'Disgusting' Facebook hate campaign

Noel Leeming worker Prashant Parmar. Photo / Anthony Phelps

An employee of a major electrical store is the target of a Facebook hate campaign which falsely claims he rips off customers.

Lower Hutt Noel Leeming sales assistant Prashant Parmar said he was "shocked and hurt" by a fake profile using his name, which was spelt incorrectly.

The profile's "About Me" section reads: "I'm an indian and i hate all new zealanders as you are lazy dont care about money and dont know how to rip off the system and put maoris on interest bearing contracts."

The profile was used to privately contact a Noel Leeming customer.

Glenn Rowlands, of New Plymouth, said he was disgusted to receive the message from the person pretending to be Parmar.

It said that he liked to rip off Maoris and Polynesians by selling them extended warranties.

"There not worth the paper their written on i sell at least 20 of these a week to boost my pay packet," the message read.

"Thank you new zealand for letting me screw you out of your money it is my pleasure."

Parmar suspected a former colleague, who had been sacked, was behind the profile.

"It's a guy who used to work with me when I was at Bond and Bond," Parmar said.

"I would never say those things. It's hurtful. I have a family [to support]."

He had no idea why someone would want to attack him.

"Maybe he just doesn't like me. He got fired from Bond and Bond ... his wife left him and it's gone from bad worse.

"What can I do? I'm just shocked. I'm disgusted."

A Bond and Bond employee, who did not want to be named, said Parmar wasn't only being targeted on Facebook. "We've had job applications under his name saying disgusting derogatory things," he said.

"Prashant is the top salesperson in the country. He's a genuine guy so it's not fair."

He said Noel Leeming, which also owns Bond and Bond, had hired someone to monitor the Facebook page.

"We usually have people who monitor Facebook every two or so hours, but since all of this we now have someone who pretty much monitors it fulltime."

Noel Leeming chief financial officer Mark Conelly said Parmar wasn't the only victim.

"There has been more than one profile set up but it's all allegations and accusations. We don't know who we are dealing with," Conelly said.

"Our first and foremost priority is to make sure employees are safe, and that includes online intimidation."

Noel Leeming had reported the fake profiles to police, Facebook and NetSafe.

"Facebook are unwilling to take further action and we have talked to a number of authorities and it seems there's not much we can do," Conelly said.

"We've done what we can within the law and we will continue to react appropriately."

Conelly said they had an idea who was behind the profile.

"We have invited the suspected owner of that account to [come forward] but he has shown a complete unwillingness to do so."

NetSafe executive director Martin Cocker said creating a fake Facebook profile to mislead people was a crime. "It is probably a forgery crime if it was created to deliberately mislead somebody."