to be slightly irritated by people posting unfounded rumours that just cause hysteria on their facebook ???

[Awassailinglookingforanswers]

Tuesday morning their was an "incident" at a county school invovling "suspicious" behaviour by a man/2 men and a 6yr old girl.

There have been rumours flying around that there have been more attempts elsewhere in the county and a facebook status update going around locally saying

"Please be aware when taking your kids to school there was an attempted abduction at the XXXXXXXX Juniors this morning and 2 further failed attempts in XXXXXXXXX yesterday, following the XXXXXXXXXXX attempt on Tuesday. Its 2 men saying they are school officials."

The ONLY one that happened (And it doesn't even say attempted abduction, or abut the 2 men saying they are school oifficals) was the initial one on the Tuesday. And indeed the latest update on the police website says

"We are aware that a number of unfounded rumours and descriptions have been circulating, these have not been issued by the police and would urge people to look at our website for an accurate report on the situation."

I posted to say as such on one friend's profile and am being shot down for it! I pointed out that of COURSE we want to keep our children safe, but circulating unfounded rumours and gossip only creates hysteria instead......

actually - 10yr old not 6yr old and "a person" not 2 men.

YANBU
I can't stand it when normally intelligent people get sucked into all that, like joining those 'get peedophiles off faceboooook' groups and forwarding 'warnings from the police' about people in carparks with bottles of poisoned perfume. Have a bit of critical thinking people!

I know - and apparently this friends has got the information from a good source with links to the police and it's been published.............yes some of the rumours were published in the local paper LOL.

YANBU. Thick as mince.

A few of my friends have joined that group ( oops, nearly typed your RL name then!!) ALFA.

My first thought was "WTF - we live half an hour away at least from those schools!"

And then " for gods sake, way to cause mass out of proportion panic!"

I absolutely hate all the daftness on facebook about criminals etc.
Folk can be so hysterical.

the world is full of idiots. so no yanbu.

cordon - there's a group as well - oh gawd - I'd missed that one LOL

I'm going out now - cordon - send me a link to the group will you please over on FB - I REALLY feel the need to join and point out a few truths to them

yep! and the comments on there are much the same - people like you and I being the voice of reason and not overreacting getting shouted down by hysterical parents.

heres the link to group

I had one of nursery ladies tell me that someone else had told her a 2 year old girl had nearly been kidnapped by two Romanian women in Asda or Tesco. They had shoplifted boys clothes and a hair trimmer, taken her to the loos and were in the process of changing her/shaving her head when they were caught and ran off. So many s in my head I couldn't keep a straight face! For one they were so sure it was 2 Romanian women but couldn't be certain if it was Asda or Tesco!

Anyway I went in the next day after looking it up on Snopes here to let them know it was totally made up!

What made me laugh was being at a nursery kids birthday party a few days later and some other mums were talking about it and saying there would be more details in the local paper. I shouted said if it really happened it would be on Sky news or BBC 24 right now!

Funny enough it didn't appear in the paper!

YANBU! Sorry missed that bit out!

Hellbent someone posted about that very urban legend on here no so long ago and there was actually a poster who swore it was true because her brother's cousin's friend's dog's mother's owner was a police officer and had dealt with it.

There is no curing stupid people of stupidity, you just have to keep pointing and laughing and kicking them in the twinkle so as to stop them infecting slightly less stupid people.

Must've been related to the nursery staff member too, small world hey!

There was a similar story in my area HellBent except it was Asda and two Albanian men. Apparantly the police wanted it kept out of the press to prevent mass hysteria
YANBU - I don't join any of those facebook groups. Urban myths and daft rumours galore...

On snopes it says parents are paid off by the big company to prevent bad publicity and the rumours are a way of letting other people know.

Also hate the way minority groups are used in this, bad foreigners trying to steal our children kind of thing!

YANBU. IME it is always stupid people who join these groups. My cousin, who is both exceptionally stupid and the second worst parent I know, spends her entire time on FB joining "Thick peepul agenst peedlefiles" or "Justiss 4 kidz wot have bin abuwsed".

oh blimey - just seen the groups - I CAN'T BELIEVE they're using the local rag reports as being the truth, and this afternoon chattting to a mum at toddlers she's had texts with all sort of nonsense hysteria sent to her.

YANBU - I can't believe there are facbook groups about it

I am local. There was only 1 incident according to the police website and this was the only story reported in the local paper that I am aware of. I believe that newspaper report caused the hysteria by, and I quote "A letter sent out by schools and nurseries nearby to parents and guardians immediately after the alarm was raised suggested it was an attempted abduction".

at facebook group

I also know people who have had texts...

My sister must be in same county as she was telling me about it yesterday - she'd received panic texts etc.

The one that Hellbent mentioned went around here a couple of months ago. It was 2 Romanian women in Asda. I got it by text.