The Volkswagen disaster was no laughing matter for the authorities. Volkswagen made media organizations a victim of a lie
The Reuters news agency fell victim to the April Fools’ joke launched by Volkswagen
International media reported on the renaming of Volkswagen to become Voltswagen after it decided to switch to the world of electric cars.
Many media, websites and newspapers published the news as true.
The pull of the Volkswagen rebranding late last month had a ripple effect, drawing the attention of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a new report from Der Spiegel.
The German agency has launched an investigation into the company to determine whether an April Fools’ Day joke that it was changing its name to Voltswagen affected its share price.
A Volkswagen ‘Brill’ lie will pay dearly for itDetails about the investigation are scarce at the moment, although the company confirmed to the German publication that the US agency had requested information from the branch of the Volkswagen Group of America (VWoA), and the company said that it had ordered its branch in the USA to cooperate with the authorities.
The whole disaster began a few days before April 1st when the company “accidentally” published a press release announcing that it was changing its name.
A day later, the ad was published on March 30th, Volkswagen continued to change its logos in the lie, updated its social media to reflect the new name, and issued an actual press release about the change. Oddly enough, the false statement included comments from Scott Keough, president of Volkswagen America VWoA and its CEO.
However, on March 31,
VW did not issue an apology for the company’s PR stunt, despite the damage being done.
fraud occurred,
It is reported that the company’s stunt annoyed many news outlets and media outlets who published the name change as a fact.
Even Motor1.com published the lie as fact in the breaking news, and Motor One apologized and admitted that it was wrong, like many others.
The companies did not look at the company’s share price during the change of the fake name, as the share price rose by 12.5 percent before the data was corrected.
The joke was a bold move for an electricity-focused company after it shattered the confidence of consumers and regulators in the wake of the DieselJet scandal, which has cost the company billions of dollars in fines.
Volkswagen has put a lot of effort behind the electric vehicle ID line, beginning deliveries of the ID.4 in the US last month.
The deceptive name change would have worked as a joke if VW had handled it differently.
Instead, US regulators have investigated, and it is doubtful that they are making fun of it.
It is expected in the event that the US Financial Supervisory Authority reaches results that Volkswagen will be subject to penalties and possibly huge fines, and it is possible that the April Fools’ Day game will harm the company and its reliability in front of the media angry at the company and may lose the trust of many customers.
It is worth noting that Volkswagen (Volkswagen, German pronunciation: [fɔlks.vaːɡən]) is a major
German industrial company , founded by the German Workers’ Party in 1937, headquartered in
Wolfsburg ,
Lower Saxony , in
Germany , and affiliated with the Volkswagen Group.
The company produces Volkswagen cars, one of the best-selling cars, which is now the second largest car producer in the world, after Toyota.
And the word
Volkswagen (
German : Volkswagen, meaning the people’s car, from Volk: people, Wagen: car) is a
famous
German car brand. It was developed during
Hitler’s days as the people’s car as indicated by its German name.
It is the third largest car company in the world after
Toyota and General Motors of America.
And VW owns the ownership of the manufacturer of the fastest car in the world (
Bugatti
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