Skip to main content

PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Economy & business fact checks

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

7,103 published reviews in this topic

NewtralEconomy & business

Te pueden cobrar más de 1.000€ por llamar a un número que acaba en 444

Publisher’s rating: Falso

Newtral examined a WhatsApp chain warning that callers could be charged €1,355 for calling a number ending in 444. The article says its journalists called the number: it rang, but nobody answered. It withheld the full number, explaining that it might belong to a private individual, so the excerpt does not disclose the number or provide independent billing records. The article also reports that Spain’s National Police had publicly rejected the possibility and that the OCU said it was being impersonated in the chain. Taken together, the checks described challenge the warning’s claim of an extraordinary charge, while the excerpt does not document a completed call or a charge being incurred.

YouturnEconomy & business

1990 மற்றும் 2019-க்கு இடைப்பட்ட ஆண்டுகளில் பணியாற்றிய தொழிலாளர்களுக்கு இந்தியாவின் EPFO ஆல் 80,000 வைரயிலான நிதி நன்மைகளை பெற உரிமை உண்டு. இத்தகைய நன்மைகளை பெற்றுக் கொள்ள உரிமை உள்ளவர்களின் பட்டியலில் உங்களின் பெயரும் இருக்கிறதா என்று பாருங்கள் : https://socialdraw.top/epf

Publisher’s rating: Fake

FACTLYEconomy & business

Benefits of Rs. 80,000 by EPFO to workers who worked between the years 1990 and 2019.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a website shared on social media that said workers who had worked between 1990 and 2019 could receive Rs. 80,000 from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) if their names appeared on a list. FACTLY examined the link in the post and reported that it opened a site at socialdraw.top/epf, rather than an EPFO government domain. The review describes several warning signs on that site: it asked visitors to share a message on WhatsApp to obtain the supposed benefit, and its domain ended in “.top”. The review contrasts this with EPFO’s own warning about fraudulent websites and with an official-site pop-up stating that epfindia.gov.in was EPFO’s only official website. The review also cites an EPFO post on October 29, 2019, warning people about fake offers circulated through websites, calls, SMS, email and social media. Taken together, the investigation identified the benefits website as fraudulent and found no basis in the cited EPFO material for the promised payment.

Pagella PoliticaEconomy & business

«Un terzo del Pil italiano, circa 500 miliardi, è frutto diretto dell’export, ma soltanto il 4 per cento delle aziende italiane esporta con continuità»

Publisher’s rating: Nì

The review examines a statement by then-undersecretary Manlio Di Stefano, made on 30 October on Rai 1’s Uno Mattina, that about €500 billion—one third of Italy’s GDP—was directly produced by exports, while only 4% of Italian firms exported regularly. Its central finding is that the export and business figures are broadly in the right range, but the statement’s description of exports’ contribution to GDP is misleading.

Pagella PoliticaEconomy & business

«Nel bilancio dell’Europa si tagliano 3 miliardi agli agricoltori italiani»

Publisher’s rating: Nì

The claim concerned Matteo Salvini’s statement on 29 October 2019, during a Cartabianca appearance on Rai3, that the EU budget would cut €3 billion from Italian farmers. The review checked the figure against the European Commission’s proposed 2021–2027 budget, rather than treating those proposed amounts as an already final budget. It explains that the Common Agricultural Policy has two funding pillars: the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. (S1: “Il 29 ottobre 2019, ospite a Cartabianca su Rai3, Matteo Salvini (Lega) ha dichiarato (min. -1:35:27) che «nel bilancio dell’Europa si tagliano 3 miliardi agli agricoltori italiani»”; “Salvini, con la sua dichiarazione, fa riferimento alla proposta di bilancio settennale presentata il 2 maggio 2018 dalla Commissione Europea.”) For its comparison, the review reports the proposed 2021–2027 totals for the two funds and compares them with the 2014–2020 budget. It also describes the country-level calculation: Alan Matthews used figures in the Commission proposal’s annexes and compared the seven-year amounts with funding for 2020 multiplied by seven. On that basis, the review gives projected Italian reductions of 3.9 per cent in the first pillar and 15.3 per cent in the second, or about 7 per cent overall. (S1: “A ottobre 2018, Alan Matthews, professore di Politica agricola europea presso il Trinity College di Dublino, ha eseguito il calcolo dei tagli per ogni Stato membro. Partendo da dati contenuti negli allegati alla proposta presentata dalla Commissione, Matthews ha calcolato le riduzioni per il 2021-2027 sulla base della cifra stanziata per l’anno 2020, moltiplicata per sette. In questo modo, i tagli dei fondi destinati all’Italia risultano del 3,9 per cento per il primo pilastro (da 25,93 a 24,92 miliardi) e del 15,3 per cento per il secondo (da 10,49 a 8,89 miliardi), per una riduzione complessiva del 7 per cento circa, ossia 2,61 miliardi di euro (che Salvini ha arrotondato per eccesso in «3 miliardi»).”) The key qualification is that the €2.61 billion was a projection from a proposal, not a settled cut. The review notes that Brexit could affect the available budget and that final approval depended on negotiations and decisions by the European Parliament and Council; it reports that Parliament opposed the proposed CAP cuts. Thus the €3 billion figure was close to the review’s estimated reduction, but the claim presented a contingent proposal as a definite outcome. (S1: “Ma questa proposta non è ancora realtà.”; “La decisione finale dipende infatti da ciò che decideranno il Parlamento europeo e il Consiglio dell’Unione europea.”; “E il Parlamento, finora, si è detto contrario ai tagli alla Pac previsti dalla Commissione, chiedendone l’eliminazione.”)

Aditi ParidaEconomy & business

EPFO India to give Rs 80000 to people who worked between 1990 and 2018

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examines a circulating message claiming that India’s Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) would give Rs 80,000 to people who had worked between 1990 and 2018. It says the message had circulated on social media and encouraged people to use a link to check whether they could “withdraw” the money. The review identifies that link as leading to a purported EPFO site at seventhree.club. The investigation followed the link and found a site that appeared to offer an eligibility check, but whose other tabs and links did not work: the page was a still image with a dialog box. The Quint tested the check by answering its three yes-or-no questions about age, working during the stated period, and current employment. The review reports that different combinations of answers produced the same result, including a message saying, “Congratulations, you’re in the list!” The site then directed users, after they clicked a share button three times, to another website that the review describes as bogus and unrelated to EPFO. The review also reports that EPFO’s official website was displaying a warning about fake websites sharing incorrect information. Together, the reported behavior of the linked site and the official-site warning support the review’s finding that the promised payment was not a genuine EPFO offer.

Fact Check NIEconomy & business

Northern Ireland requires a 660% uplift in government expenditure to be equal to the European Union average of 2.2%

Publisher’s rating: INACCURATE. UK government expenditure on cultural services (measured by Eurostat) is just over half of the EU average. Within the UK, public expenditure in Northern Ireland is less than half than in Scotland, Wales, and England. However, Arts Matter Northern Ireland uses European statistics that reach beyond the arts, and make an invalid comparison between EU figures and public expenditure arts spend within the UK.

FACTLYEconomy & business

3 lakh employees of Indian Railways will lose their jobs.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a social-media video saying that three lakh Indian Railway employees would lose their jobs. FACTLY traced the allegation to reports from July 2019, which were based on letters asking railway zones to identify employees older than 55 or with 30 years of service. The review says those reports inferred mass layoffs from a routine performance-review process; it does not describe an independent count of employees due to be dismissed. [S1: “The news was based on the letters sent by the ministry to zonal offices to identify employees above the age of 55 years and those who have completed 30 years in service.”] To check the claim, the review reports searching Google for “3 lakh railway employees lose jobs” and finding the July 2019 coverage. It then relies on a Railway Ministry clarification issued on 30 July 2019. The ministry said the letters reiterated routine reviews under employees’ service conditions, and that drawing a layoff total from the circulars had no substance. [S1: “When search on Google with keywords, ‘3 lakh railway employees lose jobs’, many newspaper articles published in July-2019 were found in the search results.”] [S1: “The Ministry tweeted saying, ‘it is clarified that letters have been issued to Railway Zones/Production Units etc., merely by way of reiteration, to conduct the routine review of performance of the Railway employees in pursuance of the service conditions………It is a routine exercise which is required to be conducted by the Administration in public interest and the same has been conducted in previous years as well. Any inference regarding the number of employees being retired under such Rules, as drawn in such clippings, is thus without any substance.’”] The review also cites the ministry’s reported recruitment figures as context: approximately 184,262 employees had been recruited across categories during 2014–19, while recruitment for 283,637 posts was underway. Those figures do not independently establish how many employees might retire, but they are consistent with the ministry’s clarification that the circulars did not announce a three-lakh layoff plan. [S1: “Indian Railways have recruited approximately 1,84,262 employees in various categories during year 2014-19.Recruitment exercise for 2,83,637 posts is underway”]

Pagella PoliticaEconomy & business

«A proposito di tasse in manovra, solo quella sulla plastica farà [...] pagare almeno il doppio l'acqua minerale»

Publisher’s rating: Pinocchio andante

The claim concerned Matteo Salvini’s criticism of the proposed plastic tax: he said it would make mineral water cost at least twice as much. The review says his statement was reported on 25 October 2019, citing press accounts of an official League note. It assessed the claim against the government’s budget-planning document, rather than a finalized tax law: the document set out a proposed levy of one euro per kilogram of plastic packaging, including packaging for bottled mineral water. The review noted that the final law had not yet begun its parliamentary process, so the tax’s precise amount and application were not settled. To estimate the potential effect, the review collected weights for empty 1.5-litre bottles, including caps and any labels, from three companies: CoGeDi, Lete and Sant’Anna. The reported weights ranged from about 25 grams for Lete to 60 grams for Rocchetta, with Sant’Anna at 40 grams. Applying the proposed levy to those weights, and assuming it was fully passed on to consumers, yielded an estimated increase of 2.5 to 6 euro cents per bottle. The review compared that increase with reported retail prices of 22.5 to 45 euro cents for a 1.5-litre bottle. It estimated that the tax could raise prices by 5.5 to 27 percent, depending on the product and price level—not the 100 percent increase implied by “at least double.” Its conclusion was a forecast, not a measurement of a tax already in force: the review explicitly left room for uncertainty because the budget law had yet to be approved.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturEconomy & business

Im Internet kursiert eine Geschichte mit der Überschrift: «Töchter erben 2EUR Millionen, aber es gibt einen Haken...» Darin geht es um einen vermögenden Vermieter aus Düsseldorf, der nach seinem Tod seinen Töchtern zwei Millionen Euro hinterlassen haben soll. Das Geld würden die beiden aber nur bekommen, wenn sie bestimmte Bedingungen erfüllen. Bebildert wird der Artikel unter anderem mit dem gespiegelten Foto eines Passagierflugzeugs der Lufthansa

Publisher’s rating: Die Geschichte wurde kopiert, Namen sowie der Ort des Geschehens wurden verändert.

The story described in the claim was presented as a Düsseldorf inheritance case: a wealthy landlord supposedly left his daughters two million euros, payable only under certain conditions. The review traces that story to an earlier New York Post article, published on 27 July 2015, whose headline gives the inheritance as $20 million. In that account, the daughters are named Marlena and Victoria, and each was to inherit $10 million at age 35, with opportunities to receive some money earlier if they met conditions set by their father. The comparison identifies the major changes in the circulating version: the original father, Maurice Lapoz, was renamed Edgar Beckers; the setting was shifted from Manhattan to Düsseldorf; and the inheritance was changed from $20 million to two million euros. The review also says the daughters’ ages and the conditions for early payments stayed the same. As examples, it reports that Marlena could receive $500,000 if she married before turning 35, and that either daughter could receive an annual payment equal to three times her yearly income if she earned an “appropriate salary” by 2020. The aircraft image is not evidence that the inheritance story took place in Düsseldorf. The review describes the image as a Lufthansa Boeing 747 that had been mirrored, and reports that a reverse image search traced it to Dulles Airport in Washington, where it had appeared in a Lufthansa business-class flight review. Thus the image’s documented history supports the review’s account of reused illustration, while the comparison with the earlier article supports its finding that the inheritance story was copied with altered names, location, and amount.