Yes. Luckily I left three months prior to that humiliation.
It was a textbook example of how information is created in the internet. Some fansite hears a rumor / finds a patent, they game fans working at the official organizations find the news and report it in the official site, after which it's reported all accross the internet as "fact". I remember also the game list of upcoming GameCube games on Nintendo's booth in a Nordic gameshow back in 2002. The marketing manager doing the show basically pulled the list out of his ass, using Cube-Europe as source. Then some game fans took a picture of the list and posted it in the internet, after which it was again "fact". Except for all the fan fiction games on the list.