Phantom military base scam

[snopes]

Comment: I remember reading about someone setting up a fake military base
that never existed to get the pay of the made up soldiers who were
supposed to be working there. I was wondering if it was true.

[NovaSS]

To fake a base with personel ( complete with pay records, medical records, transfer paper work etc etc etc ) would be just about impossible.

Some one who knew what it would take to do it would also understand that the required paper trail would be impossible to forge.

[ASL]

Why fake a whole base and people? Why not just fake the people? And what do you do when the inspectors come? Make them up too?

[Eddylizard]

Perhaps the commenter is getting mixed up with Operation Fortitude North the pre D-Day plan which involved setting up a pretend military buildup in Scotland, using a small number of troops and a large amount of false radio chatter, in an attempt to convince ther Germans that the allies were going to invade through Norway and Sweden

[Mycroft]

Or indeed Fortitude South which had the same techniques deceiving the Germans into thinking that Patton was going to attack Calais. Hitler was so convinced that this was the best invasion plan that he kept most of his mobile anti-invasion troops in the Pas de Calais even after D-Day.
The Northern operation continued to a lesser extent even to the end of the war, and kept the Germans worried about a Norwegian invasion.

There are many examples of military establishments closed, or with vastly reduced numbers, after the war which continued to receive supplies at full levels.

[Il-Mari]

Or then this might be an off-shoot of an older legend concerning some remote base/fort/local militia where some numbers were cooked in an attempt to get more resources there.

As has been mentioned before, it would be exceedingly difficult in modern times to have a fake base with multiple fake people in it.

- Il-Mari

[hambubba]

Originally Posted by Il-Mari

As has been mentioned before, it would be exceedingly difficult in modern times to have a fake base with multiple fake people in it.

You underestimate our government. We have a fake president in the White House of all places.

[Morrigan]

YOMANK, hambubba!

So true, so true!

Morrigan

[tribrats]

Originally Posted by hambubba

You underestimate our government. We have a fake president in the White House of all places.

And to top it off, they've done it for 2 in a row! Not quite sure how they managed for 16 years like that but it does prove the president isn't really needed.

[Eddylizard]

I had a boss once who smelling the icy finger of demands for redundancy pointing at our branch set up a fake payroll list with a number of non-existant workers on it, for the benefit of head office. I have to stress this was not for any financial gain on his part, and no money was misappropriated.

When the call came from head office to cut 20% of the workforce, he made all the non-existant people on the list redundant. Head office were satisfied, particularly since none of them had been "working" for the company long enoough to qualify for redundancy payments.