CHILTON, Wis. — If you use Facebook, chances are you’ve seen posts about a dangerous person or a missing child. The post typically urges you to share it.
But a northeast Wisconsin police department is warning that’s not always the right thing to do.
The Calumet County Sheriff’s Office said that criminals are using good intentions to turn Facebook shares and likes into profit.
Lieutenant Joseph Tenor said crime hasn’t really changed in his 25 years with the Calumet County Sheriff’s Office, but the methods bad actors use have.
Tenor said he came across one of the latest scams online.
“I was scrolling on Facebook at home, and I noticed a lot of people sharing posts about missing people that were shared to a local buy, sell trade group on Facebook, and something just didn’t seem right about the posts,” Tenor said.
There are different types of fake Facebook posts, including:
- Posts about dangerous people
- Posts about needing help identifying injured people
- Posts looking to reunite missing babies
Tenor said the goal is to get people to repost.
“They will get a lot of people to share because everybody wants to help out. They want to find the missing elderly folks that are somewhere in our community, and they want to bring them back home to their families, the dog that’s missing,” Tenor said.
Tenor warned that once it's shared, the scammer will switch that post with phishing links.
“These scammers will then change the text of the post and the photos to something like a home or vacation property with a link, then that link will bring somebody unsuspecting to a scam post that will have a collection for personal information, and the scammer might also require a deposit from that person, and then they’re going to be out money,” Tenor said.
Leemie Kahng-Sofer is the director of case management with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Kahng-Sofer said fake missing children Facebook posts have a devastating effect of desensitizing the public.
“If people get scammed, they lose personal information, it really dilutes the importance of the missing child issue, and they may not act on it when it is actually a legitimate missing child post,” Kahng-Sofer said.
She said legitimate posts should have specifics.
“Like the date that they went missing, the location they went missing from, our logo should be on there. It should include the law enforcement agency who’s handling their case,” Kahng-Sofer said.
A missing or dangerous person post with uncommon sites like a “buy-sell trade” or “classified” is also a red flag.
Tenor said if you stumble across a questionable post, be cautious.
“Just don’t click share right away. Don’t click a link and blindly enter personal information,” Tenor said.
Tenor also advised checking the news and reviewing the profile of the person who created the original posts.
