Fake E-mail Creates Chaos in RAB Employees

A message claiming to have been sent by Radio Advertising Bureau's (RAB) President-Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Haley, arrived in the message boxes of RAB staff and several newspersons on January 15, 2009. The e-mail informs about the retrenchment of the association's employees.

The message was sent at 5:03 PM EST approximately a couple of hours after RAB sacked five out of its 55 employees. Mr. Haley alleged that the message must have originated from one of the dismissed employees, as reported by AdvertisingAge in the third week of January 2009.

Meantime, the faked emails started with an eye-catching header, which said that the message was secret and meant just for RAB employees. The genuine looking fake email requested the receiver to refrain from leaking the data provided in the message outside the firm. It also instructed the receiver to visit guidestar.org, the firm's nonprofit fiscal reporting site.

The hoax email proceeded to inform that three of the topmost male RAB officials would soon be "given the pink slip". It listed their wages and also went on to explain the reason for the downsizing. The first reason furnished was that organizational discrimination had led to male top honchos drawing hefty salaries. The message also contained their names.

But when it was revealed that the fake e-mail had been circulating in the staff's message boxes and somebody had also publicized the fake email to the trade-press media, the RAB released a bulletin on January 15, 2009 announcing that it was going to carry out a probe into this case of illegal access and find out the way in which the fake email was transmitted. RAB further clarified that the subject matter of this fake or email was totally baseless.

Meanwhile, RAB released a bulletin saying that in a malicious effort to harm the firm, somebody had hacked Haley's email account, created a fake memo containing factually wrong and vicious charges meant to defame and harm the Radio Advertising Bureau. This fake memo was afterwards widely distributed amongst workers, business colleagues and members of the press.

Related article: Fake Spam Mail Announces Australian PM’s Heart Attack

» SPAMfighter News - 2/3/2009