Scammers target ‘Buy, Sell, Trade’ groups with missing child posts
By Greg Collier
We’ve all done it. We’ve all shared a post on social media that appealed to our emotions that turned out not to be true. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We all thought we were helping someone by sharing the post. Whether or not the information in the post was outdated or a hoax to begin with, misleading posts get shared with the best intents in mind. Scammers, who are modern amateur masters of psychology, are using posts with emotional appeal to further their scams, and they’re using local community pages to do so.
According to several police departments around the country, scammers are targeting local swap pages on social media. Specifically, scammers are targeting pages that are what’s known as ‘buy, sell, and trade’ groups. Scammers have been joining these groups and have made posts that are designed to grab your immediate attention. Most of these posts have been about a missing child or baby. Well-meaning members of these groups have ended up sharing these posts, which can lead to the posts being shared thousands of times.
When these posts reach critical mass, the scammers change the posts to peddle their latest scam. Instead of a missing child post, the post can then become about any number of scams designed to steal people’s money.
If you’re going to share a post on social media that demands community attention, please make sure it comes from legitimate sources like police departments or legitimate news sources. If you share an unverified post on social media, you’re potentially opening up your entire friends’ list to potential scammers. And even if you’re sharing a post from a legitimate source, try to verify that the information is current, as years old posts often find new life when someone mistakenly shares one.
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