Internet Falls For Obvious “Samsung Paying Fine In Nickels” Hoax

It really shouldn’t be news when someone believes satire is real on the internet — after all, there’s an entire website devoted to people believing the Onion — but this is something else. Today, a huge number of internet users fell for a news story claiming that Samsung had started paying its $1.05 billion fine to Apple in nickels.

The story stated that 30 trucks filled with nickels were sent to Apple HQ, where Samsung confirmed it was the first batch destined to pay the enormous fine:

the funny part is that the signed document does not specify a single payment method, so Samsung is entitled to send the creators of the iPhone their billion dollars in the way they deem best.

This dirty but genius geek troll play is a new headache to Apple executives as they will need to put in long hours counting all that money, to check if it is all there and to try to deposit it crossing fingers to hope a bank will accept all the coins.

You’d think that’d be obviously fake, right? It’s so blatant, from the strange formatting to inappropriate language to the words “humor” and “satire” across the top. Yet as of writing this, the post has 103,000 likes on Facebook, 18,300 retweets, and 18,000 Tumblr reshares.

Here are samples of what people are saying:

Let’s see how Apple will respond to this.

oh my god i love samsung okay

this is why I own an Android and a tablet—both Samsung

Corporations have too much time (& money) on their hands. Maybe you could feed the world’s hungry instead, and call it a day.

now apple will sue their lawyers for forgetting to include a payment method clause in the settlement

That’s the way, Samsung^^ take that Apple…hahaha~.

Wondering how Samsung can collect those 20 billion coins. And if Apple executives are getting headache with counting all the coins, they need to learn from Samsung ’cause Samsung definitely counted all of it to make sure they value $1 billion dollars. Hahaha….

Nicely played, Samsung. Nicely played.

WHAHAHAHHA!!! EPIC! http://goo.gl/YyFNn  how will #apple react? 

APPLE TROLLED HARD

Wow #Samsung has balls. Lol! This is so darn funny! — waiting on Apple’s response…  

No, everyone, Samsung is not paying $1.05 billion in nickels. Lee Kun-hee did not call Apple “geeks with style.” This did not happen.

Never underestimate the power of the internet to get things completely wrong, I guess.