The Internet is full of scams and it doesn’t matter whether you are scrolling social media or searching on Google, you need to be careful about what pops up on the screen in front of you.
Of course, with a little foreknowledge and some common sense, you can often avoid many of the more dangerous issues that come up, but there are still some that circulate from time to time to do some damage.
It seems as if that is the case with a Facebook post that is showing up on many people’s social media feeds. It involves missing children, and an Internet watchdog is saying that if you fall for it, you will be missing some money by the time it is over.
According to Full Fact, the post involves a boy named Tyler and it has been seen on Facebook recently. When you see it, you think it is from the boy’s parents and they are concerned about the welfare of their child.
The post reads: “This is the most recent picture of my son Tyler Anderson at his first day of school … He was last seen wearing black Converses with purple and red shoelaces as well as a blue zip-up hoodie.” It may also say something similar if it changes from time to time.
The description of the child is: “He has dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and he’s about 5’4-5’5 and 124lb.”
Along with the post is a picture of Tyler but it’s actually photos of different children that have been repurposed for this fraudulent post.
The Sun speaks about this as well, saying that the post is spread around by others to raise awareness of missing children. If the post continues to get shared, it seems to be more legitimate.
Eventually, the post is edited by the original scammer, making it an advertisement for surveys or putting links to fraudulent websites. Since the post has already been shared with thousands of others, they automatically get these links from what seems to be a legitimate source.
Unfortunately, these posts also often have their comments disabled so it’s not as if you can warn others about the fact that they are fake. Be careful when you spread something like this because you never know if it is real or not.