All across the country, mall shoppers took Boxing Day way too literally this year, with high-profile skirmishes, arrests, and evacuations occurring at shopping centers in nearly a dozen states. [More]
hoaxes
Facebook To Work With Fact-Checkers, Let Users Flag Fake News Stories As “Disputed”
By 12.15.16
If you’re sick of seeing your friends from high school sharing outrageously untrue news items that are clearly hoaxes, or originally posted on websites with names like “HawtClikzNowAmerica!” or “biznoosclickstore.nz.bike,” you may soon have a new tool to help flag this sort of nonsense. [More]
Prank Caller Strikes Minnesota Burger King, Workers Break All Windows
By 4.11.16
Back in February prank callers preyed on fast food restaurants like Jack in the Box, Burger King, and Wendy’s, instructing workers to break every window and door or face certain disaster. The prank hit again in Minnesota over the weekend, when employees of a Burger King smashed the store’s windows, following directions from what they thought was a fire department official. [More]
Do Not Set The Date On Your iPhone To Jan. 1, 1970
By 2.12.16
While it might be tempting to take a “wild ride” into the past, do not set the date on your iPhone to Jan. 1, 1970, despite what a hoax image circulating recently says. That is, unless your idea of a wild ride is having a phone you can’t use anymore. [More]
Arizona Wendy’s, Jack In The Box Hit By Prank Calls Instructing Workers To Break Restaurants’ Windows
By 2.4.16
If you work at a restaurant, or any other business with windows, take note: don’t listen to anyone who calls and tells you to break every window and door you can lay your hands on. We already heard about Burger King workers in California who fell prey to that prank recently, and now it seems the staff at both an Arizona Wendy’s and a Jack in the Box have played Simon Says, demolition version, as well. [More]
Someone Pranked Maine Residents With Sign Promising New IKEA Store That Will Never Open
By 12.29.15
While there are plenty of people interested in spreading cheer and goodwill during the holiday season, there are also those intent on making a lot of folks really, really sad. Such was the case in Portland, ME, where a prankster duped passers-by into believing that an empty lot would soon be the site of a new IKEA store. [More]
No, Mark Zuckerberg Is Not Giving Away Millions In Facebook Stock To People Who Copy, Paste Something
By 12.28.15
Have you ever heard of someone who was rewarded with millions of dollars just for copying and pasting text? It sounds like a hard job to get, because it is — it doesn’t exist. That’s why no one is going to get free shares of Facebook stock simply by slapping a chunk of text into a status message and posting it. You will, however, get more people to realize how gullible you are. [More]
Wisconsin Officials: Letter Warning Residents That Lawn Ornaments May Be Included In State Deer Tally Is Fake
By 10.1.15
In yet another instance proving you should not believe everything you read on Facebook, Wisconsin wildlife officials are trying to put the kibosh on a recent hoax letter making the rounds online, instructing people to make sure they remove deer lawn ornaments so they won’t be accidentally included in the state’s tally. [More]
No, Facebook Will Not Be Charging You To Keep Your Profiles Private
By 9.29.15
If you’ve visited Facebook at all in the last few hours, you’ve most likely seen any number of your online acquaintances posting the terrifying news that Facebook will soon be charging users $5.99/month too keep their profiles private. It might sound believable for those who aren’t familiar with how Facebook actually makes its money, but the fact is that the company says it has no plans to start charging anyone. Even more pointless are the supposed “copyright” notices people are posting in the hopes that it will protect them. [More]
FBI: Flight Attendant’s Story About Suspicious Package That Forced Emergency Landing Was A Hoax
By 9.15.15
A flight attendant who reported a suspicious package on a Delta Air Lines flight, prompting the plane to make an emergency landing last week in North Dakota, made the whole thing up, the FBI says, and has been charged with interfering with the operation of an aircraft and communicating false information. [More]
No, IKEA Is Not Selling A Rainbow Pillowcase Called “PUTIN”
By 3.23.15
The Internet, while a vast and varied resource rich in information on innumerable topics, is also a rascally son of a boomerang and will often regurgitate fiction as fact. To that end: Though a photo circulating Twitter yesterday appeared to show a rainbow-striped pillowcase called the “PUTIN” on sale at an IKEA store, the company says it doesn’t sell that particular item anymore and oh yeah, it was never named after the president of Russia. [More]
Prank Callers Trolling Comcast Twitter Feed For Victims
By 2.18.15
Comcast’s public image has sunk so low that customers now assume that a customer service rep who threatens you with violence or calls you a “b*tch” is actually someone working for the nation’s largest cable provider and not a prank caller. [More]
Facebook Launches Effort To Cut Down On Those Annoying Hoax Stories Your Friends Can’t Stop Believing
By 1.20.15
No, Betty White is not dead (and neither is Eddie Murphy, Celine Dion, Jon Bon Jovi, etc). No, a bunch of worms didn’t burst out of a woman’s chest. But because your friends on Facebook are easily fooled and don’t know about the existence of Snopes.com, it’s up to you to run through that gauntlet of idiocy on your news feed. Since those gullible folks will never learn, Facebook says now it’s going to help crack down on bogus, hoax and otherwise fake Internet stories clogging up what you read on the social media site. [More]
For The Love Of God, McDonald’s Is Not Getting Rid Of The Big Mac Or Apple Pie
By 12.23.14
You’ve probably seen your Facebook news feed overrun in recent days with people bemoaning the death of the McDonald’s Big Mac and apple pie. But there’s no need to start a petition or put on mourning garb, it’s just another hoax. [More]
Shocker: Those Fake-Looking Fried Chicken Oreos Are Indeed Fake
By 7.18.14
Given the sheer number of Oreo varieties that have been dumped on store shelves in the past year — from sherbet to peanut butter cup to fruit punch to lemon and limeade — it’s almost not beyond belief that Nabisco would give fried chicken Oreos a go. Almost, but not quite. [More]
Ed Asner & Manager Of Struggling Movie Theater Equally Surprised To Hear He’d Pledged To Help
By 2.6.13
In a scenario prime for the movies its theater shows, a struggling movie theater in Pittsburgh needs to raise $75,000 to afford the switchover to digital projectors, and as such, is facing extinction at the end of the year. But then in a move that surprised the theater’s manager, legendary actor Ed Asner, he of the lovable grumpy roles, stepped in to save the day with a Facebook campaign dedicated to fundraising efforts! Except he didn’t, not really. [More]
Turns Out It Was An Angry (Now Arrested) Ex-Girlfriend Who Called In Security Threat To U.S. Airways
By 9.7.12
I do have to say that while there is no direct evidence that it was an angry ex-girlfriend who was responsible for calling in a security threat and naming her former boyfriend as a bad guy smuggling bad things on a flight to Dallas-Fort Worth this week, someone who isn’t upset doesn’t do that to another person. She and a reportedly current boyfriend are now in custody, and in an odd twist, so is the guy who was originally cleared of being linked to explosives when he was removed from the flight. [More]
Restaurant Says 1% Tip Receipt Is A Fake
By 2.27.12
You know that receipt with the 1% tip and the handwritten “get a real job” note? Well, in a case of too-funny-to-be-true, it’s apparently a hoax. [More]
