Does a video on Facebook show actor Michael B. Jordan endorsing a "health spending card" promotion? No, that's not true: Jordan's public relations team confirmed to Lead Stories that this claim is false. Lead Stories previously has debunked fake promotions, such as the one linked to this post, as scams to get social media users' personal information.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on November 10, 2023. The caption of the post read:
They're hiding this from you just like everything else...
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Nov 10 16:22:03 2023 UTC)
The post includes snippets of video footage of Jordan and people holding financial documents, with audio that resembles Jordan's voice. However, his lips don't appear to sync with any of the audio in the video. A Google News search (archived here) using the keywords "Michael B. Jordan Endorses Health Spending Card" did not produce any results to substantiate the video's claim.
Lead Stories contacted R&CPMK, the public relations firm that represents Jordan, for comment on the claim. In an email sent on November 10, 2023, a spokesperson for Jordan confirmed that this claim was false, saying:
This video was fabricated.
The clip at 28 seconds into the Facebook video, for instance, was taken from this November 28, 2017, Vogue interview, where the actor discussed details related to his family name and personal life.
At 39 seconds into the Vogue video, where Jordan is supposedly describing the benefits of state-funded "health spending cards," an interviewer is heard instead asking Jordan, "Approximately how many times has someone made a reference to the basketball player, Michael Jordan?" Jordan responds:
Is that what we're really doing right now?
The link attached to the post on Facebook goes to a page for carerewardsplus.com that includes a questionnaire that leads to a prompt that mentions health insurance subsidies and a phone number to call. However, the site is not an official government website nor does it link to any government sites. The site's domain name does not end in .gov, the top-level domain for U.S. government websites. The site provides no evidence that it has any connection to a federal program.
A disclaimer issued on USA.gov, a program that creates and organizes government information and services and makes them accessible anytime, warned that promotions advertising "free money" from the government are scams.
Lead Stories previously reported on large-scale false promotion posts that trick people into giving their personal information.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims that mention Michael B. Jordan can be read here.
Other Lead Stories fact checks that mention health spending cards can be found here.
