101 utilities cut rates, credit GOP tax cuts.
For months, President Donald Trump has been touting the benefits of the tax law he signed in December. But in early June, he began expanding his argument beyond lower tax bills to lower energy bills. On June 7, Trumptweeted, $3 billion payoff: 101 utilities cut rates, credit GOP tax cuts. The tweet linked to aWashington Examiner articlethat in turn citedresearch by Americans for Tax Reform, a group supportive of the tax cut. $3 billion payoff: 101 utilities cut rates, credit GOP tax cutshttps://t.co/x1a1OJuRgd This isnt the first time the White House has relied on Americans for Tax Reform for evidence of real-world impacts from passage of the tax bill. Previously, we looked at Trumps statement that since we passed tax cuts, over 3 million workers have gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands and thousands of dollars. That talking point,gleaned from the groups research, ratedMostly True. The energy rate-cut list  which is a sub-list of the broader one we checked previously  attracted the White Houses attention not long after it hit its 100th item. For the utilities on the group's list that provided an estimate of savings per customer, most said rate-payers would save about $1 to $4 on their bill per month. Americans for Tax Reform cited a large number of company news releases and news articles, so we dont quarrel with the number (which had already grown to 102 a day later). That said, we will provide some additional information that helps put the list in fuller context. It shouldnt be surprising to see a lot of investor-owned utilities lowering rates after the corporate tax reduction. And it also shouldnt be surprising that the companies specifically cited the tax changes as the reason for the rate cut. In most cases, experts said, utilities would have been required to do so by their regulators. The tax law has an impact on privately owned utilities  often called investor-owned utilities, or IOUs for short  but not on public utilities. Investor-owned utilities pay corporate taxes, so the tax laws lowering of the top corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent should save this type of utility a substantial amount of money. By contrast, publicly held utilities do not pay corporate taxes, so they are unaffected by this provision of the tax bill. Public utilitiesincluderural electric cooperatives, municipally owned utilities, and federal or state power authorities. Among electricity utilities, about two-thirds of Americans are served by investor-owned utilities, while about a third receive their power from public utilities. For water utilities, a few of which appear on the group's list, public utilities are dominant. So while 101 utilities cutting their rates may seem like a large number, your ability to benefit from a rate cut depends on which utilities happen to serve your area. Its also worth pointing out that many of these rate cuts were preordained by existing energy regulations. Utilities are natural monopolies, and because of that, theyve been regulated for well over 100 years, said Manny Teodoro, a political scientist at Texas A&M University who has studied energy issues. Its a recognition that a pure monopoly will result in a lack of competition and abusive pricing. For that reason, under longstanding regulations, utilities need to go back to energy regulatory bodies whenever they seek to modify their rates, in order to provide reasons for the change. And if a utility happens to benefit from a tax change, theres a good chance it will be required under existing regulations to lower their rates to account for that. Rates are set by public utility commissions through rate-making processes that would clearly identify the reasons for the rate change, up or down, said Billy Pizer, a Duke University public policy professor who studies energy. This doesnt undercut the larger point of the tally, but it does suggest that the rate cuts required two elements to materialize  the tax cut, which Trump touted, and the longstanding regulations that require companies to share the tax gains with ratepayers rather than just with shareholders. And the latter is an aspect Trump didnt get into. Trump tweeted, 101 utilities cut rates, credit GOP tax cuts. The list comes from a organization that strongly supported the tax bill. The tally of rate cuts is well-documented, and the group acknowledges that it is not comprehensive. That said, its worth noting that public utility customers will not see the same types of rate cuts cited in the list, which is about one-third of Americans. Trumps tweet seeks full credit for the tax law, while glossing over the role of energy regulations that mandate that utility savings be passed along to customers. We rate the statement Mostly True.
Taxes have been a hot topic in the political world lately. President Donald Trump has been calling for reduction of corporate taxes. This is something he talked about when visiting Missouri in August. However, income tax is a hot button topic in Missouri as well. State Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, boasted on Twitter that a law he helped pass would be the first cut to Missouri income tax in over a century. The bill that I carried cutting MOs income tax for 1st time in over 100 years will start its 1st phase in jan 1 2018, the senator tweeted on Aug. 30, 2017, with the hashtag moleg and tagging Missouri State Treasurer Eric Schmitt. Over a century? This seemed a little bit out there. When Koenigs office did not answer our inquiry, we started digging for ourselves. Koenig was referring to Senate Bill 509 from 2014. Koenig was the House handler for the bill, as a state representative at the time. What does the now law actually do to income tax though? Simply put, income tax rates will decrease by a tenth of a percent every year until the top tax rate is a half of a percent lower, or 5.5 percent instead of the current 6 percent. There will also be an increase in income tax deductibles for business income until it reaches 25 percent. To trigger the start of the law, the states gross income had to exceed income in one of the three previous years by $150 million. That happened in the last fiscal year, so now the bill will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2018. The prospect of decreasing income tax is appealing for taxpayers, but is this really the first time it is happening in over a century? We talked to Anne Rottman, the library administrator at the Missouri Legislative Library, about the last time Missouri saw a reduction in income taxes. I dont think there ever has been a cut, she said. It turns out, shes right. Missouri income tax was established in 1917. This tax was for a half of a percent annually on individuals income. Income tax saw revisions throughout the years. Graduated tax brackets were created in 1939 and have not been changed since 1972. The limit for deduction for federal income taxes was created in 1993. There were various other revisions and adjustments as well. However, none of these were decreases in the tax levied. For a century, tax law has been growing into what income tax looks like today. Why has there always been an increase and never a decrease? No idea why this approach took so long, said Joseph Haslag, an economics professor at MU. Others seem to be stumped as well. The half-percentage reduction of the tax rate per year gives the state legislature some time to adjust to having less revenue for the budget. Meanwhile, theres a more immediate impact for individuals: Tax brackets will now be adjusted annually based on percent increase in inflation. However, when it comes to the economy overall, it isnt as exciting as it sounds, Haslag said. For a revenue-test state like Missouri, the tax cut reduction will have small, very small, positive effect on Missouris economic growth, Haslag said. And while Koenig is correct that the states income rate has never decreased, its important to note that the legislature has enacted many income tax deductions that have the same effect of lowering someones state income tax bill. Beginning in 2016, for example, 100 percent of a military pension income became exempt from Missouri state tax. The state also created a new deduction for people from Missouri who relocated a business to Missouri. Koenig said that Senate Bill 509 would cut Missouri income tax for the first time in over 100 years. The truth of the matter is Missouri income tax has never been cut. Income tax laws were put in place in 1917. This was 100 years ago exactly. Its not over 100 years, but Koenig was pretty close. Its worth noting, however, that Missouri has created a long list of deductions that could reduce a persons state income tax bill without having to decrease the overall tax rate. Koenigs statement is accurate but needs that clarifying information. That meets our definition of Mostly True. Claim:  Marines surreptitiously failed to observe the proper protocol in saluting President Clinton all throughout his eight years in office.    . Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2001] Military courtesy change I picked up on something very funny this morning. CNN showed George W. leaving HM-1. The Marine at the front step saluted, GW returned it, and as he walked away, the marine executed a right face to stand facing GW's back . . . something that was missing in eight years of the Clinton presidency.  The traditional Marine Corps mark of respect was rendered to the new president. That one goes back to the days in the rigging, when the Marine orderly to the ship's Captain always faced him, no matter hisdirection of movement, to be ready to receive an order.  Who says that enlisted men can't hold back when they don't respect someone? . . . And for eight years, they did. Origins:  According to this Internet-circulated piece, to a man, Marines decided they didn't respect President Clinton the minute he took office, and so for eight years all of them declined to observe proper protocol in his presence.  Moreover, no officer ever objected to this behavior, and not one member of the Presidential entourage ever noticed or reported it. The best way to answer this one would be to ask a Marine.  So we did: If the question is "Did the Marines who greeted the President willfully show disrespect by failing to execute a   "facing" movement after the salute?" the answer is no.  Proper protocol is for the Marine to snap a salute to the President. The President may or may not return the salute at his discretion. If the President returns the salute, the Marine immediately "cuts" or "posts" by bringing his arm sharply down to his side from the salute and remaining at a position of attention. If the President does not return the salute, the Marine will wait until the President passes him, then he will cut and remain at a position of attention. This is the protocol when greeting a senior officer, including the President.  With the new Presidency comes a changing of the Presidential Detail. The new command of the Presidential Detail may have chosen to add a facing movement to the protocol. This is at the complete discretion of the command. A Marine does not have the luxury of choosing whether or not he follows proper protocol. He is given an order and he follows it to the letter. If the order does not include a facing movement, the facing movement will not occur. If the order includes a facing movent, the facing movement occurs. It is that simple. Whether or not this movement becomes a standard part of protocol remains to be seen.  Marines do not act as individuals, we act as a team. Marines follow procedure and protocol. The Marines you saw followed their orders. That is a Marine. This piece was also refuted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Snappy little story. It has only two problems:   "It's absolutely false," says Staff Sgt. Keith Milks of the public affairs office at Marine Corps headquarters.   If it was true, the Marines would see it as an insult to their own honor, not to Bill Clinton. Milks said crew members of the presidential helicopter "are chosen for their professionalism." In a phone interview, Milks said crew members of HM-1 - Marine One, the presidential helicopter - had followed the same protocol with Clinton that they used for all presidents, to wit:  The Marine at the bottom of the steps salutes the debarking president. As soon as the salute is returned, the Marine does a right face to face the president's back. The Marine holds that position until the president "has moved a comfortable distance away," Milks said. Even if one dislikes the man who is currently President, protocol dictates that he be shown the proper respect in order not to dishonor the office of President of the United States. Marines know that as well as anyone.  Additional information:        Presidential Tradition   (RonaldReagan.com)   Last updated:  27 January 2007    Sources:   Levins, Harry.  "Don't Believe Your E-Mail: The Marines Didn't Show More Respect to Bush Than Clinton."   St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  10 March 2001  (p. 2). Claim:  The federal government is preventing Volkswagen's XL1 model car from being sold in the U.S. because the vehicle is too fuel-efficient.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, September 2013] Volkswagen's New 300 MPG Car Not Allowed In America Because It Is Too Efficient Would like to know of the article is valid. Origins:  For many years conspiracy rumors have circulated positing that a collusion between Big Oil and the U.S. government has prevented the American public from having the opportunity to purchase fully developed, market-ready automobiles capable of obtaining fuel efficiencies of 200-300 MPG.  Such rumors have taken the form of everything from mysterious forces stealing cars equipped with miracle carburetors to keep that technology's existence a secret, to the federal government's enacting regulations intended for the sole purpose of keeping high-mileage vehicles out of the U.S. market in order to protect the interests (and profits) of American oil companies. miracle carburetors high-mileage April 2014 saw the emergence of yet another entry in this vein, courtesy of Jim Stone, Freelance Journalist (the same "journalist" who promulgated the ridiculous story about a passenger on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 who supposedly hid his cell phone in his rectum and used it to post a picture to the Internet after the flight was hijacked), positing that Volkswagen has a terrific 300 MPG vehicle that only costs $60,000 all ready to go, but it can't be sold (or even seen) in America because politicians in the pay of oil companies are conspiring to keep it unknown and unsellable in the U.S.: Jim Stone, Freelance Journalist ridiculous You won't find the 300 MPG Volkswagen XL1 in an American showroom, in fact it has even been denied a tour of America because it is too efficient for the American public to be made widely aware of, and oil profits are too high in America with the status quo in place. No tour has been allowed for this car because the myth that 50 mpg is virtually impossible to obtain from even a stripped down econobox is too profitable to let go of, and when it comes to corporate oil profits, ignorance is bliss. The answer is obvious. Simply for the sake of raking in huge profits from $4 a gallon gas, getting guzzled at 10X the rate it should be, the corporations have via campaign contributions and other types of pay outs succeeded in getting the FED to legislate the best cars off the road for irrelevant trumped up reasons.  Even after being hand made with "exotic" materials in an intentionally limited edition, the Xl1 still only costs $60,000. There is a lot more of a market for this car than 2,000 units at that price, have no doubt, this car is being held back on purpose. In this case the vehicle in question is the Volkswagen XL1, a two-person,  "one-liter" concept car (i.e., a vehicle capable of averaging 100 km per liter of fuel, or about 235 MPG) originally shown to the public back in 2002 and modified (and renamed) several times since over the intervening years.  The latest unveiled version of the XL1, already put into production, is a plug-in diesel-electric hybrid described thusly by Green Car Reports: XL1 Green Car Reports The Volkswagen XL1 is a plug-in diesel hybrid with a body seemingly beamed in from a future time. It's the physical representation of the benefits of reducing weight and improving aerodynamics. The small body may only take two people, but it's allowed for an incredibly streamlined body with a drag coefficient of only 0.189. Low weight  only 1,752 lbs  means only a small engine and electric motor is needed to deliver respectable performance. Much of the car is constructed from carbon fiber, aluminum and titanium. VW says the car will do 261 mpg, though the real figure will be lower than that should it ever be tested under EPA guidelines. Even so, it'll still use comfortably less fuel than any vehicle currently on sale. A diesel engine of only 0.8 liters and 2 cylinders capacity produces 47 horsepower, with a further 27 horses delivered by the electric motor. Power reaches the wheels via a 7-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Those figures sound miniscule by modern standards, but the XL1 should reach 62 mph in 12.7 seconds. Top speed is 98 mph. Operating alone, the small battery can deliver up to 31 miles of range, and can be charged via plug or regenerative effect. It's true that very few, if any, Volkswagen XL1s will likely be seen on U.S. roads in the immediate future, but that situation will be due to a confluence of factors that does not include a government/Big Oil conspiracy to keep them out of the U.S. First of all, it's not true that the XL1 has "been denied a tour of America because  it is too efficient for the American public to be made widely aware of."  Existing safety and traffic regulations do limit where the current XL1 models can be legally driven in public roads in the U.S., but Volkswagen has taken at least three of the vehicles on tour around the U.S., and the staff of Jalopnik drove one around Manhattan at the end of 2013. Jalopnik Second, the primary reason the XL1 won't be seen in the U.S. anytime soon is that Volkswagen is only producing 200 units for retail sale (not 2,000 as claimed above), all of them to be sold in Europe via some sort of selection (i.e., lottery) process.     200 units But why only 200 cars?  And why only in Europe? As for the first part, the answer is that new vehicles like the XL1 are expensive to develop and produce (and therefore expensive for consumers to afford), and similar forms of automobiles have not yet met with tremendous success on the commercial market, so any automotive company that puts such a model into full-blown production risks sinking a whole lot of money into something that may not sell well at all (especially in the U.S. market, where consumers have very different expectations and preferences than European car buyers do). The XL1 is in many ways still a concept/prototype vehicle, and so Volkswagen is testing the waters by putting out a limited production run to see how many consumers are really interested in shelling out the equivalent of U.S. $150,000 (not $60,000 as claimed above) for a two-person car.  And the testers at Car and Driver found that while the XL1's fuel efficiency might be superb, it might also be somewhat overblown as presented in promotional materials: Car and Driver The XL1 should run 31 miles solely on electric power, says [VW development engineer Ulrich] Mitze. But on the cold and rainy April day we drove it, the small, 60-cell, 5.5-kWh, 150-pound lithium-ion battery pack needed a recharge after only 22 miles.  According to the on-board computer, we are fuel hogs. Having started with a full tank (2.6 gallons) and fully charged batteries, we ended our trip after 67 miles; fuel consumption plummeted at one point to a dismal 128 mpg. Achieving the XL1's theoretical 749-mile range would take a right foot as light as a moonbeam. As for why only Europe, the answer is that the U.S. does have many safety standards in place (enacted many years ago a variety of reasons, none of which was to keep high-mileage vehicles off the U.S. market) that all automobile manufacturers have to meet in order to legally sell their vehicles in America, regulations that sometimes require manufacturers to modify or retrofit models that were produced for sale under less strict regulations in Europe (or other parts of the world).  If Volkswagen wants to test-market their XL1 in limited quantities, there's no reason for them to expend millions of dollars preparing and certifying those vehicles for U.S. safety standards when they can vend  their small lot of cars just as well in the European market without all the added expense.  As noted by USA Today: The XL1 [is] a spaceship-like, ultra-high-mpg, plug-in diesel-electric hybrid. VW used exotic, but obtainable, materials and technologies to craft a mileage-above-all car able to get 261 mpg in European tests, equating, very roughly, to perhaps 200 mpg in U.S. tests. Barely a real production model, it's made in a factory, but largely by hand. It couldn't meet U.S. safety rules and needed changes in German rules to be on the road there. And if one buys into the conspiracy theory that the government and Big Oil are colluding to keep high-mileage vehicles off the U.S. market in order to protect profits from gasoline sales, one has to wonder why those powerful and malevolent entities aren't doing anything to stop Americans from purchasing cars produced by Tesla, superbly-performing vehicles that use no gasoline at all yet still deliver premium performance, have great range for electric cars, have received the highest rating of any automobile ever evaluated by Consumer Reports, are top-rated for safety even under tougher U.S. standards, but are widely available for purchase in the U.S.: Tesla Most Americans may never actually see a Tesla Model S sedan in person, but you will want to know why this car is so important to the automotive industry and what all the media fuss is about. Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by a group of intrepid Silicon Valley engineers who set out to prove that electric vehicles could be awesome. The name of the company pays homage to Nicola Tesla, a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. As the California automakers first production model, the Tesla Model S is 100 percent electric, a car so advanced it sets the new standard for premium performance. This is not a hybrid, nor is it equipped with any kind of "range expanding" gasoline engine. At the heart of the vehicle is the proven Tesla powertrain, delivering both unprecedented range and a thrilling drive experience. The Tesla Model S has won the 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year award, received the highest rating of any automobile in history from Consumer Reports (99 out of 100) and achieved the best possible US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rating. Unlike the internal combustion engine with hundreds of moving pieces that spark, pump, belch, and groan, the Tesla motor has only one moving piece: the rotor. As a result, Model S acceleration is instantaneous, like flipping a switch. Hit the accelerator. In 5.4 seconds, Model S is traveling 60 miles per hour, without hesitation and without a drop of gasoline. As in so many cases, what is attributed to furtive conspiracy is more easily explained away as wishful thinking colliding with the hard, cold realities of economics. Last updated:  14 April 2014    Healey, James R.  "Test Drive: VW XL1 Shows How to Get 200 MPG."   USA Today.  7 December 2013.     Ingram, Antony.  "261 MPG Volkswagen XL1 Production Confirmed, Debuts Geneva."   Green Car Reports.  21 February 2013.     Ingram, Antony.  "Orders for 261-MPG Volkswagen XL1 Exceed Production of 200."   Green Car Reports.  28 October 2013.     Zoellter, Juergen.  "2014 Volkswagen XL1."   Car and Driver.  June 2013.     Green Bay Press Gazette.  "2014 Tesla Model S Sedan Takes the Electric Car to a New Level."   14 April 2014. In late March and early April 2020, social media users revisited a 2018 tweet posted by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Senior Fellow Stephen Schwartz, in which he paraphrased a Washington Post article that reported the Trump administration had disbanded the National Security Council's pandemic response team. tweet Stephen Schwartz article The tweet, dated May 10, 2018, read, "When the next pandemic occurs (and make no mistake, it will) and the federal government is unable to respond in a coordinated and effective fashion to protect the lives of US citizens and others, this decision by John Bolton and Donald Trump will be why."Some who shared the tweet amid the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 pointed to the date of the tweet and noted its apparent prescience. But Schwartz followed up on March 15, 2020, by thanking the experts quoted in the article, who themselves raised the alarm that the actions of U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration regarding pandemic preparedness left the United States vulnerable:The people tagged in Schwartz' tweet are global health and development advocate Carolyn Reynolds; Jeremy Konyndyk, who led foreign disaster assistance for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under President Barack Obama; and Luciana Borio, former director for the National Security Council's Medical and Biodefense Preparedness under Trump. tweet  followed up  Those three were quoted in the Post's 2018 report in the following passage: This week, the administration released a list of $15 billion in spending cuts it wants Congress to approve. Among the targets is $252 million in unused funds remaining from the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people, far exceeding the combined total cases reported in about 20 previous outbreaks since the 1970s. list of $15 billion in spending cuts The White House proposal is threatening to claw back funding whose precise purpose is to help the United States be able to respond quickly in the event of a crisis, said Carolyn Reynolds, a vice president at PATH, a global health technology nonprofit. Collectively, warns Jeremy Konyndyk, who led foreign disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Obama administration, What this all adds up to is a potentially really concerning rollback of progress on U.S. health security preparedness. It seems to actively unlearn the lessons we learned through very hard experience over the last 15 years, said Konyndyk, now a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. These moves make us materially less safe. Its inexplicable. The day before news of [Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense Timothy] Ziemers exit became public, one of the officials on his team, Luciana Borio, director of medical and biodefense preparedness at the NSC, spoke at a symposium at Emory University to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918 influenza pandemic. That event killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million people worldwide. 1918 influenza pandemic The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health security concern, she told the audience. Are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is no. Sun, Lena H."Top White House Official in Charge of Pandemic Response Exits Abruptly."
 The Washington Post.10 May 2018. Sun, Lena H."The Trump Administration Is Ill-Prepared for a Global Pandemic."
 The Washington Post.8 April 2017. Sun, Lena H."Bill Gates Calls on U.S. to Lead Fight Against a Pandemic that Could Kill 33 Million."
 The Washington Post.27 April 2018. The introduction of new EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) technology has enhanced the security of debit and credit card transactions by replacing standard cards with ones embedded with small computer chips  thats extremely hard to counterfeit.  The addition of the chips makes the cards much harder to counterfeit and provides for additional authentication and security during point-of-sale transactions. The manner in which EMV cards are physically handled during a sales transaction is somewhat different than with older cards, however.  Rather than being swiped through a point-of-sale (POS) terminal, EMV cards are inserted (or "dipped") into the terminal and left in place for the entire transaction so that the reader and card can talk back and forth. EMV cards can be either swiped or dipped (since not all merchants are yet set up with EMV-compliant card readers), and that duality has led to some confusion among consumers about whether liability for fraudulent transactions shifts depending upon how an EMV card is processed.  Specifically, some consumers have heard rumors that swiping an EMV card rather than dipping it leaves them (rather than the merchant or card issuer) liable for any ensuing fraudulent use of the card. The issue of fraud liability has evolved with the introduction of EMV cards, but that liability has not been passed back onto cardholders.  According to CreditCards.com, that evolution solely concerns determining whether the merchant or the card issuer is the party bears liability for fraud in any given case  cardholders themselves remain protected from liability, regardless of whether their EMV cards are swiped or dipped: CreditCards.com Cardholders may be adjusting to "dipping" their chip cards instead of swiping them, but they won't have to adjust to fraud liability changes. If an authorized transaction occurs against a consumer's credit account, they will continue to be reimbursed by their card issuer for the charges per the major networks' (Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover) zero-liability policies. If the issuer finds that the fraud occurred at a non-EMV compliant merchant, it can request a refund for the chargeback transaction, but the consumer is not involved. Consumers will not be responsible for fraud charges that result from a merchant not being prepared to properly accept EMV cards or because their card issuer has not yet sent them a chip-embedded card. What the new rules govern is whether merchants or card issuers (i.e., banks and credit unions) are liable in cases of credit card fraud, with responsibility now falling upon whichever party was least EMV-compliant: Today, if an in-store transaction is conducted using a counterfeit, stolen or otherwise compromised card, consumer losses from that transaction fall back on the payment processor or issuing bank, depending on the card's terms and conditions. Following an Oct. 1, 2015 deadline created by major U.S. credit card issuers MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express, the liability for card-present fraud shifted to whichever party is the least EMV-compliant in a fraudulent transaction. Consider the example of a financial institution that issues a chip card used at a merchant that has not changed its system to accept chip technology. This allows a counterfeit card to be successfully used. "The cost of the fraud will fall back on the merchant," [chip card service company president Martin] Ferenczi says. The change is intended to help bring the entire payment industry on board with EMV by encouraging compliance to avoid liability costs. A separate article on that web site illustrated the liability shifts with a chart: illustrated  Many consumers have noticed that although some merchants have seemingly upgraded to EMV-compliant POS terminals, the card slots on those terminals are puzzlingly non-operational (and thus require that customers swipe their chipped cards).  As the New York Times noted  in March 2016, that situation is the result of merchants' having to wait for certification of their terminals: noted  Avi Kaner, a co-owner of the Morton Williams supermarket chain in New York, has spent about $700,000 to update the payment terminals at his stores. Trouble is, he cannot turn them on. The new terminals can accept credit and debit cards with embedded digital chips, a security feature intended to reduce the number of fraudulent purchases. But before the payment systems can work, they must be certified, a process that Mr. Kaner and many retailers around the country are waiting to happen. In the case of Morton Williams, the holdup has lasted several months. The cost of waiting, retailers say, is piling up. Until recently, banks covered much of the cost of fraudulent purchases. Since Oct. 1, though, merchants that cannot accept chip cards have had to shoulder the cost of fraud, and banks have not been shy about passing along the bill. For years, retailers have argued that the technology, commonly referred to as E.M.V., which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, the technologys early advocates, mainly protected banks. Mr. Peterson estimated that only 40 to 50 percent of retailers are capable of accepting chip cards. Kaner told the newspaper he believed consumers were taking advantage of the interim period to file suspicious chargebacks due to the shift in liability: Mr. Kaner worries that some customers may be using the Oct. 1 liability shift to get out of paying for legitimate purchases. The number of chargebacks, he said, has risen sharply. It started out as a trickle, and now its turning into a flood, he said. In the first couple months, it might have been a few hundred dollars a month. Now, its thousands a month. Terry Crowley, CEO of processor TranSend, told KrebsonSecurity that consumer dishonesty was a larger issue than consumer liability during the transition period: told Crowley predicts that plenty of smaller merchants could soon get hit with a wave of chargebacks from unscrupulous people abusing the liability shift at merchants that still dont offer the chip dip. Theres an invisible hand at work that is about to kick everyone in the pants and accelerate U.S. dipping into EMV slots, Crowley said. If you use a chip card at a point of sale that says swipe   and you later say that wasnt me  theres very little a merchant can do to dispute that charge. Its going to happen because what people arent thinking about is the friendly fraud. When people are made aware that if I swipe and I have a chip card, that lunch can be free if Im a bad consumer. It's possible cardholders have confused information intended for merchants as being directed at them.Processor Square published a short instructional guide for the EMV card liability shift that might have caused such confusion among consumers who didn't realize the pronoun "you" referred to merchants and not cardholders: instructional guide  But, in short, consumers don't have to adjust to fraud liability changes with EMV cards.  That's an issue for merchants and card issuers to sort out between them. Abrams, Rachel.  "Chip-Card Payment System Delays Frustrate Retailers."
  The New York Times.  22 March 2016. Kossman, Sienna.  "7 Merchant Tips to Understanding EMV Fraud Liability Shift."
  CreditCards.com.  21 June 2016. Kossman, Sienna.  "8 FAQs About EMV Credit Cards."
  CreditCards.com.  17 June 2016. KrebsonSecurity.  "The Great EMV Fake-Out: No Chip for You!"
  16 February 2016. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In December 2020, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, the FBI and other federal agencies began to warn of fraudsters exploiting interest in the newly released vaccine. INTERPOL, as well, issued an Orange Notice alerting law enforcement to "potential criminal activity in relation to the falsification, theft and illegal advertising of COVID-19 and flu vaccines." approved warn Orange Notice One area where these scams have reportedly proliferated is the so-called dark web. Broadly speaking, the dark web refers to unindexed content on the internet that can not be searched for and that, among other things, contains several anonymous marketplaces and forums that purport to sell a wide range of illicit material. On Feb. 8, 2021, CBS News reported that "in just the last six weeks, the number of vaccine ads on the dark web has exploded," adding that "the asking prices have doubled or even quadrupled." reportedly refers reported For a Dec. 25, 2020, segment on PlanetMoney, NPR spoke to Chad Anderson, a senior security researcher at the cyberthreat intelligence agency Domain Tools. "We're a cyberthreat intelligence data company," he explained, "so we scan the entire Internet as many times as we can every single day and give insights to customers based upon what we see." Back then, he argued the vaccine ads popping up on the dark web were clearly scams. NPR Chad Anderson "For one thing," NPR correspondent Stacey Vanek Smith explained, "the Pfizer vaccine requires a very intense cold storage chain. The vaccines have to be kept at negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit." And also, she added, "the COVID vaccine ads are mixed in with ads for all kinds of other things, and Chad says that tends to be a red flag." At the time of this reporting, the only two FDA-approved vaccines are the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine. Both shots are mRNA vaccines, and as such they both require this high level of refrigeration for transport. explained Snopes reached out to Anderson to ask if ads for vaccines on dark web marketplaces still appeared to be scams, as of February 2021. "Just went and took a look at the last of the 'reputable' markets [on the dark web] and I still don't see any COVID vaccines for sale on there," he wrote to us by email, adding that he did see some ads for the largely discredited treatment hydroxychloroquine, but not much else on the COVID-19 front. One problem with the dark web, however, is that there is no requirement for "reputable behavior" and few safeguards against predatory behavior. Several media reports have cited a dark web market named Agartha as having ads for COVID-19 vaccines. Indeed it does  several hundred of them, according to a recent analysis by Snopes  but these ads are all comically obvious frauds. One ad listed under "opiates," for instance, asked for "mutual trust" in its effort to sell some "Moderona" vaccine: media reports   Other ads claim to be able to ship the Pfizer vaccine, which as a reminder requires extreme refrigeration for storage, by FedEx at no additional cost. Many ads, like the one below, don't even specify what vaccine product they purport to sell. Instead, the ad appears to be a bait-and-switch for a seller peddling other drugs ranging from marijuana to fentanyl:   According to DomainTools' Anderson, "Agartha is considered an entire scam market." He added that "I've never thrown money into my user wallet on there, but I have heard from others that the moment you do it's immediately siphoned off to another wallet that I would assume is the wallet of those running the site." CBS News, in its reporting, cited the work of cybersecurity company Check Point. That firm attempted to purchase COVID-19 vaccines from various dark web sellers, even sending a Bitcoin payment to one. "A few days after the Bitcoin transaction, Check Point received a message from the vendor saying the vaccine had been shipped, CBS reported. "Then a few days later, that vendor's account completely disappeared from the site." They never received any product in return, and the firm concluded that none of the sellers they found actually had any vaccine to sell.  reported Overt fraud aside, a possibility remains that as more easily transportable vaccines are approved and produced, a dark web black market for vaccines could develop. "As time goes by, and more people get access to legitimate doses, there's always the possibility that some of that real product could make its way onto the dark web," CBS reported. "More providers will lead to looser shipping restrictions," Anderson agreed. reported The risks from engaging in these transactions are multifaceted. Outside of a potential loss of money, there are risks of receiving unknown and dangerous drugs instead of a vaccine or having identifying information stolen. "In addition to the dangers of ordering potentially life-threatening products," a December 2020 Interpol news release stated, "an analysis by the INTERPOLs Cybercrime Unit revealed that of 3,000 websites associated with online pharmacies suspected of selling illicit medicines and medical devices, around 1,700 contained cyber threats, especially phishing and spamming malware." In other words, even if these listings were not overt scams, it's not worth the risk. stated Because at this time there are several ads for COVID-19 vaccines on various dark web markets of low repute, but that none of them appear to be legitimate, we rate the claim that the vaccines are for sale as "false." Claim:  Macy's is giving out $200 gift cards to users who follow three simple steps on Facebook.  Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2014]Macy's has a giveaway of $200 on Facebook.  Is it legitimate?   Origins:  In November 2014 a popular survey scam targeting Facebook users and major retailers emerged with a new variation, this time promising a $200 Macy's gift card for users who completed three short steps after clicking a link on the social network. The $200 Macy's gift card link was  virtually identical to prior scams dangling the lure of $200  Costco gift card, $100 Kohl's gift cards, and $200 Kroger  gift cards. Costco Kohl's Kroger In all the scams, users were redirected to a page which appeared to be both legitimately branded by the named retailer and nearly identical to Facebook's pop-up "like and share" functionality. However, the prompts were phony, associated with neither Facebook nor the referenced big-name retailers. On 10 November 2014, the official Macy's Facebook page was deluged with queries about this purported giveaway. The brand's social media managers responded, confirming the Macy's $200 gift card offer was fake and all legitimate contests were run through Macy's official page: Macy's Currently, we are not running any giveaways. Any official Macy's contests are shared by us, through our official Facebook page and other social channels. Thank you again for asking! -Chris at Macy's As noted in an earlier Facebook scam giveaway post, the Better Business Bureau offered three tips to avoid similar scams on social networks: three tips Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender.  Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy.  Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. The bulk of big giveaways from stores such as Macy's are conducted through the brand's official social media channels and rarely require users to provide personal information. Chances are if you've been redirected off an official Facebook page for any given brand, the giveaway claim is not on the up and up. Last updated:  10 November 2014 Assupply chain issuesmount, some Facebook users are sharing an image that purports to show a turkey for sale at Target for an eye-popping price: $123,199, and $9,999.99 per pound. No Turkey for Thanksgiving this year, said one suchFacebook postuploaded Oct. 12. The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about ourpartnership with Facebook.) Some Facebook users who reacted to the post blamed President Joe Biden for the crazy cost the viral image showed, leaving comments such as inflation is killing us and thanks Joe. An Oct. 12 Facebook post falsely claimed this old photo was this year. But while supply chain backlogscould affectthe cost and availability of Thanksgiving turkeys, the photo of a $123,000 bird at Target is several years old  and its nowhere near reflective of the true cost of a frozen turkey at the retail and grocery giant, which is many times lower. PolitiFact found the same photo posted in November 2015 onRedditand the image sharing serviceImgur. The price tag in the photo also includes an expiration date of April 15, 2016. The price tag lists a Target store at the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis as the location of the photo, and PolitiFact confirmed that the pricing was an error at a single store in 2015. The Reddit user who appears to have first uploaded the image in November of that year wrote on the forum that he brought the turkey to a cashier, but the ticket didnt have a barcode to scan. The $123,000 price is exponentially higher than the cost of a frozen turkey at Target  or at other U.S. grocery stores, according torecent datafrom theU.S. Department of Agriculture. Targets websitecurrently showsthat similarly sized frozen turkeys are going for a max price of about $23 at the same location in Minneapolis, and $1.39 per pound. We rate this Facebook post False. On 7 December 2016, conspiracy web site SuperStation95 published a post reporting that 86-year-old astronaut Buzz Aldrin (who had just been evacuated from the South Pole due to health concerns) had mysteriously and alarmingly tweeted a photograph of a mountain along with a chilling comment:  post evacuated His words: "We are all in danger. It is evil itself." and showed a photograph of a pyramid located at the South Pole as show here. Mr. Aldrin seems to be referring to this object, as seen in an serial photo from Google Earth ... As has been reported by worldwide media, US Secretary of State John Kerry recently traveled to the South Pole, allegedly to become better informed about "Climate Change." Kerry was the highest ranking US government official ever to visit the South Pole, and his visit struck many as unusual. Few saw any purpose whatsoever to sending America's top Diplomat to the farthest reaches of the earth to see ... ice. Now, with Buzz Aldrin's tweet, and its strange deletion, folks are wondering if sending America's top Diplomat to no-man's land, perhaps had something to do with Diplomacy after all. Is there some entity there with which we need Diplomatic contact? ... If so, why did Buzz Aldrin warn that we are all in danger? Why did he call it "Evil itself?" The blog post, which was a pparently inspired by a 6 December 2016 thread on the conspiracy forum  Before It's News, cited two tweets as a first and second source for the photograph. One included an embedded video which referenced the SuperStation95 post as its source, making it useless as supporting confirmation: forum  What did Buzz Aldrin mean and WHY did he delete this tweet? "We are all in danger. It is evil itself. pic.twitter.com/tYb9IFCfZk pic.twitter.com/tYb9IFCfZk  slone (@slone) December 7, 2016 December 7, 2016 Buzz Aldrin Warns "it is evil itself"https://t.co/i0mqoHnh5y https://t.co/i0mqoHnh5y  Christopher Horn (@NightHorn) December 9, 2016 December 9, 2016  Images of the purported tweet circulated widely after 7 December 2016, but there were a number of visual cues the graphic was altered:   For contrast, here's a screenshot taken of a then-recent tweet sent via Aldrin's @TheRealBuzz account:   The first tweet did not have a date, share count, number of replies, number of favorites, or number of retweets; all could be used to determine whether Twitter's archive backed the claims made by the sites. Additional irregularities existed in the background display of Aldrin's account: The suspect tweet didn't display in the same manner it did in our screenshot. Aldrin's account data was oddly arranged, and his blue verification checkmark was missing.  SuperStation95 did not provide a date, time, or sturdy source for the screenshot of the tweet. Using Twitter's "advanced search" tool, we were able to determine that no retweets or "modified tweets" (a form of copying and pasting a retweet) existed anywhere on Twitter. The first verbal mention of the purported tweet appeared on 8 December 2016, one day after the blog post linked above. no retweets It wasn't just skeptics questioning the authenticity of the claim. YouTube's SecureTeam (the self-described "number one source for breaking news and exposure of the alien phenomenon") examined the claim, quickly dismissing it as a forgery: questioning After appearing in late 2015, Superstation95 began using what were often legitimate tragedies or unfortunate events (such as Buzz Aldrin's evacuation from Antarctica in December 2016) with falsified and often frightening details. Among the most prominent were claims that a large group of Muslim men had fired randomly upon campers and hikers in California, Fukushima radiation caused severe mutations in ocean-dwelling creatures, cargo ships mysteriously ground to a halt signaling nothing short of an imminent global economic catastrophe, a deadly Las Vegas strip car crash involved a driver shouting "Allahu Akbar," the San Bernardino shooting was provoked by pork served at a holiday party shortly before the massacre, the Earth's "magnetosphere" inexplicably collapsed for two hours, a (nonexistent) suicide note left by a genuinely deceased ICE agent revealed impending FEMA camp implementation and mass enslavement, and that articles about the Orlando shooting appeared on Google News hours before the attack. Although the pieces sometimes contained details of real-life events, the claims were always willfully distorted to peddle a false and upsetting conclusion. Muslim men Fukushima cargo ships Allahu Akbar San Bernardino magnetosphere ICE agent Orlando shooting Superstation95's opportunistic leveraging of tragedy has never borne out as the real thing, despite the innumerable grandiose claims made since the site's inception. However, despite them, no one has yet gone to FEMA camp, the global economy has not melted down, the magnetosphere caused no space-based catastrophes, and no hikers were reported injured or dead as a result of roving Muslim shooters. Claim: A Facebook coupon offering 50% off at Target stores is real.  Example: [Collected via Facebook, November2015]I saw this on Facebook this afternoon. Similar to the Kohl's hoax coupon going around in the last week or so.   Origins: InNovember 2015, a survey scam began circulating on Facebook which promised users 50% off at Target stores in exchange for liking, commenting, and sharing the scam with their friends:    The scam circulated via a variety of images and directed people toseveral different URLs (such as holidayschristmas.com and Coupon-Christmas.com), none of which were associated with Target stores:   Once users commented, shared and liked the coupon  ensuring that the scam reached a wider audience  they were directed to a survey site where they were required to provide personal information, fill out surveys, and make a purchase before they could retrieve their coupons. Even then, however, a 50% off Target coupon was unlikely to materialize, as this promotion wasnotconnected with the store: not   These survey scams are quite popular on Facebook. The customers of Target (previously)Costco,Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, and Walmarthave all been targeted by similar scams. Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Walmart These ruses are so prevalent that theBetter Business Bureauissued a warning about them in 2014:Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Better Business Bureau Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions.    Last updated: 25 November 2015 Originally published: 25 November 2015