A post is being shared on social media with a picture of a man with currency notes and coins around him. The post claims that the man stopped smoking for six years, saved money, and purchased a car. According to the post, he eventually died in a car accident. Let’s verify this claim through his article.
Claim: This man who bought a car with the money he saved after he quit smoking has lost his life in a car accident.
Fact: The name of the person in the post is Mehmet Tok; he is from Turkey. Based on news reports from 2017, he saved money for eight years, which he used to spend on smoking. He started this after doctors advised him to quit smoking when he visited a hospital with a heart condition. Mehmet Tok, who is in the air conditioning service business, has an active Facebook account on where he last posted on 18 September 2022. A news report by Demirören News Agency, also features his story. It was posted on their YouTube channel in 2020. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Performing a reverse image search on YANDEX led us to several other social media posts with the same claim, some of which were in Arabic. These posts can be seen here, here and here. Further search on Yandex led us to an article titled ‘ Many Reasons to Quit: The Man Who Saved Fortune By Quitting Smoking.’
According to this 2017 article published on Yemek.com, the man in the viral post is Mehmet Tok ‘One day, because of the pain in his chest and numbness in his arm, he goes to the doctor and has to have an Angiogram.’ Based on his doctor’s advice, he quit smoking and started saving the money which he would spend on two packets of cigarettes per day. He purchased 2 light commercial vehicles and 1 Motorcycle with the money he saved.
In a video from 2016, Mehmet Tok is seen opening his piggy bank. The picture in the post is also in this video.
In 2017, a few other news websites also covered this story. They can be seen here, here and here. Although old, the story of Mehmet Tok saving money is true. Since the post also claims that he lost his life in a car accident, we started searching for news reports on this but found no credible information. A 2020 news report by a Turkish news agency Demirören, contained his story and also featured him.
We found that his Facebook account is active, and the latest post was made on 18 September 2022. Although the story of Mehmet Tok saving money after quitting cigarette smoking is true, he losing his life in a car accident is clearly not true.
To sum up, this Turkey man who bought a car with the money he saved after he quit smoking has not died in a car accident.
