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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Economy & business fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about economy & business. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

7,099 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYEconomy & business

Photos of wealth left behind by the Kuwait billionaire Nasser Al-Kharafi after his death

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post presented several images as wealth left behind by Kuwaiti billionaire Nasser Al-Kharafi, who died in April 2011. FACTLY examined the images individually and found identifiable sources or subjects for several of them that were unrelated to him. Its review traced one image to the Bank of England’s gold vaults, another to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection account of currency seized by Border Patrol agents, and a third to a National Geographic photograph of gold bars in a Pretoria bank vault. The review also identified a photograph of Swarovski crystal staircases aboard the MSC Fantasia and a golden-coloured yacht named Khalilah. The yacht was built after Al-Kharafi’s death, so it could not have been among his possessions at that time. FACTLY attributed the golden-coloured car image to a West Coast Customs Facebook post from 2015, which described a gold Rolls built for the Gumball 3000; that image, too, postdated his death. The evidence did not establish the origin of every image. FACTLY said it could not find credible details for some photographs or credible evidence connecting the tomb photo to Al-Kharafi. It reported that funeral photographs were available and that an article placed the funeral at Sulaibikhat Cemetery in Kuwait, but it could not find pictures of his tomb. Those gaps do not substantiate the post’s attribution: the review’s conclusion rests on the identified provenance of several images, the post-death dates of others, and the lack of credible evidence for the tomb image.

dpaEconomy & business

un concours permet de remporter 30 robots ménagers.

Publisher’s rating: C’est une « fake news », qui dissimule une arnaque, confirme à la dpa la société Vorwerk, qui commercialise en direct les produits Thermomix en Suisse. Les escrocs tentent d’extorquer les données privées – y compris bancaires – des personnes qui se laisseraient prendre au piège de l’offre. La dpa a déjà dénoncé des tromperies identiques en Belgique.

The claim concerns a Facebook post in Switzerland from a page called My Cuisine Suisse. The post said that 30 people chosen at random could win a Thermomix TM6 for free if they responded privately. Vorwerk Schweiz, the company that sells Thermomix products in Switzerland, told dpa that it does not run such contests; its marketing and brand department head, René Rütimann, said this was not a serious commercial practice. The review describes the offer as a phishing scam. It reports that participants were asked to pay supposed delivery costs through a fictitious transport website, where scammers sought confidential information, including bank details. Thus, the post’s promise of 30 prizes was not evidence of a genuine giveaway: the review’s account links the promised prizes to an attempt to obtain money and personal data. The review also places this offer in a documented pattern: dpa had previously reported similar Thermomix scams in Belgium, and a Swiss offer claiming that 20 Thermomix robots were available had appeared on February 9. These examples provide context, while Vorwerk’s statement directly addresses whether the company organized the 30-robot contest.

dpaEconomy & business

Winkelen op afspraak zorgt voor veel winkelbezoeken, door maximale afspraakduur van tien minuten.

Publisher’s rating: De beweringen van de man kloppen niet. De regeling waarmee winkelen op afspraak mogelijk is, gaat pas op woensdag 3 maart 2021 in. Daarnaast zullen de winkelafspraken dan minimaal tien minuten duren, niet maximaal tien minuten. Ook als de man het beschreven scenario als fictief voorbeeld bedoelt, klopt zijn verhaal dus niet met de werkelijke maatregel.

The Facebook post described in the review presents a man’s account of trying to buy clothes by appointment: he says each appointment could last only ten minutes, leaving him unable to try on or pay for items, and that it took ten days to buy a pair of trousers, a sweater and shoes. The review compared that account with the timing and conditions of the announced Dutch appointment-shopping rules. The account did not fit the rules as described: appointment shopping was due to start on 3 March 2021, not before that date, and appointments were to last at least ten minutes, rather than being capped at ten minutes. The review says the cabinet announced the easing of restrictions on 23 February. Until the new system began, customers at non-essential shops such as clothing stores could order online or by phone and collect their purchases; they could not yet shop there by appointment. It also reports a requirement to book at least four hours in advance. The review attributes the minimum ten-minute appointment duration to the government’s website and says Prime Minister Mark Rutte also referred to a minimum ten-minute time slot at the 23 February press conference. The review allows that the post might have been intended as a fictional example, but says that even then its scenario did not match the actual measure: the ten-minute limit was the reverse of the stated minimum, and the appointment system was not yet in force. Its conclusion is about the post’s fit with the announced rules, rather than an independently verified account of what happened during every shop visit.