to doubt the veracity of these facebook appeals?

[manicinsomniac]

Has anybody else been seeing things like this recently:

• appeals for a thief to return a camera that contained pictures of a family's last photos before their baby died.
• appeals for a thief to return a phone that contained pictures of a woman's still born child.
• appeals to the public to help them find a teddy bear that had belonged to a deceased sibling.

And other similarly emotionally charged stories. I saw the first one and thought, 'oh how awful, I hope they get it back'. But now I see them and I'm afraid I raise my eyebrows and think, 'oh really? Another one?' I just can't believe there are all that many people that lose or have stolen such irreplaceable items.

I think there are people out there playing on people's good will and empathy to share shit they've made up for God knows what reason.

Of course I'd never comment to that effect on the facebook of the person sharing it in good faith because a) how awful if I was wrong and b) the sharer is just being a good person. But I do think it.

AIBU?

This photo of a necklace that contains the ashes of...
This picture of a newly married couple kissing...

I just assume they are all BS

haha, yes, exactly those kind of things.

Glad I'm not the only one.

One of the more famous like scams

Better link

(sorry, first one had preview text that made me think it was mainly about this)

I reckon some of them are abusers looking for their victims who have gone into hiding. They're hoping someone will get in touch saying "yes I know them, they live in X town."

but what would be the point in posting them? they are looking for a specific item not asking for cameras or money?

I can beleive that amongst billions of people in the world and the number of people on social media that there will be many such stories. that being said I also believe that a percentage of these will be faked - possibly for the "shares" and "likes" whilst not understanding the motivation to do so :) so I guess am on the fence.

wow, that's horrendous trills And I hadn't thought about that IncredibleBook - that's really scary.

There was a case a year or so ago of a photo of a "missing" child which went round fb line wildfire and she was found - by her abusive father, whose ex had changed their names and gone into hiding! Git.

I never "share" this stuff. I also think 90% of the lost dogs are fake.

yes, there are a lot of missing people posts recently too, aren't there. I guess some of the adults could be being hunted by abusive partners too.

There was a case a year or so ago of a photo of a "missing" child which went round fb line wildfire and she was found - by her abusive father, whose ex had changed their names and gone into hiding! Git

I find that quite disturbing :(
facebook the all seeing eye :(

To be fair I do have my only pictures of my stillborn DD on my phone and I would be besides myself if I lost it so I can see how some of these stories would happen. It makes me feel a little bit sick thinking about a stranger going through them. I've just never got around to putting them on my laptop but I'll go do it now.

I do always wonder why if they are the only photos you have and its that precious, why people don't back them up! Back them up now crumbly. Sorry to hear about your DD

How awful about the abusive Dad. I am getting skeptical about how many missing dogs I see!

Sorry for your loss crumbly. Would you think of backing up your pics to a hard drive for safe keeping?

OH and I do both have frequently used hard drives and laptops but we just never really thought of it. Too focused on getting through the day. I don't look at them very often unless I'm upset but it struck me the other day when I misplaced my phone while out that I would never see her again. I am getting my laptop right now and moving them over before I really regret it. Thanks for the push to do it finally.

I never share.
Last year there was photos of a child who's father was looking for the child he said Mum had taken away.
Within an hour he had the child's address. It terrifies me, he could have been genuine but could have also been an abuser.

With ones like the Girl with Downs and Share if you are against child abuse etc they are deliberately getting likes and shares so they can sell the page on. The page can then be renamed, all the text changed but keep all those likes etc giving it an instant boost in terms of page ranking. For businesses, this helps them secure a better rating by Google and bumps them up in searches.

These scammers are just doing it for the cash so don't like or share.

My friend shares all this type of stuff. I am always sceptical of them.
And ones like "found this bus pass. Hoping we can reunite it with Mr Xxx". If you look in the comments the man has been found and got his bus pass back but this photo is still doing the rounds many months later due to people like my friend.
And she shares all the hoax stories too - just check the story out before you repost!

Many of them are a scam. As someone said up thread, the more likes and shares a page has, the more it is worth. People post emotive pictures, get lots of likes and then sell the page on at a big profit because it has 700,000 likes or whatever.

Interesting thread, wasnt aware of the ad scams.

Just looking down a timeline today, we've had the "discovery of strawberry flavoured methamphetamine in schools" (no we haven't)

Two missing children, a quick Google of which proves one of these children did go missing, for two hours, 5 years ago. The other never even existed.

Most scary is these are being shared by teachers. The people (apart from me and DP) I most want to teach my children critical thinking are showing a complete absence of it.

You are on a computer or mobile device. If Tyler really has gone missing, Google him..... Chances are if he is its hit a more mainstream news service than shanice's timeline, or more likely you will see confirmation that it's a facebook scam, Tyler is in fact Matthew. He's never gone missing and that picture is 16 years old.

Don't even get me started on the MILs helpful warnings that 1 in a 100 iPhones will blow your head off if you use it when it's plugged in.....

Edit to add to that - don't people realise by constantly liking "missing children" that arent missing will make it less likely that genuinely missing children will be found via facebook through apathy and fatigue of seeing all the scam ones

I follow Snopes on fb. Keeps me grounded!

So sorry for your loss crumbly, get those precious photos backed up just to be safe

These things scare me, especially the abusers finding their victims. I never share, but I hate facebook anyway.

Ever since I saw the article about the sick woman who took photos of a total strangers twins and passed them off as her own on her fb page, even claiming one of the twins had died. I believe people are capable of anything on fb...

I know what you mean op. I saw one recently where the story said a baby had died on the Friday and the mum had lost the phone with the babies pics on the night after in a nightclub. Not to judge how anyone grieves but I did think surely you wouldn't be out clubbing the night after your baby had died? It didn't ring true but of course I couldn't comment and say that without sounding like a heartless cow.

I always wonder about these things as well.

I knew about the business pages getting share and likes, and I would only share something if it comes from a 'real' source, such as a police or media appeal. And even then, I'm cautious.

These posts never have a date or anything on them either. Was the camera lost yesterday yesterday or yesterday six years ago? If you are genuinely looking for something or someone, put a date on the post.

I have a friend who shares everything, and she recently shared a picture of a child whose mother had just moved house without telling the father where they were moving to, but rang him to taunt him about never seeing the child again. Of course he was a wonderful father, and she was a terrible woman, and he just wanted to know his child was safe.

And hundreds of people were liking and sharing and calling her all sorts of names. And none of them considered that this might not be the full or true story.

I had a word with her and pointed out she had no idea if it were in the best interests of the child in the picture to be identified or tracked down, and that the person posting the picture could be anybody.

I don't share the long lost brother or adopted sister posts either. I did share an article stating how easy it is to find people on Facebook now, but how those 'missing' people might come to harm by being found.

ollie did that woman say her twins were babies in intensive care? But she had taken the pictures from a family in America?