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Hoax Advisory: Gerber Products Co. Settlement
Dateline: 10/01/97
Reports that Gerber Products Co. must pay out $500 savings
bonds to American children in a class action settlement are false
Another major hoax is crisscrossing the U.S. via fax and email,
this one claiming that Gerber Products Co, the baby food manufacturer, recently lost a
class action lawsuit and must now make amends in the form of a $500 savings bond for every
child born in America between 1985 and 1997.
These claims are categorically false. No such litigation took place, nor has Gerber
been ordered to pay restitution of any kind to the public. Any information you receive to
the contrary should not be trusted or acted upon.
Rumors of the class action settlement first surfaced late last year, reappearing off
and on since then in the form of notices exhorting parents to file claims on behalf of
their children.
In the notices, recipients are urged to claim their settlements by mailing photocopies
of their children's birth records and Social Security cards to a Post Office box in
Minneapolis. This has led some to suggest that the rumors began as a setup for an
elaborate scam, since birth and social security documents can be used to obtain fraudulent
credit.
That theory is confounded, however, by the curious fact that the Minneapolis address
belonged for a time to a legitimate clearinghouse for claimants in another class action
suit unrelated to Gerber. According to one news source, the company administering that
settlement was deluged last December with inquiries regarding the nonexistent Gerber case,
receiving over a million pieces of mail and nearly 250,000 phone calls in one three-day
period alone. The company reports that it will destroy all the hoax-inspired mail it
received. The Post Office box is now closed.
Gerber Products Co. has also been overwhelmed with inquiries ever since the hoax began.
Just last month it received more than 18,000 phone calls regarding the alleged settlement,
a flood which shows few signs of abating as the rumors continue to be propagated all
across the country. "The notices are being posted in hospitals," a spokesperson
told The Chicago Tribune. "Teachers are sending them home with students. And
one corporation even put the notice in with their paychecks."
In response, the company has notified the attorneys general of all 50 states of the
existence of the hoax, as well as posted a press release on its corporate
Website and elsewhere, urging the public not to file claims or send birth records through
the mail. These measures seem to have had little effect thus far.
"We don't
believe it's a scam," said a corporate officer. "We think it's just
misinformation."
Through it all, Gerber has taken the position that the hoax poses no real threat to
anyone. "We don't believe it's a scam," a corporate officer told Knight-Ridder.
"We think it's just misinformation."
These words may amount to no more than wishful thinking. The truth is, when public
gullibility is elicited on such a grand scale, con artists do crawl out of the
woodwork to take advantage. To cite a conspicuous example, the following message was
posted last month on the Internet:
Subject: $500 Savings Bond for kids under 12
From: [EMAIL ADDRESS DELETED]
Date: 1997/09/19
Message-Id: <874705918.5601@dejanews.com>
Newsgroups: misc.kids Hi,
My name is Rob and have just come across some information that
would be useful to any parent that has a child born between 1985 and 1997.
There was a class action lawsuit won against a major manufacturer
of baby foods. In the settlement, this manufacturer is responsible for giving every child
born between 1985 and 1997 (under the age of 12) a $500 savings bond. This manufacturer
however is not responsible for contacting or advertising this settlement in any way. If
you would like to know where to send for your $500 savings bond (per child) send $2.00 and
your e-mail address to:
Rob
[ADDRESS DELETED] |
What this demonstrates, as the rumors rage on, is that while the Gerber hoax may have
begun as mere misinformation or an annoying prank, it clearly lends itself to any number
of unscrupulous schemes.
The point is not to be alarmed, but to arm yourself with the facts so you won't be
deceived. The point is also to refrain from deceiving others by ignorantly passing along
false information.
P.T. Barnum said, famously: "There's a sucker born every minute."
That doesn't mean you or I have to be one.
Pass that on.
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