A common complaint about the Fallout New Orleans hoax are claims that the applicant "must" have paid for the registration - and paid a lot.
So we set ourselves a challenge. Could we replicate the results of this troll without paying a cent?
Conditions of the test
- We'd do a wordmark registration, rather than a logo, because this is already requiring more effort than it was worth
- We'd put an application through the "Fast Track" system, and another not through the fast track system, to see if there was any practical difference
- At no point would we make any payment
- We would include information in the application to make it obvious that its a bogus registration, including names such as "fakey-Mc-Fakerson" and customer reference of "Fake". If that shouldn't ring alarm bells about the fakeness, nothing will.
How did we do, well here are our results, the fast track application:
As you can see, this is pretty much identical to the New Orleans registration. The Application supposedly fulfilled fast track conditions despite the application fee being unpaid - I can assure you that it is unpaid, and the application was accepted on the promise of a future bank transfer.
The non fast track application looks a bit different.
These results can be replicated by anyone who wants to spend the time to do so.