The Associated Press wrote a story saying that General Electric Co. planned to repay its $3.2 billion tax refund based on a news release that was fake.
“‘We want the public to know that we’ve heard them, and that we know many Americans are going through hard times,’ the fake press release quotes GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt saying. ‘GE will therefore give our 2010 tax refund back to the public and allow the public to decide how to spend it.;
“A GE spokeswoman at GE headquarters in Fairfield, Conn., told The Business Review that the press release was not issued by GE. ‘It’s a hoax,’ a GE spokeswoman said.
“The phony press release was picked up by a number of news outlets. The official-looking release was quickly removed from GE’s corporate website. Details on how the site was hacked into and who may be responsible for the hoax were not immediately available.”
UPDATE: A Reuters story says that the Yes Men activist group is taking claim for the hoax. And AP business editor Hal Ritter says the wire service didn’t follow its own standards for verifying the authenticity of the release.
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