticker symbol can be pronounced has a strong short-term effect on the performance of its stock. In other words, "a stock with the symbol BAL should outperform one with the symbol BDL in the first few days of trading."
"We looked at intervals of a day, a week, six months and a year after IPO," Alter said. "The effect was strongest shortly after IPO. For example, if you started with $1,000 and invested it in companies with the 10 most fluent names, you would earn $333 more than you would have had you invested in the 10 with the least fluent." Alter said the pair of scientists had been careful to address the possibility that other factors were at play in the study. "We thought it was possible that larger companies might both adopt more fluent names and attract greater investment than smaller companies," he said. "But the effect held regardless of company size. We also showed that the effect held when we controlled for the influence of industry, country of origin and other factors."
In Hippo Eats Dwarf I noted a similar effect: that when investors think they've found the next big thing (be it railways, airlines, biotech, dot.coms, or nanotechnology) all stocks whose names seem to have something to do with those fields benefit, whether or not they actually do have something to do with those fields. Thus, in the recent nanotechnology crazy, Nanometrics (ticker symbol: NANO) shot up, even though it makes semiconductor tools and has nothing to do with nanotechnology.

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006.   Comments (4)
BioPerformance Goes to Court —
Status: Pyramid scheme unravels
Thanks to Joe for sending along some links about the ongoing downfall of BioPerformance, Inc. (discussed in the hoax forum in this thread about fuel additives). To summarize briefly: BioPerformance seems to be a classic case of a pyramid scheme. The people at the top of the pyramid were convincing suckers to pay for the privilege of selling little green pills that supposedly, when placed in a car's gas tank, yielded "vast improvements in mileage, performance and emissions". What BioPerformance wasn't telling anyone was that the pills were simply mothballs that didn't improve mileage and could actually ruin a car's engine. (Though oddly enough, according to the Dallas Observer article, mothballs can, under certain conditions, boost octane levels, which can help engine performance... but only when used in very carefully controlled amounts and in high-performance engines.) Sadly, in a classic example of cognitive dissonance, many of the BioPerformance faithful are refusing to admit they've been scammed. But thats always the way it is with con-artists and their victims.
Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006.   Comments (33)
Plastic Assets Follow-Up —
Status: follow-up info about a hoax
image A month ago I posted about Plastic Assets, a faux credit card company offering free breast implants as a sign-up bonus. I noted that the site was an entrant in the Contagious Festival, a contest to create a high-traffic parody site. Now Plastic Assets has officially won the contest, receiving five times more visitors than its closest competitor. And the media, typically late to the party, are announcing that the site has just been revealed to be a hoax. (Even though I know I wasn't the only site to point out that this was a hoax last month.)

According to the CanWest News Service article, Plastic Assets was designed by Shari Graydon, author of In Your Face: The Culture of Beauty and You, and the site "attracted hundreds of female applicants and more than 130,000 visitors." Graydon concludes from this that "The degree to which our site was believed to be credible despite how over the top it was underlines the fact that people aren't bringing critical thinking skills to what they read on the Internet."

I agree that many people are too gullible about claims they encounter on the internet, but in this instance I'm skeptical about how many people really were fooled. I don't think there's any correlation between the number of visitors the site had, or even the number of applicants it received, and the amount of people who believed it to be real. I figure that most of its visitors recognized it as a joke, and probably filled out the application as a joke also.
Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006.   Comments (4)
Strange Tax Deductions —
Status: Tax Scams
With April 15th fast approaching, taxpayers are once again scheming to dream up all kinds of deductions they can take. Bankrate.com has a list of some unusual ones (Thanks to Kathy for the link), such as:

• The guy who claimed his dog as a dependent
• The man who tried to claim a sperm donation as a 'depletion allowance'
• The furniture-store owner who hired an arsonist to burn his business down so that he could claim the insurance, and then deducted the $10,000 he paid the arsonist as a consulting fee.
• And the guy who tried to deduct dog food as a security expense (since, as he argued, his dog guarded his house)

In an article from last year, Buck Wolf of ABC News also listed some strange deductions such as body builders who can legally deduct baby oil, exotic dancers who can deduct the cost of their breast implants, and clarinet lessons which can be deducted as a health expense (if it helps you correct an overbite).

The strangest deduction I've ever claimed was for a stuffed jackalope. (Should I be admitting this where the IRS might read it?) My logic was that I was making money by researching hoaxes, so it was part of my research. Plus, I wanted the jackalope as a prop for when the New York Times came out to photograph me.
Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006.   Comments (17)
Funny Money —
Status: Counterfeit currency
Reuters is reporting that U.S. Customs agents have apprehended a man who had 250 $1 billion bills stashed away in his apartment. The bills showed President Cleveland, and had an issue date of 1934. Figuring out that they were counterfeit was easy, since there is no such thing as a $1 billion bill. You have to wonder how he was planning to exchange them for real cash, since anyone stupid enough to accept them wouldn't have $1 billion in the first place. In fact, is it even a crime to possess obviously fake money? Don't a lot of places sell fake $1 million bills?

image In other strange currency news, fake "porn Euros" are apparently being mistaken for real money over in Europe: "The notes, in 300, 600 and 1,000 euro denominations have a ring of 12 hearts instead of the usual EU stars and feature hunky men and big-breasted nude women. Instead of the word 'Euro' being printed in the corner these notes have 'Eros' - the Greek god of love. But despite these differences - and the fact that the only large euro notes currently in circulation are 100s, 200s and 500s - police say they are being passed off as the real thing. Cologne newsagent Bernd Friedhelm, 33, accepted one of the fake 600 euro notes from an unknown customer who bought two cartons of cigarettes and walked off with 534 euros in change. Friedhelm said: 'He told me it was a new type of note and I just figured I hadn't seen one before.'" (Oh, and the full-size version of the thumbnail might not be safe for work.)

In Hippo Eats Dwarf I write about a similar case of porn Euros that circulated in 2002. I noted that: "German authorities discovered shoppers were using fake 300- and 1000-euro notes adorned with pictures of buxom naked women. The European central bank had given the firm Planet-Present permission to distribute the bills as a publicity stunt, never realizing people might think the sexy money was real." The 2002 case sounds awfully similar to the 2006 case. So similar, in fact, that the story kind of sounds like an urban legend.
Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006.   Comments (9)
The Price of Fake Sick Notes —
Status: News article
I'm hesitant to post this, remembering that the last time I posted about fake doctor's notes I ended up with hundreds of comments from people asking me to provide them with fake notes. But here goes anyway. The Shanghai Daily has an interesting short article about the economics of the fake-sick-note industry in China. Apparently sellers of fake doctor's notes can be found outside of many Shanghai hospitals:

The price depends on the type of disease and duration of the sick leave. A note allowing two to three days of rest normally costs 20 (US$2.47) to 30 yuan. The price goes up if the person requires longer sick leave. Ailments on two-day fake notes are always fever and diarrhea. Fractures can be 40 to 50 days, said the reader, who bought a two-day note for 20 yuan.

I imagine the guys selling these notes must be like scalpers, lurking on the street corner, coming up to strangers ("Hey, buddy. Wanna buy a sick note?") I've never seen the equivalent in America. But then, I've never gone shopping for a fake sick note.
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006.   Comments (53)
Free Breast Implants With Credit Card —
Status: Hoax
image The Plastic Assets credit card company is making an attractive offer: free breast implants if you sign up for their card. They promise that "With a low APR and bigger breasts, you will be ready for anything!" And you also get free lip injections for every friend you refer.

The site is well designed — well enough designed to plausibly pass for an actual credit card company site. But it's a hoax. The site is part of the Huffington Post Contagious Festival (as you can find out if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of it), which is a contest to create a high-traffic site. There have been contests like this before. Remember the Contagious Media Festival, which produced Forget-Me-Not Panties (panties with a built-in GPS device so that jealous lovers could track the whereabouts of their wearer)? (Thanks to David for the link.)

Related Posts:
May 5, 2004: Invest In My Breast
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006.   Comments (6)
Powerball Lottery Hoax: The Details — Here's Bob's preliminary account of the powerball lottery hoax:

Alan Abel and I have been talking about doing something with the Powerball for the better part of a year now. It all came together really quickly last weekend when we heard that the record Powerball jackpot was finally won. A number of things came together that made this week just about perfect: It was a record amount; there was only one winner; it was won in a rural state which would make things seem less suspicious; Monday was a holiday, meaning that the lottery office would be closed, almost certainly buying us at least 24 hours to operate before the real winner surfaced.

This is just sort of the Reader's Digest version but I'll put something more comprehensive together for you on Thursday. I flew to Omaha on Sunday afternoon and arrived at midnight Central Time. Monday morning, Alan, his daughter's boyfriend Jeff (who was there to videotape the event and was playing my son) and a lovely woman named Nancy (who played my niece) headed over to Lincoln to set up. We found the convenience store where the ticket was sold; there were about a half-dozen TV satellite trucks outside it. We wanted to find a nice Mom and Pop-type restaurant not too far from there where we could operate.

On the same street, but across town, we found a Denny's-type place called The Village Inn. I walked in, introduced myself to the manager and gave him an envelope with $2000 in it, which I told him to use to pay for the check of everyone in the place. Within about 10 minutes, the first reporter, from a local radio station, showed up. I recorded an interview with him and he also did a live shot from there over his cell phone.

Next, I got a call from Good Morning, America which wanted to fly me to New York City immediately so I could be on their show the next morning. Obviously, I had to decline. Then the floodgates opened. Over the next 2.5 hours or so I was inundated with media. At one point, I had five TV cameras pointed at me, a radio reporter to my left and a print guy to my right. It was madness.

In time, though, the inconsistencies in my story started to show. Since I wasn't privy to the details of the real ticket, I had to make things up. I said that I bought one ticket; the lottery commission said, however, that the winner had bought five sets of numbers on one ticket. Also, I said that I thought that it was a man who sold me the ticket; in reality, it was a woman who sold it. And so forth.

Finally, we decided to head back to our hotel in Omaha. We weren't sure if the thing was going to have "legs" as they say, but it's only gotten crazier since then. I did a short interview over the phone with KPTV, Channel 12 in Portland, OR from the airport in Vegas. Today, I talked to a columnist in Des Moines, KPAM radio in Portland and I'm going to be on the Johnathan Brandmier show in Chicago early Thursday morning.

By the way, using the last name "Pagano" rather than "Pagani" was Alan's idea. His thought was that I HAD to use a different name since I'm fairly prominent on Google but if I used a totally different name, it was possible that one or more of my friends would see me and contact the media outlet to let them know that they got my name wrong. On the other hand, with only one letter off, they'd think that it was a simple typo and just let it pass. Good thinking.

I should mention that the whole venture was bankrolled by a guy named Joe Vitale, who has a website at joevitale.com. We couldn't have done it without his patronage.

So, that's the thumbnail version. I'm going to be putting together a longer narrative later, as soon as I (hopefully) get over the horrible virus which has infected everyone in my family and which is making it almost impossible for me to hear anything on my right side.

Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006.   Comments (7)
Bob Pagano Wins $365M Powerball Lottery —
Status: Hoax
Alan Abel has struck again, this time with the help of a regular here at the Museum of Hoaxes, Bob Pagani (aka Cranky Media Guy). Bob pretended to be the winner of the $365M Powerball lottery. (The real winners were a bunch of meat packers.) Apparently Abel helped behind the scenes. The action took place on Monday, but I didn't hear about it until today when I got an email from a reporter at the Des Moines Register asking me if I had heard about the Powerball Prank, and what I thought about it. A quick news search pulled up this article:

On Monday, a man who said he was an unemployed trucker from Omaha named Bob Pagano showed up flashing cash in Lincoln at a local Village Inn restaurant, claimed he was the winner and bought everybody in the place dinner. But Pagano said he had picked the winning numbers, while lottery officials said the winning numbers were a "quick-pick" generated by computer. Also, the photocopy of what Pagano claimed was the winning ticket said it was bought on Sunday, Feb. 17. Sunday was Feb. 19. The drawing was on Saturday, the 18th.
Alas, it was learned Tuesday that the man's name actually was Bob Pagani - not Pagano. Pagani is a cohort of Alan Abel, who has long been known around the world for putting on elaborate hoaxes. "Bob Pagani has been a confederate of mine for 25 years," Abel told The Associated Press.
Abel said he and Pagani noticed the gaffe on the date printed on the photocopy of the purported winning ticket just before launching their ruse.
"It was a goof," he said. Pagani said he'd been planning a Powerball hoax for about a year.
"He held court for about three hours at the Village Inn restaurant," Abel said. "He was swarmed."

More details from Bob himself should be forthcoming soon!

On a historical note, this isn't the first time Abel has engineered a lottery prank. He pulled the same prank back in 1990. On January 8, 1990 Charlene Taylor held a party at the Omni Park Central Hotel in mid-Manhattan to announce that she was the winner of the recent $35 million New York lottery. She told the media that the winning numbers had been revealed to her in a dream by Malcolm Forbes and Donald Trump as they flew around on a magic carpet. All of this was duly reported by the New York press. A day later the media realized that Taylor wasn't a lottery winner. She was actually an actress hired by Abel. The New York Daily News was the only paper not to fall for the hoax, because its reporter had recognized Abel standing in Taylor's hotel room.
Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006.   Comments (17)
Narnia Walks Out of WTO Meeting —
Status: Hoax
In a dramatic move, the representatives of the state of Narnia have walked out of the WTO meeting in Hong Kong. AFX News issued this news release:

AFX News Limited
WTO MEETING - Narnia walks out of talks; says tired of EU, US 'bullying'
12.18.2005, 07:16 AM
HONG KONG (AFX) - The independent state of Narnia has walked out of trade negotiations here, citing pressure from the European Union and the US to enforce liberalization of its garment-related sector. Narnian spokeswoman Susan Aslan said in a statement that delegates 'were tired of bullying by EU and US delegations and would be returning immediately to their state capital at Cair Parvel.' 'If this brings the Hong Kong talks to the knees we will be delighted. Many other delegates told us they are sick of the eternal Lamy winter and are longing for a new trade spring,' Aslan said. The walkout was a first in this round of talks, and follows a similar move by some developing country delegates at the Cancun summit two years ago, the statement said.

This news release was then posted on Forbes.com, from which it has since disappeared (once Forbes realized it was a joke). I have no idea how it got uploaded to AFX News in the first place. (via The Disney Blog)
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2005.   Comments (6)
Breath Capture —
Status: Real (but possibly a publicity stunt)
image Breath Capture is a company that's selling air. Or more specifically, they're selling tubes. The customers themselves are supposed to provide the air by breathing into the tubes. They promote these tubes as a way to "Capture the breath of a loved one or friend and keep them close. Forever." So it's a gimmick, kind of like pet rocks, or buying land on the Moon. But what gets me is this claim the company makes on it site:

Breath Capture is a patent-pending method and apparatus for collecting human breath as a keepsake display.

They applied for a patent on this? It's just a tube into which you blow before putting the top on. How could this possibly be patentable? This made me suspicious enough to check out the site's registration info. Turns out it's registered to Thompson & Company, a Memphis-based marketing firm. So possibly Breath Capture is a stunt dreamed up by this marketing agency to prove that they can sell anything—even air. (Unless the Breath Capture company hired Thompson & Company to promote its product... but surely there can't be that much money in selling glass tubes that they could afford a fancy marketing agency.)
Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005.   Comments (7)
Chinese Company Bids $450bn for Exxon —
Status: Hoax
I find this very strange. A Chinese company, King Win Laurel, has filed paperwork with the SEC indicating that it's planning to make a bid to buy oil giant Exxon for $450bn. But analysts are dismissing the bid as a prank, since King Win Laurel doesn't have the kind of money necessary to make good on such an offer. Apparently King Win Laurel has a history of making hoax bids. Last year, for instance, it made a fake bid to buy Telstra. It also tried to buy a New Zealand firm called Restaurant Brands, but that offer was rejected by local regulators. So what we have here is a Chinese firm that simply likes making fake offers to buy companies. I have no idea what it's possible motivation could be.
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005.   Comments (5)
Gillette’s 5-Blade Razor — Here's a great example of satirical prophecy (defined as a joke becoming a reality). Back in February 2004 The Onion lampooned the razor industry with a spoof article, supposedly written by the CEO of Gillette, declaring that his company was going to one-up the competition by inventing a five-blade razor with two lubricating strips:

Stop. I just had a stroke of genius. Are you ready? Open your mouth, baby birds, cause Mama's about to drop you one sweet, fat nightcrawler. Here she comes: Put another aloe strip on that fucker, too. That's right. Five blades, two strips, and make the second one lather. You heard me—the second strip lathers. It's a whole new way to think about shaving. Don't question it. Don't say a word. Just key the music, and call the chorus girls, because we're on the edge—the razor's edge—and I feel like dancing.

A year-and-a-half later, Gillette really does unveil a five-blade razor with two lubricating strips. What's next? A seven-blade razor? I've said it before. Double, triple, quadruple, and now quintuple bladed razors are just a scam to justify charging more for blades. I think a single-bladed razor works just fine (and is also less irritating to your skin).
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005.   Comments (26)
Outsourcing Blogging — I always feel guilty when I don't update my weblog regularly. Like when I was finishing my book and didn't have time to post, or this past week when I got the stomach flu and didn't feel like sitting at the computer. The guys at Blogoriented have an ingenious solution to this problem. They're outsourcing blogging:

We are outsourcing blogs to China. Our general business model is a two tiered effort to hire Chinese citizens to write blogs en masse for us at a valued wage... These blogs will pop up in various areas of the net and appear to the unknowing reader to be written by your standard American. Our short term goal for these original blogs is to generate a steady stream of revenue through traditional blog advertising like google adwords... The long term goal is to generate a large untraceable astroturfing mechanism for launching of various products. When a vendor needs to promote a new product to the internet demographic we will be able to create a believable buzz across hundreds of ‘reputable’ blogs and countless message boards. We can offer a legitimacy to advertisers that doesen’t exist anywhere else. The second tier of our plan is a blog vacation service where our employees fill in for established bloggers who need to take a break from regular posting.

All this smells a lot like a hoax to me. It also smells like a hoax to the author of this news.com article. If these Chinese bloggers have such a perfect command of English that they could effortlessly pass for "standard Americans," then they should blog as themselves. That would be more interesting than pretending to be American.

As for the blog vacation service, that's not a bad idea. I've thought about having guest bloggers step in when I don't have time to blog. Or I could invite readers to submit posts and pay a buck or two per post that I choose to put on the site (as a way to share the Google adsense revenue). Interesting thought.
Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005.   Comments (13)
Rent My Son — For all those occasions when a kid would come in handy (I can't think of any), RentMySon.com offers the solution. Just call them up and they'll send a kid over. They rent out kids for proms, birthday parties, father/son events, etc. And if you'd like to make a little bit of extra money by hiring out your kid, they'll arrange that too. (Yes, the site is a hoax).
Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005.   Comments (21)
Upgrade My Wife — What is it with this thing about begging for money to pay for plastic surgery? It's become the new online phenomenon, as if the most deserving people in the world are those who need a tummy tuck or boob job. As it happens the guy who created Upgrade My Wife is hoping to get both those surgeries for his wife. And he wants internet surfers to pay for them. He writes:

I created this web site because my wife has been considering a tummy tuck and breast augmentation for quite a few years, but neither of us knew how much it would cost. She made the appointment to see her doctor and went through the consultation. Her surgery quote from the doctor is only good for 30 days and is a whopping. $12,750. All I need to do now is pay for it!

Unlike Caias Ward, this guy isn't even willing to do anything to earn the money. Plus, as is always the case with such things, there's no guarantee the money will go towards the stated purpose. The likelihood is that he'll never raise $12,750, so after a few months he'll probably take whatever money he's raised and spend it on something else.
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2005.   Comments (14)
Man Arrested For Paying With Two-Dollar Bill — The Baltimore Sun reports on the case of Mike Bolesta, who was recently arrested for the crime of paying a bill with $2 bills. This seems to be an example of an urban legend come to life--the urban legend being the one about a clerk in a store who doesn't realize that $2 bills are legal money and reports a customer who uses them to the police. In the case of Mike Bolesta, he did use A LOT of $2 bills, 57 of them in all, to pay a bill at Best Buy. But still, there doesn't appear to have been any good reason for the store to have him hauled away to the police station for this. (via Slashdot)
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005.   Comments (30)
The Nike Swoosh — image Was the Nike Swoosh (which is perhaps one of the most famous corporate logos in the world, second only to McDonald's golden arches) really designed by a graphic design student who got paid only $35 for it? It sounds like an urban legend playing off of Nike's use of cheap Asian sweatshop labor. But apparently the story is true. At least, the Nike website confirms it. The swoosh was designed in 1971 by design student Carolyn Davidson, and she did only receive $35 for it. However, in 1983 the company gave her a gift of stock as a token of their appreciation.

Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005.   Comments (7)
Sonic Stain Remover — image Would this thing actually work? It's described as an ultrasonic stain remover that "will remove virtually any clothing stain, no matter how stubborn." The fact that the ad copy keeps repeating the phrase 'utilizes ultrasonic technology' without actually explaining how or why it's supposed to work makes me skeptical. I guess the ultrasonic sound waves are somehow supposed to break up stain particles? If it did work as advertised, it would be useful. (via Red Ferret)
Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005.   Comments (28)
Credit Card Prank, Parts I and II — Zug's Credit Card Prank was widely linked to a few years ago. This is the prank as he describes it: Every time you make a credit card purchase, they're supposed to match your signature against the one on the back of your card. Nobody seems to check anymore, so I tried to see how far I could push it with wacky signatures like "Mariah Carey" and "Zeus". Now Zug has posted a sequel to the Credit Card Prank in which he makes his signatures even wackier and tries to discover what he can get away with. He draws pictures of Shamu, diagrams of the large intestines, and musical notes. They're all happily accepted.

Zug's prank is amusing, but I think the reality is that signing the card and receipt only secondarily serve the purpose of verifying your identity. The primary purpose of the signatures is to demonstrate that you've agreed to the terms of the contract with the credit card company. As long as you sign something (doesn't really matter what it is), the credit card company can say that you've acknowledged and agreed to the terms of the contract, and therefore you have to pay them back. I found this out a couple of years ago when I got into an argument with a post-office employee who refused to take my credit card that had 'See ID' written on the back of it. Turned out that the post-office employee was in the right. If you haven't signed the back of the card, then technically you haven't finalized your contract with the credit card company, and the card shouldn't be accepted.
Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005.   Comments (16)
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