"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.

The anti-Croydon cat killer FB group was great for this. So much crazy.

We had one yesterday. "A man in Tesco asked me if he could give my children some money for sweets". Apparently Tesco will have this on cctv & the man will be arrested. Lots of "OMG hun, you must be shaken". While I agree that it's odd & creepy I'm not sure a child snatcher would ask the children's mum first.

We had the most hilarious one a few weeks ago it read something like this: ‘just seen a person in our street, possibly suspicious. Sex- not sure. Hair- unsure. Height- unsure. Race- unsure. Possibly wearing a hat’ 😂 Erm, I’ll look out for that person, or possibly it was a shadow!!

Response on next door when I pointed it out was, "well he looks suspicious", "why is he walking at that time", "tell him to take his hat off, it is very Eastern European" ... and when I asked them to take his picture down - "It's just a warning to people" - what???? that a man walks on a public road???

I once posted a snopes link for one of those batshit made up posts. IN this case, about gangs apparently leaving a baby seat on the side of the road with what looks like an abandoned baby in it. Then innocent bystander stops to check and not only has car stolen, but is also murdered because... it's all a gang initiation.

The response, "well, this one might not be true but this kind of thing does happen so it's important to stay vigilant".

*On our local mums and babies Fb group there was similar hysteria a while back because a man was in local park (where there is a playground) near to some ongoing building works with a tripod taking pictures of the children. He was branded a paedophile. He too had his face plastered over social media. He was reported.

Turns out he was doing surveying. And the tripod he had was one of those laser thingies (not sure what it actually is but I know it’s a surveying tool).*

Many ridiculous things about this story, but the most ridiculous is the idea that a paedo would set up a tripod to take his photos. I think he would try to be a bit less conspicuous, no?!

We had a yet another dog snatcher one. Man came out of a bush and followed a lady dog walker to the the car park.

I guessing where he then got into his car embarrassed, being caught having a pee in the bushes, since he neither spoke or approached the dog walker.

😂