"Watch out everybody, a white van was spotted in such and such street" and other such pointless panic-mongery

[ImNotACat]

AIBU to be totally fucking sick of the "warnings" on local social media about absolutely bloody nothing?

Yeah, you saw a white van. OMFG the driver got out and left something on a doorstep then took a photo Perhaps he's a delivery driver you thick drama llama.

And what? An Asian woman with glasses was taking photos of an empty house on your street?? Quick, log it with the police. She must be up to something. Or maybe, just maybe, she's a fucking estate agent?

A car drove slowly past as you walked your dog? Yes, BECAUSE ITS POURING and the driver was probs trying to avoid soaking you as they went through puddles.

A van was seen driving very slowly round Labyrinth Close with 2 men in the front peering at the front doors 😱 That would be because the numbers are arranged in some bizarre configuration that makes no sense and it's basically impossible to find your way around if you haven't been before. Every time I have to drop something off to that estate (I do local deliveries for work sometimes) I expect to see a post about a badly dressed woman driving a rustbucket and staring into people's gardens 🤣

I mean I know IABU to care about Facebook really but it's infuriating watching people getting so worked up about fuck all.

My teenage ds and friend were posted as 'dodgy looking lads with rucksacks heading towards ave'. What, you mean where he lives???? I actually knew the guy who posted it.....he's a bell end!

My teenage ds and friend were posted as 'dodgy looking lads with rucksacks heading towards ave'. What, you mean where he lives???? I actually knew the guy who posted it.....he's a bell end!

@Skysblue

Yeees but in my area a woman did get tricked into a van and assaulted - I’m glad that was posted as the police haven’t found him yet. Plus the local schools are all issuing warnings over attempted abduction on diff sites in same day.

I’d rather have a couple of really serious warnings and a string over overreacting nonsense warnings than no warnings at all.

But the problem is that the genuine warnings can easily get lost in the overreactions, @Skysblue. Or that people get so blase about the overreacting posts that they don't realise when one is serious.

Plus the local schools are all issuing warnings over attempted abduction on diff sites in same day.

Sadly, schools are as likely to post things that are not true/over blown. There was a genuine incident, posted by the police, in SW London/Surrey a few months ago. I saw the post subsequently at least five times - each time with a slightly different version/area etc.

DH always comments that what really blows his mind about these on social media is that there are sick people out there who actually take the time to adapt such posts for local areas and to generate fear in those areas. Why? What do they get out of this?

I LOVE mine. It's amazing. The paranoia and passive aggression. Unreal. I live the van spotters, and there's one guy who always immediately pipes up with have your called the police - I adore him.

We once had a situation where someone was bitching about specific teenagers obvs completely unaware that the parents were on the group, the teens in question were completely innocent, their dad came on and had a go, obviously sent some private messages, first guy had to apologize.

I like when there's a suspicious teen in a hoody and then people take pics so you can see his progress through the estate.

However I feel awful about the unregistered gardener type van warnings because I always felt sure who cares, but one woman on the group paid in advance and never saw a crowd again and another woman was intimidated into hiring them- so I have actually felt a bit ashamed of myself because the group is obviously really beneficial to some people and not just a source of amusement.

@FossilisedFanny

How do people differentiate between a cat that is or isn’t lost ? How does a cat look lost ? Maybe they’re the ones looking in puzzlement at an A-Z .

It's easy to tell with my cat. She's blind and has an obvious 'Where the fuck am I?" expression on her face all the time.

It’s bonfires around here. How dare a farmer two miles away have a fire. Can everyone in our village never have a bonfire in case it aggravates my mild asthma? I wanted to hang out my washing at 8pm but couldn’t because my neighbour lit a bonfire, the bastard!!
What with that and the fleets of dog-knapping mystery vans, I actually had to leave the Next Door group because of the sheer bat-shittedness of it all.

Am I the only one who finds these posts helpful? They've helped me stay safer a few times? But I do live in a bad area

@Sweet666

Am I the only one who finds these posts helpful? They've helped me stay safer a few times? But I do live in a bad area

Only posts I follow and find genuinely helpful is local police. They really do put up warnings when something is happening, like a spite in burglaries. They are very helpful. They also don't make up shit on facebook

It's a cry wolf problem isn't it? You can't tell a genuine post from all the gossip/shared from miles away/racist posts.

No fucker is lurking outside schools in a van to kidnap random children. That isn’t how child abuse works, sadly.

Wierdest ever (mines an expat facebook page) was a man who posted a picture of a "kidnapped" child. In the description it emerged that he had been kidnapped by his mother, who wasn't letting him see his father and was very distressed etc etc. In the comments someone asked how he knew he was distressed and it was explained that he had actually seen him, but that he hadnt been allowed unsupervised access. He got ripped to shreds and the post was taken down but even if he was justifiably concerned about his son how is plastering his photos all over social media helping?

There was a dog one on our local FB page only the other day. It was posted by the police, asking if anyone recognised the photos of these dogs, as they had been 'recovered' by the police and they wanted to reunite them with their owners.

Other than that, recurring posts about the homeless man in the park "hes always there cant we do something to help him as a group etc etc." He doesnt want to be helped, he doesnt feel safe indoors and is regularly supplied (quietly) with warm clothes an food by a large number of people as it is.
And "homeless/lost cats" which are not homeless or lost just wondering about, doing their thing.

Familiar with this. If ours is anything to go by, the streets are so clogged with slow-moving vans checking out houses or trying to steal dogs, it’s amazing any of us can get to the shop. Bumper-to-bumper it must be out there.

Police recently gave everyone a telling off after they wasted their time questioning a perfectly innocent tradesman in his van after a call. You could tell they were annoyed!

If people post it themselves on SM it becomes heresy and of course is of no benefit to anyone not on social media
I don't think that it's heretical to post on SM.
You might mean hearsay.

FB has given some very uptight, frustrated people a virtual stage where they can appear as the star in their very own humdrum life.

It really is a very vital public service as it provides endless, free entertainment for the rest of us.

I've noticed police forces have their own local/village pages now and share really helpful non-racist stuff so just follow them

@JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows

I've noticed police forces have their own local/village pages now and share really helpful non-racist stuff so just follow them

Many also have separate accounts for their k9 and horse units😱 I am in love with farting police horses😂😂😂

@Fuckingcrustybread

If people post it themselves on SM it becomes heresy and of course is of no benefit to anyone not on social media I don't think that it's heretical to post on SM. You might mean hearsay.

It made me giggle. Mainly because I think some stuff posted is or should be a heresy😂

Oh our local page is amazing. I’m in a village of less than 100 houses...
A few nights ago a guy was walking around and looking into cars with a torch and trying door handles. He was chased away by someone at 5am and they posted on the local site to warn. There were all sorts of replies. My favourite being ‘he might be a key worker, leave him alone’ 😳
Anyway, he broke into loads of cars, nicked loads of stuff and we’ve had police forensics in the village for 2 days. I am grateful to the original poster even though she got a a load of abuse.

I love this thread. ❤️

Just had a look at my local community page on Facebook and found the following:

"To the arseholes having a house party on mayswood rd. Thanks so much for keeping the whole of the area up. The guy on karaoke was piss poor and do u really need a proper dj for a house party. Turn it down you selfish gits. Some of us have kids trying to sleep. "

Yeah, because they'll really be reading that message 😂😂😂

I thought I put hearsay . Bloody spell check.

Imho, both work @Thewinterofdiscontent 😁

Why are the drivers of the vans always eastern European? Or is my village just particularly bigoted?