STATEN ISLAND: A missing teenager. A child living with autism sought by a "Police Department." A woman with dementia appearing in front of somebody's house.
Each scenario has been posted to Facebook feeds and groups. Your online friends have no doubt shared them.
How could they not? A child is missing; a senior citizen is in need of help.
The only problem? Everything is fake.
As Fox's Detroit affiliate wrote earlier this month, "scammers are preying on your emotions."
"You're scrolling on Facebook and you see an urgent post asking you to share a photo of a teen missing near you," reads the Fox2Detroit story published on July 16, "so you click share and move on. A few days later, you see a post you don't recall making. That post has some links off of Facebook, and when you click them, they want your personal information."
The posts have appeared in garage sale groups on Facebook, including multiple Staten Island groups.
They contain inconsistencies, lack official agency mentions and tip lines, and rarely do they trace back to an account that has an actual person's name.
What many of the posts do have, however, are specific locations connected to the groups or pages they're being shared in. For example, a post about a "missing child" or discovered senior citizen possibly living with dementia may include "Staten Island" language, since it appeared in a group associated with Staten Island.
Fox's Detroit affiliate couldn't sum up the verification process any better than here: "If a child is reported missing from your area in a post, check the news and social media accounts of nearby law enforcement agencies to see if they are reporting the missing child. If the local police department isn't saying the child is missing, they probably are not."
Be careful out there. – Staten Island Advance, N.Y./Tribune News Service
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