Fraudulent Email Impersonating Whole Foods Market Research Secret Shopper Program
In October 2022, we received reader mail about a "Whole Foods Market Research" scam. The scam arrives in the form of an email, text, or mailed letter, and claims that the recipient has been chosen to be a secret shopper for Whole Foods Market. The goal of the scammer is to get the recipient to deposit a check into the recipient's bank account. However, unbeknownst to the recipient, the check is fake. The scammer is to quickly task the recipient to buy gift cards and then provide the identifying details on the front and back. Alternatively, the scammer might ask the recipient to initiate a wire transfer or money order to send back a partial amount of the funds from the check. The scammer claims that the recipient can keep a portion of the funds for the work. However, again, the check is fake, so recipients are spending their own money to buy gift cards for the scammers. We reviewed one example of this scam that arrived as an email. It came from wholefoodsmarketresearchllc@gmail.com, which was not an official Whole Foods email address. It claimed to come from a person named Jerry A. Wallace, a purported human resources (HR) representative. A previous version of this scam named Wallace as a "project manager," according to scampulse.com. We found no evidence of a person with this name being a real employee for Whole Foods. according to scampulse.com  The original email, which contained several store name misspellings, read as follows: wholefoodsmarketresearchllc@gmail.com wrote: Attn: (name removed) You submitted your information to one of our recruitment agencies to work as a Whole Foods Market Research representative. Your details have been verified and you have been shortlisted as one of our representatives. Here is your unique I.D. number MS6953, your details have been stored in our database. Our company has recently been contracted to do a quality survey on Target, King Soopers, Walmart Stores, Best Buy, Post Office, CVS, Rite Aid, Ebay, Kmart, Pizza Hut, Kroger, Walgreen, Dillons OR 7Eleven e.t.c. We have shortlisted a few representatives from various states and cities to visit any of the stores listed above randomly, to buy merchandise and share their experience via our feedback Checklist/Assessment form. You will receive an envelope containing a Cashier's Check and the Instructions Letter. The Checklist/Assessment Form will be sent/attached to your mail. Please signify your interest with a Yes, I'm Ready. Thank you. Best Regards,Whole Foods Market ResearchHR Personnel :- Jerry A. WallaceCell :- (216) 239-2582 We called the phone number listed in the email. After several rings, a voice message was played that said, "The TextNow subscriber you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave your message after the tone." The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) previously published a full report on this scam back in 2020: full report People spotted signs of a fake check scam in the bogus Whole Foods secret shopper offer (which was from a scammer, not really Whole Foods). Thats when someone sends you a check and convinces you to deposit it and quickly send them money. In this scam, the recruiter would send shoppers a check for more than $2,000 and they would: fake check scam 1. Cash or deposit the check immediately.2. Buy gift cards with most of the money.3. Keep about $450 as their pay.4. Scratch the coating off the gift cards to show the PIN codes.5. Send pictures of the cards front and back (with the codes) to the recruiter. If anyone ever tells you to deposit a check, withdraw money, and send it to someone, thats a scam. When the check later turns out to be fake, the bank will want the money back. And if anyone tells you to go buy gift cards and share the PIN numbers, thats a scam, too. Once the scammer has the PIN, they also have all the money from the cards. The FTC said this scam can be reported at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. They also added, "If you already cashed a fake check and sent money to a scammer, find out how to report to gift card, wire transfer, and money order businesses." ReportFraud.ftc.gov find out how In sum, both we and the FTC advise consumers to not respond to any emails, texts, or mailed letters that invite recipients to work as a secret shopper for "Whole Foods Market Research." How To Spot, Avoid, and Report Fake Check Scams. U.S. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Advice, 29 Jan. 2020, https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-spot-avoid-report-fake-check-scams. Imposter H-SON LIMITED Reports & Reviews. Scampulse.com, 6 Oct. 2021, https://www.scampulse.com/imposter-h-son-limited-reviews. Small, Bridget. Fake Offers for Secret Shopper Jobs. U.S. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Advice, 3 Mar. 2020, https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2020/03/fake-offers-secret-shopper-jobs. Tressler, Colleen. Anatomy of a Fake Check Scam. U.S. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Advice, 5 Sept. 2018, https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2018/09/anatomy-fake-check-scam.
Claim:  Marco Polo said: "The militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim."  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2015] A quote attributed to Marco Polo.  Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant whose travels are recorded in the Book of the Marvels of the World, was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his travel experience through Central Asia and China. "The militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim." Is this accurate and attributed to Polo? Origins:  The Book of the Marvels of the World, more commonly known in English as The Travels of Marco Polo, is a travelogue compiled in the 13th century by Rustichello da Pisa.  The work was based on accounts told to da Pisa by Venetian merchant traveler Marco Polo when the two men were imprisoned together in Genoa and comprises tales of Polo's world travels and his experiences at the court of Kublai Khan.  The  Book of the Marvels of the World includes descriptions of a number of different cultures and comments about the religion of Islam, but neither Marco Polo nor the compiler of his travel tales wrote a "militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim." The referenced quote has been circulating on the Internet for several years and seems to have originated in an article titled "The Alien Concept of Free Speech" published on a web site called Islamic Scriptures Unveiled.  That article offered up several quotes from "great thinkers" about Islam, including the phrase that has since been attributed to Marco Polo. But credit for that quotation was given to a professor of philosophy named Dr. M. Sabieski, not the famous Venetian traveler.  originated It's uncertain when Marco Polo's name became incorrectly attached to the "militant Muslim" quote, but it probably started after the Islam Watch web site reproduced the quotes used in the "Alien Concepts of Free Speech" article in August 2008. Islam Watch changed the order of many of the quotes and placed Marco Polo's name below the words originally attributed to Sabieski: reproduced  These quotes have subsequently been copied and pasted to various blogs over the years, and somewhere along the line Dr. M. Sabieski's name was elided.  An e-mail circulated in January 2015 under the title "Marco Polo Got It Right" included the quote superimposed over an image of Marco Polo: Marco Polo got it right. Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant whose travels are recorded in the Book of the Marvels of the World, was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his travel experience through Central Asia and China.  There is no mention of "moderate" or "militant" Muslims in Book of the Marvels of the World. Marco Polo's name apparently became attached to the quotation now credited to him only because his name appeared in close proximity to the statement when it was reproduced online in 2008.  So that's the end of that, right? Well, the origins of the quote are still something a mystery, as no reliable information about Dr. M. Sabieski, the professor of philosophy who was originally credited for these words, is currently available. Last updated:  23 January 2015 Joe Biden does not support the call from racial-justice activists to defund the police. In a USA Today op-ed, he proposed other policies for rooting out systemic racism in American laws and institutions, focusing on economic opportunities. Homeownership is key to financial stability and building generational wealth, Biden wrote, yet the share of African Americans who own their homes is significantly lower than for whites. Today, the gap between African American and white homeownership is larger than it was in the late 1960s,Biden wrotein the June 10 op-ed. We have to give local officials the tools to combat gentrification, end discriminatory lending practices, and eliminate exclusionary zoning laws designed to keep low-income people and people of color out of certain communities. Is Biden right about the homeownership gap being larger now than in the late 1960s? His op-ed linked to an October 2019reportfrom the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. Researchers there told PolitiFact that Biden accurately referenced their findings, and their data aligned with the U.S. Census Bureau numbers, which also backed Bidens claim. RELATED: Seeking reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates says typical Blacks have one-tenth the wealth of whites The homeownership rate refers to the share of households living in owner-occupied homes, rather than renting. The Urban Institute said that in 2017, the white homeownership rate was 71.9% compared with 41.8% for Blacks. (The gap was similar in 2019 and during the first quarter of 2020.) The Black homeownership rate in 2017 was at its lowest level in 50 years and also the lowest of all racial and ethnic groups, according to the Urban Institute. The racial homeownership gap between Black households and white households is more than 30 percentage points, which is greater than it was before the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, the Urban Institute report said. Its difficult to say what the homeownership rate for Black and white Americans was in a given year in the 1960s, because the Census Bureau does not have yearly data on homeownership by race for that decade. (That detailed data is available for the 1970s and later.) Still, the available data show the homeownership gap was lower in 1960 and 1970 than it is now. Homeownership rate by race, according to a1994 Census Bureau report: 1960: white 64.4%, Black 38.4% (26-point gap)1970: white 65.2%, Black 41.6% (23.6-point gap)   The Urban Institute provided similar figures to PolitiFact for the 1960s and 1970s. The homeownership rates for non-Hispanic Blacks and non-Hispanic whites generallydecreasedfrom 2007 through 2016. Since then, the rate for whites has been ticking back up, while Blacks have had a mix of up and down years. RELATED: Fact-checking Mike Bloombergs response to redlining attack Among the factors cited for the racial homeownership gap, according to the Urban Institutes report: Black Americans have lower median household income. Black households are less likely to have a bachelors degree or higher education level, limiting income potential. White households tend to have higher credit scores and longer credit histories. Marital status has a strong association with homeownership rates, and residents of Black households are less likely to get married. The racial gap in homeownership is also rooted in federal housing policies, created in the 20th century in response to the Great Depression, that explicitly discriminated against African American, Latino, and other families of color by denying them access to federally insured mortgage programs because of their race, Nikitra Bailey, executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending,tolda House committee in May 2019. The recession of 2008-10 also wiped out 30 years of homeownership gains for African Americans, Bailey said. Evidence shows that a large number of borrowers of color were targeted and steered into toxic mortgages, even when they qualified for safer and more responsible loans with cheaper costs. Biden said, Today, the gap between African American and white homeownership is larger than it was in the late 1960s. This claim is supported by research from the Urban Institute and data from the Census Bureau. We rate Bidens statement True. Following the arrest of Cesar Sayoc on charges that he sent mail bombs to prominent Democrats and anti-Trump media figures, the pro-Trump conspiracy contingent attempted to paint the suspect as a Democrat who posed as a Republican  innuendo suggesting that Sayocs true goals were to inflict political damage on President Donald Trump and his agenda. Representative of this claim was a 26 October 2018 Facebook meme that labeled Sayoc as a Democrat posing as a Republican and asserted he had recently put his infamous pro-Trump stickers on his van, describing those (false) claims as suspicious: meme   No evidence documents that Sayoc was a "lifelong Democrat"  all signs point to his being relatively apolitical until 2015, although it appeared he attempted to register as a Republican twice in October 2012. And Sayocs van had sported pro-Trump stickers since at least 2017, and it had contained pro-Trump material since at least 2015. appeared Although news reports have stated that Sayocs relatives are Democrats, Cesar Sayoc has never been registered as a Democrat. His only known voter registration listed his political affiliation as the Florida Republican Party, and it was filed two weeks before Trump won that states GOP primary. Additionally a public records request yielded documents indicating that Sayoc had attempted to register as a Republican twice in October 2012 but failed to complete his application in both cases: reports documents Records from the Miami-Dade County Elections Department show that on two occasions in October 2012  Oct. 9 and Oct. 26  Sayoc initiated, but didnt complete, new voter registration applications. Both times, he checked the box next to "Republican Party" as his party affiliation. On Oct. 9, 2012, he checked the box that said his was a "new registration," but it appears he left blank the answer to a question about whether hed ever been "adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting." On Oct. 26, 2012, he didnt check any of the boxes indicating the reason behind his registration application (i.e. new registration, address change, name change, party change, etc.) Near the top of that form, someone scribbled, "INCOMP," indicating it was incomplete. According to news reports, most people who interacted with Sayoc prior to 2015 stated he did not appear to be overtly political. Ronald Lowy, a lawyer for the Sayoc family who represented Cesar during a 2002 case in which he threatened to bomb an electric company over a bill he disputed, told the New York Times that Sayoc seemed to have no outspoken partisan views during the 2002 case. told Daniel Lurvey represented Sayoc against theft charges in 2013 and 2014, and he told the Washington Examiner that he could not recall Sayoc's ever discussing politics. Instead, it appears that Sayocs chief interests during this time were bodybuilding and wrestling. told The pattern appeared to have changed by 2015. Sayoc showed up at a Brevard College alumni event for his soccer team that year, where former team members stated that he quickly made clear he was a fanatical supporter of Mr. Trump, and bombarded them with racist and misogynist conspiracy theories. Since that time, Sayoc had been an outspoken and fanatical supporter of Donald Trump and an equally outspoken opponent of Democrats online: stated On Twitter and Facebook, he railed against former President Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey with misspelled racial epithets, threatened former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and praised President Trump and conservative causes. His social-media feeds were an electronic version of the white van carted away by law-enforcement officials on Friday morning, which was covered in stickers praising Mr. Trump, condemning liberals and putting cross hairs over an image of Hillary Clinton. In 2015, as part of a likely effort to make a false insurance claim, Sayoc reported to police that $45,000 worth of suits and costumes he needed for his business were stolen from his van. According to the New York Times, the police report noted that of the 139 pieces he said were taken, 11 were the presidents clothing brand. police report It is unclear exactly when the outside of Sayoc's van was first festooned with pro-Trump political stickers, but the van had been a common sighting in the South Florida region since at least New Year's Eve of 2017, as reported by the Sun Sentinel: reported I saw this van dozens of times. It always struck me, always unsettled me. It appeared that somebody at times was in the van, though it was hard to tell because of the windows, said David Cypkin, a documentary film producer who co-produced 2006s Cocaine Cowboys" ... Cypkin encountered the van regularly when he lived near the Shoppes at the Waterways in Aventura, where it was regularly parked. Cypkin believed someone could be living in the van, and finally, on the morning of New Years Eve 2017, he snapped a few quick pictures so he could get a better look at some of the stickers later. I had seen it there at least a year, Cypkin said. Assertions that Cesar Sayoc had lifelong Democratic political leanings or that his van was covered in stickers only immediately before his mail-bombing attempts do not hold up to any level of scrutiny. ORourke, Ciara.  "Pipe Bomb Suspect's Florida Voting Records Show Only Republican Affiliation." 
  PolitiFact.  5 November 2018. Healy, Jack et al.  "Cesar Sayoc, Mail Bombing Suspect, Found an Identity in Political Rage and Resentment." 
  The New York Times.  27 October 2018. Nelson, Steven.  "Mail Bomb Suspect Cesar Sayoc Was a 'Big Muscle Head' Stripper, Says Former Boss." 
  Washington Examiner.  26 October 2018. Sweeney, Dan.  "'I Thought He Looked Like a Shooter': Why People Took Pictures of Cesar Sayoc's Van." 
  Sun Sentinel.  26 October 2018. In late November 2023, Facebook users shared variations of a viral warning about a relatively new iPhone feature called NameDrop, also known as "Bringing Devices Together." The posts hinted that NameDrop, dubbed by Apple as "a new AirDrop experience," was dangerous, and said that users needed to take action to protect their privacy and security. Multiple U.S. police department Facebook pages also shared the warnings, which perhaps was one of the reasons that we received so many reader emails about this rumor. U.S. police department Facebook pages We reviewed multiple versions of the same warning about NameDrop on iPhone devices. One such warning read as follows: warning IMPORTANT PRIVACY UPDATE: If you have an iPhone and have done the recent iOS 17 update, they have set a new feature called NameDrop defaulted to ON. This feature allows the sharing of your contact info just by bringing your phones close together. While you do need to accept the transfer, if you would prefer to shut this off go to: Settings, General, AirDrop, Bringing Devices Together. Change to OFF. PARENTS: You may consider changing these settings after the update on your childrens phones, also, to help keep them safe as well! Despite the virality of these warnings, here's the truth: These posts are based on a misunderstanding of how the NameDrop feature works with an iPhone, just like so many other technological scares that in past years were also virally shared on Facebook. Barring the possibility of any future security holes being uncovered by users, the NameDrop feature was designed with multiple layers of protection. NameDrop is a feature that allows two users to hold their iPhone devices very close to each other in order to share a phone number or email address. This also works with an iPhone and an Apple Watch or two Apple Watches. NameDrop Basically, instead of asking a friend for their contact details or handing your device to a friend to have them input their information, NameDrop allows this exchange of basic data to happen in a much easier, yet still secure, manner. The feature was first included in the software update known as iOS 17. It released in September 2023 after being announced in June. iOS 17 announced  Apple says that, for NameDrop to work, users' devices must be "within a few centimeters" of each other to initiate the first step of the process. Also, both users must be signed into iCloud. Users can then select if they want to share their phone number or email address and must tap a "Share" button to complete the exchange of one of the two pieces of basic contact data. To be clear, no contact information is automatically shared when two devices are brought together without a user taking action. Further, NameDrop does not work unless the devices are already unlocked. Think of the following scenario: You sit down in a cozy coffee shop with your phone in your purse or on the table. Another customer is sitting several tables away. That other customer isn't going to be able to initiate the NameDrop feature on your phone because the devices are further apart than the "within a few centimeters" of proximity specified by Apple. Even if that other customer walks by and bumps into the purse or your phone on the table, if your phone is locked with a passcode or other security feature, they couldn't even begin initiating the NameDrop feature. Further, even if your phone is unlocked, you would still have to tap some buttons in order for the person to receive your contact details. In other words, there are multiple layers of security that were implemented for the NameDrop feature that are meant to protect users. The only way a person could misuse the NameDrop feature on your phone is if they take your unlocked phone away from you without your permission and initiate the sharing of contact information. However, this does not make the NameDrop feature unsafe. It simply means that you need to not allow strangers to take your unlocked phone away from you. All of the data we've detailed above led us to our rating of False, meaning that, as the authoritative tech blog Wired.com put it in the headline of their article, "No, You Dont Need to Turn Off Apples NameDrop Feature in iOS 17." article If users, including parents, still wish to turn off the NameDrop feature, simply navigate on an iPhone to "Settings," "General" and then "AirDrop." To disable NameDrop, toggle the "Bringing Devices Together" feature to off. This screenshot shows NameDrop ("Bringing Devices Together") enabled. Parents can learn more about parental controls for Apple devices on the company's website. website Apple Announces Powerful New Privacy and Security Features. Apple Newsroom, 5 June 2023, https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-announces-powerful-new-privacy-and-security-features/. Combs, Mary-Elisabeth. Heres Everything to Know About NameDrop on iPhone. CNET, 31 Oct. 2023, https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/heres-everything-to-know-about-namedrop-on-iphone/. Hardwick, Tim. iOS 17: How to Share Contact Details With NameDrop. MacRumors, 14 Sept. 2023, https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/ios-share-contact-details-with-namedrop/. iOS 17. Apple, https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-17/. Rogers, Reece. No, You Dont Need to Turn Off Apples NameDrop Feature in iOS 17. Wired, 27 Nov. 2023,https://www.wired.com/story/apple-iphone-namedrop-ios17/. Use NameDrop on iPhone to Share Your Contact Info. Apple Support, https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/namedrop-iphone-share-contact-info-iph1b6c664b7/ios. Known as a famous Hollywood actor and one of the original men to portray the iconic character James Bond, Sean Connery died on Oct. 31, 2020. According to TMZ, he died at 1:30 a.m. "at his home in the Bahamas." TMZ Sean Connery died in his sleep from pneumonia, heart failure and old age ... according to his death certificate. TMZ obtained Connery's death cert and it shows he died from respiratory failure as a result of pneumonia, old age and atrial fibrillation ... an irregular heart rate that can increase the risk of strokes, heart failure and other heart-related complications. Entertainment Tonight made contact with the family, reporting that "Connery's wife, Micheline Roquebrune, and his two sons, Jason and Stephane, told ET that he died peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by family." reporting Following his death, at least one advertiser bought ad space on the social media platform Reddit, or on a mobile app that displays Reddit content. The ad read: "sean connery's Net Worth Left His Family In Tears." Connery's name was lowercase, likely because the "Net Worth Left His Family In Tears" part is a template. It's not true. It's fabricated and completely baseless. Sean Connery's family was not left "in tears" because of his net worth. We previously reported on the "net worth left his family in tears" advertising ploy with "Jeopardy" host Alex Trebek. The late Kenny Rogers also appeared to be a victim of the ploy. previously reported appeared   The advertisement in question appeared to lead to Life Exact, a viral content website. It was first documented by Reddit user JezCon. It's unclear if the advertisement is still active on the website. We were unable to locate the ad, but it likely lead to a slideshow with multiple pages, where the idea was to make more money on the advertisements displayed during the slideshow than it cost to run the original ad alongside Reddit content. This is known as advertising "arbitrage." first documented Business and technology blog Margins is managed by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk, and Roy defined "arbitrage" as "leveraging an inefficient set of systems to make a riskless profit, usually by buying and selling the same asset." He also called it "the mythical free lunch that economics tells us does not exist." Margins Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us Claim:  After a bank failure, the FDIC has 99 years to pay back insured deposits.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2008] I heard an "expert" on KFI AM 640 in LA say the FDIC has up to 99 years to repay you in the event of a bank failure. Sounds like a misrepresentation but when asked by the host, she said "it's in the fine print."  [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] I have been hearing of a story of a man entering a bank week after week and making a deposit of a government check in some sort of insignificant amount (the number I heard was $0.35 per check). The teller asks why is he depositing such a small check. His response is that his bank went bust and that the checks are from the F.D.I.C. The gist of this apocryphal tale is that FDIC insurance is not a good thing and that if it does pay out it will take forever to recover your "insured" loss. This tale was repeated yesterday to my sister-in-law by a bank teller trying to dissuade her from moving an UNINSURED money market account to an F.D.I.C. insured CD with another bank. Origins:   Economic turmoil in the United States in recent years has given many Americans pause to consider just how safe their money is, especially in light of some bank failures that have reminded us that even such seemingly secure investments as ordinary savings accounts are not  completely risk-free.   And although most bank customers are aware their deposits are insured, they aren't necessarily familiar with the details of how that insurance works, a circumstance that has fostered the spread of rumors which create additional insecurity. After a wave of bank failures that came in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the prolonged economic depression that followed, the U.S. federal government created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to restore public confidence in (and help stabilize) the U.S. banking system.  The FDIC provided federal government guarantees of deposits up to $100,000 per account holder per bank (and up to $250,000 per account holder for deposit retirement accounts), subject to certain conditions, at insured financial institutions.*    FDIC Bank failures in the U.S. have been a relatively uncommon phenomenon since the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s, so many consumers have had little or no exposure to the process by which FDIC deposit insurance works, a circumstance that has led to the uncertainty reflected in the examples cited above.  Widely-believed rumors hold that FDIC insurance actually covers just a small fraction of the original deposit amount  (e.g., 1.5%), or that the FDIC only reimburses depositors in full over a very long period of time (e.g., 99 years), the net result being the mistaken belief that FDIC insurance isn't really much of a guarantee at all.  In fact, these rumors are so prevalent that they were both included (as numbers #3 and #4) in a list of the top ten misconceptions about the FDIC published in the Spring 2006 edition of the FDIC Consumer News newsletter, where they were addressed thusly: If a bank fails, the FDIC could take up to 99 years to pay depositors for their insured accounts. This is a completely false notion that many bank customers have told us they heard from someone attempting to sell them another kind of financial product. The truth is that federal law requires the FDIC to pay the insured deposits "as soon as possible" after an insured bank fails. Historically, the FDIC pays insured deposits within a few days after a bank closes, usually the next business day. In most cases, the FDIC will provide each depositor with a new account at another insured bank. Or, if arrangements cannot be made with another institution, the FDIC will issue a check to each depositor. The FDIC only pays failed-bank depositors a percentage of their insured funds. All too often we receive questions similar to this one: "Is it true that if my FDIC-insured bank fails, I would only get $1.31 for every $100 in my checking account?" As with misconception number 3, this misinformation appears to be spread by some financial advisors and sales people. Federal law requires the FDIC to pay 100 percent of the insured deposits up to the federal limit  including principal and interest. If your bank fails and you have deposits over the limit, you may be able to recover some or, in rare cases, all of your uninsured funds. However, the overwhelming majority of depositors at failed institutions are within the insurance limit, and insured funds are always paid in full. As noted, this type of misinformation is often passed along by unscrupulous or misinformed financial advisors who are trying to steer customers towards investments or accounts that are not insured, so if you have any doubts about exactly what is or is not covered by FDIC insurance, you may want to undertake some additional verification on your own. *Note: In October 2008 the FDIC insurance limit was temporarily increased to $250,000 per account, with that increase slated to remain in effect through the end of 2009, but subsequently extended through the end of 2013. In July 2010 the FDIC insurance limit was permanently increased to $250,000 per depositor, per insured depository institution for each account ownership category. increased Last updated:  8 April 2014 On 10 December 2015, the web site YourNewsWire.com published a video purportedly showing film acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick, who helmed such groundbreaking films as Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange, confessing to having helped NASA fake the Apollo program moon landings: published A stunning new video has emerged 15 years after Stanley Kubrick's death in which Kubrick admits that the NASA moon landings were faked. Filmmaker T. Patrick Murray interviewed Kubrick three days before his death in March 1999. He was forced to sign an 88-page NDA to keep the contents of the interview a secret for 15 years. Below is a transcript from the interview with Stanley Kubrick, in which the 2001 Space Odyssey Director admits on camera that, "the moon landings ALL were faked, and that I was the person who filmed it." In the interview, the alleged Stanley Kubrick figures confesses that: Kubrick: I perpetrated a huge fraud on the American public, which I am now about to detail, involving the United States government and NASA, that the moon landings were faked, that the moon landings ALL were faked , and that I was the person who filmed it. Murray: Ok. (laughs) What are you talking ... You're serious. Ok. Kubrick: I'm serious. Dead serious. Yes, it was fake. Murray: Why are you telling the world? Why does the world need to know that the moon landings aren't real and you faked them? Kubrick: I consider them to be my masterpiece. Murray: And you can' t take credit, or even talk about ... Kubrick: Well, I am now ... Murray: So, you can't talk to Roger Ebert about it. Does that frustrate you? Why did they have to fake it? Why would they have to do that? Kubrick: Because it is impossible to get there ... 2001 was very ambitious, but that's not to say that faking the moon landing was not ambitious. But I learned things from making 2001, and that's why I got this gig in the first place. Murray: That makes sense Kubrick: Well, it was easy for me, because I didn't think a whole lot about the morality of it. But I didn't. And I could see that Neil [Armstrong] was, he was bothered by it. This video has been circulating online since at least August 2015 and is one of several clips purportedly showing Kubrick talking about his alleged involvement in faking the U.S. moon landings. While there are various edits of this infamous (and fake) interview circulating on YouTube, the videos all originated with a new film from T. Patrick Murray titled Shooting Kubrick. film Murray claimed on the Shooting Kubrick web site that he was granted unprecedented access to interview the director in May 1999, which would have been quite an impressive feat since Kubrick had passed away two months earlier:Although the date could be a simple typographical error, that was not the only questionable aspect of the interview. The man being interviewed simply doesn't look or sound like Stanley Kubrick when compared to a video of the real Kubrick accepting the D.W. Griffith Award in 1997:  Furthermore, unedited versions of the interview contain hints that the "Stanley Kubrick" in the video is an actor. In a since-deleted clip, the interviewer called his subject "Tom" and instructed him on how to tell the next part of his story: "You don't say he said anything. You say what he says. Tom, I'm giving you directions. You don't have to imitate him (Richard Nixon). You're not reporting it. You're repeating it ... We're doing exposition here. That's how we're going to sneak it in." A spokesman for Kubrick's widow also proclaimed that "[t]he interview is a lie, Stanley Kubrick has never been interviewed by T.Patrick Murray the whole story is made up, fraudulent and untrue." T. Patrick Murray has not admitted that his interview with Stanley Kubrick is a hoax, but he certainly is banking the mystery's driving interest in his project: Gov.-elect Rick Scott kicked off a five-day, 10-city tour of the state's major industries on Dec. 6, 2010, by meeting with defense contractors and Florida-based military leaders.Scott started the tour in the Panhandle, meeting with about 20 defense contractors, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications and InDyne Corp., at the University of Florida Research and Engineering Education Facility in Shalimar, before meeting with military leaders at Eglin Air Force Base.We want to make sure we're always thought of as a very military-friendly state,Scott said to reporters at a brief press conference. We're going to focus on what our strengths are. We're clearly a logical place for the military to expand and for the defense industry to expand. We've got a lot of talent in the state, we like the defense industry and the military, so we're going to figure out where we have the most value.Scott tried to underscore the importance of the military to Florida by noting that the military accounts for about 10 percent of Florida's economy, according to theSt. Petersburg Times.Florida is home to 20 major military installations and three unified combatant commands. The Gulf of Mexico is a key training ground for both the Air Force and the Navy, and the state also has two U.S. Coast Guard air stations and another dozen other Coast Guard stations.But does all of that translate to a 10 percent share of the state's gross domestic product,which was $737 billion in 2009?The answer comes from an arm of Enterprise Florida called theFlorida Defense Alliance, a public/private partnership created in 1998 to help position Florida to keep its military infrastructure in place and expand in other areas when opportunities arise. The group commissioned a study in 2008 to examine the economic impact of Florida's stationed military and auxiliary defense industry work.The study was conducted by Rick Harper, an economist from the University of West Florida, who has studied the economic impact of the film and entertainment industry in Florida and who represented Northwest Florida on former Gov. Jeb Bush's Council of Economic Advisers from 2001-2006. Using 2005 data, Harper concluded that defense-related spending is responsible for $52 billion, or 7.5 percent, of Florida's gross state product that year.The military spent $27 billion across Florida counties in fiscal year 2005, Harper concluded -- $10.4 billion was for goods and services, $12.4 billion for pensions and transfer payments, and $4.3 billion for salaries and wages. The rest of the economic impact is measured in indirect and induced spending, which would include parts of the private defense industry as well as parts of the Florida economy that help service the military, the defense industry and their employees.Harper said that defense and military spending accounted for 732,300 direct and indirect jobs in the state and generated state and local tax revenues of nearly $1 billion.Counties with larger installations enjoy larger impacts, Harper found. Military and defense spending in Duval County had a $12.1 billion impact, a $5.3 billion impact in Hillsborough County and a $6.6 billion impact in Okaloosa County. All but six counties have at least $3 million per year in direct defense-related spending.Harper and Florida Defense Alliance executive director Rocky McPherson noted that the study does not include the economic impact generated by the Florida National Guard or Coast Guard operations. You can see a short synopsis of the study for yourselfhere. Or if you have a lot of time, here's thethree-volume version.Harper's study relies on five-year-old data, so we wanted to see if there was anything more recent. McPherson said Harper and University of West Florida researchers were updating their study using 2008 data but, he said, that report is not available yet. Harper declined to share the results of the study with PolitiFact Florida, but did talk about the results in general terms.Since 2005, Department of Defense spending has risen substantially, particularly in terms of procurement (i.e., contracting), as well as payments to disabled veterans, although active duty military staffing numbers (number of people) have declined somewhat and payments to retirees are not growing as they did earlier due to attrition of WWII and Korean era veterans, Harper wrote. The overall growth in military spending (the study to be released uses 2008 federal spending data), combined with weakness in other areas of the Florida economy in the most recent years, means that DoD (Department of Defense) spending will have risen as a share of the total economy.We searched around for other studies measuring the military's economic impact in Florida, but found none. In examining Harper's study, we found it to be a straightforward, unbiased report. Researchers relied on Department of Defense actual expenditures, precise personnel levels and actual government contracts.Where does it leave us? Scott told reporters military spending makes up about 10 percent of the state's economy. In 2005, military spending accounted for 7.5 percent of the state gross domestic product, but that figure did not include the impact of the Florida National Guard or Coast Guard bases. The author of the study, who is now updating his report using 2008 numbers, said that while he cannot release more up-to-date numbers, that the military's position in the economy has risen since 2005. That will make Scott's point nearly right on. We rate this claim True. U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine had an old prediction tossed back at him during a debate this summer. It was thrown by moderator Judy Woodruff, the anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour. She reminded Kaine that in 2016, when he was the Democratic nominee for vice president, he said the election of then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would be a disaster for the economy. Woodruff asked Kaine to square that with the strong economic results during the first 18 months of the Trump administration: about3 million new jobs, the unemployment rate dippingbelow 4 percent, and soaring corporate profits. Kaine replied, The national economy was strong, in its longest expansion in private sector jobs, before President Trump came into office. We fact-checked Kaines claim that Trump, when he became president on Jan. 20, 2017, inherited the nations longest expansion of private jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics keepsmonthly recordson private sector employment back to 1939. They show that the U.S. experienced 82 months straight months of private sector job growth before Trump became president - from March 2010 through December 2016, when Barack Obama was in the White House. That easily qualifies for the longest streak during the eight decades the BLS had been keeping the statistics prior to Trumps presidency. The streak is still alive under Trump and - through August 2018, the latest statistics are available - is up to 112 months. The second longest streak was 64 months. It ran from May 1995 through October 2000, when Bill Clinton was president. The longest continuous drop in private employment lasted 22 months - from January 2008 through October 2009 during the Great Recession. That was during the last year of George W. Bushs administration and the first year of Obamas. Presidents from both political parties traditionally have been quick to claim the credit for good economies and fast to dodge the blame when times turn bad. Economists have repeatedly told us its mostly a political dance; that the policies of presidents and  governors dont drive economic ups and downs. Our ruling Kaine said, The national economy was strong in its largest expansion of private sector jobs before President Trump came into office. Data shows hes right. We rate his statement True. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Oct. 20, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump's son Eric Trump posted an image to social media that supposedly showed musicians Ice Cube and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson wearing "Trump 2020" hats: posted   This is not a genuine photograph of 50 Cent and Ice Cube wearing "Trump 2020" hats. This is a doctored image that was created from a photograph of Ice Cube and 50 Cent at a BIG3 basketball game in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2017. In the original image, Ice Cube is wearing a hat with the BIG3 logo on it and 50 Cent is wearing a hat with a New York Yankees logo.  Ice Cube shared the original photograph to his Twitter page in July 2020 along with a birthday message for his friend 50 Cent:  Getty Images has archived a few other photographs taken at this event. The image at the top of this article, for example, carries the caption: caption LAS VEGAS, NV - AUGUST 26: BIG3 founder and recording artist Ice Cube and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson attend the BIG3 three on three basketball league championship game on August 26, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/BIG3/Getty Images) Ice Cube confirmed that the image was fake in a message posted to Twitter and Trump has since deleted his tweet. Twitter Although this image is fake, both of these musicians have truly aligned themselves, at least in part, with the Trump administration. While Ice Cube has not endorsed Trump for 2020, he did work with the president's administration to create a "Contract With Black America." Ice Cube said that he would "advise anyone on the planet who has the power to help Black Americans close the enormous wealth gap." work with said 50 Cent's support for Trump was more explicit. On Oct. 19, 50 Cent took to Instagram and shared a message endorsing Trump along with a screenshot from CNBC's "Power Lunch" concerning a report that Biden's tax plan would raise the tax rate to as much as 62% on Americans who make more than $400,000 a year: Instagram WHAT THE FUCK! (VOTE For TRUMP) IM OUT. FUCK NEW YORK The KNICKS never win anyway. I dont care Trump doesnt like Black people 62% are you out of ya fucking mind."   This screenshot comes from a segment of "Power Lunch" that aired on Oct. 19. During this segment, CNBC's Robert Frank explained how people earning more than $400,000 a year could pay income taxes at rate of more than 62%. Here's a video of Frank on another CNBC show, "Squawk Box," talking about Biden's tax plan: aired explained  Interestingly, Ice Cube and 50 Cent appear to be aligning themselves with Trump for polar opposite reasons. Ice Cube, for instance, said that he was willing to work with either presidential campaign in order to improve the lives of Black Americans and to "close the enormous wealth gap." 50 Cent, on the other hand, said he didn't care that "Trump doesnt like Black" and that he was endorsing the incumbent because his opponent's tax plan would increase taxes on wealthy Americans. Asmelash, Leah.  "From N.W.A. to MAGA: Ice Cube Takes Some Heat For Working With the Trump Administration."
  CNN.  16 October 2020. Reilly, Nick.  "50 Cent Endorses Donald Trump for President Even Though He 'Doesnt Like Black People."
  NME.  20 October 2020. CNBC.  "Bidens Tax Plan Could Lead to Combined Rate of 62% For High Earners."
  15 October 2020. Frank, Robert.  "Biden Tax Plan Gives $620 Tax Cut to Middle Class, New Study Says."
  CNBC.  15 October 2020.