This fake news website just punked 41,000 people

Take a breath. Relax. You will be able to continue to buy your spatulas, laundry detergent and pasta shells for a buck.

The Dollar Tree is not going out of business.

We repeat: The Dollar Tree is not going out of business.

It was an Internet hoax and a pretty cruel one at that, we must admit.

Last week, you may have gotten an alarming “Breaking News” alert on your Facebook timeline: One that read Dollar Tree, the nationwide chain of stores where everything sells for literally $1 and not a penny more, was shuttering all locations.

“This is a corporate decision, all employees will be paid their wages until Dec. 24. Spokesman said, “We are just losing money too fast by selling so cheap.”

The post received 41,828 shares.

As our fearless leader Donald Trump would say: It was a case of fake news, disseminated by a prank site called React365, reports fact checking site Snopes.com.

In a troublemaking mood? React365 is your spot, with the tag line: “Write an article and prank your friends for fun. Bullying is forbidden.”

Who runs this thing, we are trying to find out. It might be Ashton Kutcher, formerly of “Punk’d” (that’s a joke).

Why someone would want to create this type of hysteria by telling the general public that the least expensive store in town is ceasing to exist, we have no idea.

Perhaps it was a competitor like Family Dollar, which carries the more or less the same stuff as Dollar Tree for a heck of a lot more.

This story was originally published September 29, 2017 at 1:42 PM with the headline "This fake news website just punked 41,000 people."