Jeans giant Gap Inc fell victim to a web hoax on Tuesday, with a fake corporate web site set up to shame the retailer for its response to Bangladesh worker deaths.
The convincing-looking GapDoesMore.com surfaced to coincide with Gap Inc’s shareholder meeting, where the San Francisco clothier celebrated its recent decision to boost minimum worker wage to $10, reports forbes.com web site.
The site, still live as of Wednesday morning, reported that the clothing chain would be ‘providing $2,00,000 in compensation to those affected by the Aswad Composite Mills fire in October 2013.’ (Gap Inc long ago confirmed an indirect link to that accident, which killed nine workers months after the
infamous factory collapse at Rana Plaza that claimed over 1,100 lives.)
The hoax statement added that Gap Inc could be joining the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a consortium of mostly European retailers paying restitution to accident victims and their families.
In reality, the Gap is a founding member of the Accord’s US counterpart, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Despite having no explicit links to the Rana Plaza disaster, the California outfitter has made a contribution to the Donor Trust Fund, which aims to pool $40 million total for reparations.
After a flurry of social media chatter about the Gap’s purported change of tack on Bangladesh safety, the chain’s communications office released a statement confirming the convincing site as a fraud. A note on the retailer’s real site links to a page on Gap Inc’s actual work in Bangladesh, which includes a four-part fire and safety plan intended to prevent further tragedies.
On Tuesday evening, Asian American activist network 18 Million Rising came forward as the group behind the fake site, asking that the Gap work to improve the lives of the most vulnerable workers in its supply chain.
‘This is not about a hoax on the company,’ said 18 Million Rising in a statement. ‘It’s about justice for the workers who make the company possible.
-With New Age input
