An Inquisitr story about Costco pulling a birthday cake design featuring a friendly dinosaur may have been a hoax.
The design was allegedly yanked after an Arizona mom complained the creature’s feet bore a resemblance to the number “666,” which the Bible says is the mark of the beast, or the Antichrist.
The popular story has been circulating on the Internet for days, and BizPac Review picked it up Sunday — ever skeptical , after placing a few phone calls, we did make a note that individual Costco stores denied the claim.
But the scuttlebutt now is that freelance reporter, John Albrecht, Jr., made the story up and that the “customer” is actually his girlfriend.
True or not, Inquisitr fully retracted the story, with this message now appearing at the URL:
Editor’s note: Information has recently come to light that puts the veracity of the story originally appearing here — regarding Costco birthday cakes — into question. A thorough review of the facts has found it does not meet the Inquisitr’s standards on multiple fronts, including accuracy and disclosure. As such, the editorial and management teams of the Inquisitr offer a full and frank retraction of the piece previously appearing at this URL.
Raw Story reported that the mom who allegedly complained, Jessica Eckerdt, is Albrecht’s girlfriend.
Her Facebook profile is now clean, but a screen shot taken beforehand showed that Eckerdt was in a relationship with a “John Albrecht, Jr,” according to Raw Story.
In the story, Albrecht said Costco pulled the cake design from their online ordering system, but it turns out the retail giant doesn’t offer online ordering of cakes in the U.S.
Interestingly, Albrecht stands by the story, but says nothing about his relationship with Eckerdt.
He posted this message on his Facebook page:
Various reporters are misquoting me and one of my viral articles, claiming I “hoaxed” an article. I never hoaxed or lied about anything in an article, ever. If there is a lie in one of my articles, the person I quoted is the liar. I am not a dishonest person.
I also never stated that US Costcos or specifically the Mesa Costco pulled the dino cake from its shelves. Every other reporter or blogger that stole my story and re-hashed it said or assumed that.
The article in question was actually a submission to write for the Inquisitr. They even altered the article. I have since deleted it from the site and decided not to write for them.
In my article, I stated that Costco removed the cake from one of their online ordering systems with a link to the Australian Costco ordering system, which was one of the ones that was affected.
And going even further down the rabbit hole, it appears that Albrecht first wrote about the demonic birthday cake last year in the Examiner.
Journalist Matthew Keys reported Monday that “Albrecht broke the story of the purported Costco cake nearly a year ago, using the same source and the same quote as the Inquisitr story.”
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Tom@bizpacreview.com
The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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