For over three years,
Eternal Earth-Bound Pets has been offering peace of mind to Rapture believers. Should the Rapture come, and the devout are whisked away up to Heaven, this service will take care of their pets that are left behind — for a small fee of $135 per pet.
But now
Bloomberg News is reporting that the business was all just a hoax concocted by Bart Centre, a retired retail executive in New Hampshire, in order to promote his book,
The Atheist Camel Chronicles. Bloomberg quotes him as saying:
The entire thing was a hoax. What we call on the Internet a poe, a spoof, a parody, a complete fiction. It was all a fiction from the very start. I never had any intent to accept contracts for our service or payment for our service and I never did... I was so concerned that people would actually pay me for the service that I eventually disabled the payment button.
Centre also explains that he's revealing the hoax now because, "the State of New Hampshire’s Insurance Department has asked me to discuss my ‘insurance’ offering... and provide them with all the names of NH clients who have signed on and paid for my pet rescue post rapture service."
It's a shame. I thought the service sounded like a good idea, and a perfectly reasonable business proposition. If someone believes the rapture is on its way, why shouldn't they pay to have their pets taken care of post-rapture?
Comments
J/P=?
... nah. It'd be hard proving I had enough infrastructure to actually take care of the critters. Though I suppose I could bury a 'drop-off' requirement in there somewhere.