Hoax Museum Blog: Business/Finance

BBC Falls for Bhopal Hoax — The hoaxing of the BBC has now been all over the news. In case you haven't heard, on Friday the BBC broadcast an interview with a man claiming to be a representative of Dow Chemical, Jude Finisterra (is the guy's last name supposed to mean 'the end of the world'?). During the interview the man said that Dow had decided to accept full responsibility for the chemical disaster that killed thousands of people in Bhopal twenty years ago, and in addition it would pay $12 billion in compensation to the victims. The BBC broadcast the interview twice, causing Dow's stock value to promptly drop. Later that same day it became clear that the man wasn't a representative of Dow, and the BBC apologized for falling for a hoax. Though it tried to duck responsibility somewhat by claiming that it was the victim of an 'elaborate deception'. Was the deception really that elaborate? According to this NY Times article, the BBC was actually the one to make first contact with the hoaxers via a website that 'appeared to be Dow Chemical's web site'. So they fell for a hoax website. That's not that elaborate a deception. The man they interviewed was reportedly (in reality) Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men (a movie about them is currently in theatres).

Top 15 Most Bizarre Reasons for Calling in Sick — According to this press release from Career Builder, over one-third of U.S. workers take fake sickies (sick days when they're not really sick). Personally I think that number is too low. The real number should be closer to 90 or 100 percent, because I don't know anyone who hasn't taken a fake sick day at some point. But then again, maybe all my friends and family members are slackers. The same press release also offers the 15 most bizarre reasons that people have offered for taking a sick day:

• "I was sprayed by a skunk."


• "I tripped over my dog and was knocked unconscious."


• "My bus broke down and was held up by robbers."


• "I was arrested as a result of mistaken identity."


• "I forgot to come back to work after lunch."


• "I couldn't find my shoes."


• "I hurt myself bowling."


• "I was spit on by a venomous snake."


• "I totaled my wife's jeep in a collision with a cow."


• "A hitman was looking for me."


• "My curlers burned my hair and I had to go to the hairdresser."


• "I eloped."


• "My cat unplugged my alarm clock."


• "I had to be there for my husband's grand jury trial."


• "I had to ship my grandmother's bones to India." (note: she had passed away 20 years ago)

Phony Sold Signs — A British Real Estate Agency has been fined for placing phony 'sold' signs up outside the houses of its own employees. It's not quite clear to me what they gained by doing this. I assume it made them look like they were doing more business than they actually were. Still, it's odd to think that as you drive around a neighborhood and see all those 'for sale' and 'sold' signs, that the signs might bear no relationship to reality at all.

Weird Subscription Services — I recently joined Netflix, and I'm enjoying it so far. It makes sense to rent dvds via the web (though scratched dvds are a real headache). But when I came across Bag, Borrow, or Steal, which delivers a constant stream of designer handbags to your door, I thought it was a joke. It's obviously not, which just goes to show how out of touch I am with the world of fashion. I also was a bit skeptical about the Blacksocks service. Blacksocks describes itself as the "inventor of the revolutionary sockscription." At first I thought subscribers were meant to send back their used socks before they got another new pair (which is why I couldn't believe it was real). Then I realized it's more like a 'sock-of-the-month' club. That actually makes a lot of sense for people like me who are constantly losing socks. (via Red Ferret)

Expensive Counterfeits — Why would anyone counterfeit money if the cost of making the counterfeits was more than the money itself? That's the question Japanese police are puzzling over. Since profit can't be a motive "police suspect a techno-maniac is involved." Well, either that or a really stupid criminal.

Outsource Your Own Job — Either this is a bizarre new scam, or the Times of India has fallen for a tall tale. It claims that the hot new trend among programmers is to outsource their own jobs to India. As the article explains: "Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: 'About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.'" Sounds like a great scheme... unless your boss finds out you're just a middleman and decides to cut you out of the loop. I'm suspicious that this practice is really as prevalent as the Times of India implies. (via Common Sense Technology)

Christian Debt Removers — I got spammed today by Christian Debt Removers, an organization which advertises itself as a debt elimination service "based on Christian principles." Whatever that means... your guess is as good as mine. The only thing I could figure out was that they've slapped a few proverbs up on their site and this somehow makes them 'Christian.' Of course, the one Christian phrase that's conspicuously absent from their site is the line from the Lord's Prayer: "forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." But somehow I suspect that, whatever principles they might claim they hold, they draw the line at debt forgiveness. Anyway, I was about to write them off as just another company jumping on the Christian bandwagon to make a quick buck, when I did a little research and discovered that ChristianDebtRemovers.org is the exact same organization as DebtRemovers.org, which is a featured sponsor of Gay World. Immediately my opinion of them went way up, since I was glad to discover that their Christian principles didn't conflict with their support of the gay community. But I do think it would be nice if they could make their support of both Christianity and Gay Rights more evident (especially since the fundamentalist Christian and gay communities traditionally have been rather antagonistic towards each other). Maybe change their tagline to "based on Christian principles and official sponsors of Gay World." That would be pretty catchy. Though maybe, just maybe, they don't actually care about Christian principles or gay rights at all, and they're just cynically targeting different demographic groups with different messages. But no. That couldn't be.

Get That Degree You Want, Now — I had come to think I was never going to get my Ph.D., but I shouldn't have been so pessimistic. All I need to do is lower my standards a bit and sign up for one of those PhDs that Saint Regis University is practically giving away. A Georgia math teacher did, and she got a $16,000 pay raise. Or you could save even more money and get any degree you want, from any institution of higher learning, from BogusPhD.com.

Tax Refund for a Princess — If you're going to cheat on your tax forms, you might as well do it big, like this university cafeteria worker did. She claimed to be a Hawaiian princess and managed to get a $2.1 million refund from the IRS. The only thing is, she really believes she is a Hawaiian princess. Her defense lawyer argues that she suffers from an "irrational insistence upon an identity that is not her own." Maybe she's the second coming of
Princess Caraboo.

Virtual Trader — Wired News has an article about a guy, Julian Dibbell, who almost succeeded in making a living from trading in imaginary goods, namely virtual items from the game Ultima Online. Of course, it doesn't seem that extraordinary to me that someone could earn a good living from trading imaginary things. After all, isn't there a trillion dollar industry devoted to just this... i.e. the financial derivatives market? I mean, options and other financial instruments may have real value to people, but they're no more real, in a material sense, than the items from Ultima Online are.

Fake Tax Returns — Here's a story that's appropriate for April 15. Orange County tax preparer indicted for filing over 16,000 fake federal returns.

New Retirement Plan — My wife received this note in an email at work. Sadly, even though it's a joke, the advice it offers seems quite sensible:
New Retirement Plan: If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00. With WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left. But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of Beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling price, you would have $214.00. Based on the above, current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. It's called the 401-Keg Plan.

Opening Belch — The Motley Fool reports a mishap at the New York Stock Exchange today. Russ Cooper, CEO of Farmland Enterprise Associates, misread the instructions and thought the invitation to ring the opening bell at the exchange asked him instead to emit the opening belch. He performed as he thought he was required.

Fake Sick Days — In a recent survey nearly half of Australian workers admitted to taking fake sick days. I assume this means that the other half were still lying about not taking them.

How to be an economics expert (even if you know nothing about economics) — Matthew Richardson, a 23-year-old student at St. Peters College in Britain, was asked to travel to Beijing to deliver a series of lectures about economic theory. He was flattered by the invitation, though puzzled since he knew nothing about economics. But undaunted, he packed an economics textbook in his bag and took off to Beijing. It was only after he got there that he figured out that the people in Beijing had probably intended to invite Prof. Matthew Richardson from New York University, who's an expert on financial markets. But the faux Richardson bravely soldiered on, reading from his textbook, and no one seemed to notice that he didn't have a clue what he was talking about. In fact, he got a few compliments on the clarity of his lectures.

Buy Land on the Sun — There's a scam business that's been in operation for years that offers to sell land on the moon. But a new group is raising the ante by offering to sell you land on the sun! Thankfully, all money they collect goes to aid the American Cancer Society.

Flatulent Technologies — Flatulent Technologies is a company that is committed to "extracting energy from everything that stinks or rots." Sounds like a great idea. The company's NYSE ticker symbol is even better: FART. Too bad a little disclaimer at the bottom of the company's webpage admits it's a parody.

Fake Sick Days — According to this survey, 33% of workers will fake that they're sick in order to get a day off in January. I'm surprised that the number isn't higher.

Servonet — You can buy quite a few unusual gifts for Christmas over at Servonet. For instance, check out the Home Freebasing Kit, as well as the Power Fork. Interestingly, when you try to order one of these products instead of being asked to enter your own credit card number, you're allowed to select a number from their customer database. And then you get a message that their "shipping capabilities have been suspended indefinitely."

Batmobile — Holy Fake Batmobile! Would-be Batman demands refund.