RANDOLPH COUNTY, N.C. — The Randolph County Sheriff's Office posted to Facebook, urging people to be mindful of a new scam making its way across social media.
The sheriff's office stated in their post that they grabbed the information from another agency, but wanted to share it to prevent people from falling for the scam.
The scam posts often come with a sense of urgency to share -- and aren't directly from law enforcement agencies. Instead, the scammers drop them on community pages, like yard sale groups. Randolph County Sheriff's Office screen-grabbed a few of these posts, that share unverified stories like:
- A girl in the hospital after a hit-and-run and no one can identify her, and the suspect is on the loose.
- A woman who showed up at a shelter with her dog but can't be identified.
- A woman in the hospital after a hit-and-run and no one can identify her.
“Just be careful. It’s easy to fall victim to it. It’s unfortunate it’s very hard to solve fraud. This year, we received over 400 fraud cases just in Randolph County. It’s very difficult to track them down and unfortunately a lot of times we can’t track them down because they are internet-based and a lot of times they are overseas,” said Randolph County Sheriff's Office Detective, Nathan Small.
Randolph County Sheriff's Office said these are scam posts and you should not share them. They offered a few tips on how to spot these scam posts, so you can be aware on social media.
HOW TO SPOT THE SCAM:
- Commenting is turned off on the original post. If the poster is looking for help, wouldn't you expect them to want people to comment on their original post?
- They're hashtagging the town. RCSO says this isn't a normal practice on Facebook.
- The accounts (the person making the posts) are new or there isn't much available on their page. If the person who made the post is looking for a lost child, trying to help someone get home, or whatever else, don't you think they'd post on their personal profile in addition to these community groups?
- Sometimes, the Facebook name doesn't make sense in English. For example, the last name will typically come first, like Johnson Fred.
- Speaking of names, the URL for the Facebook profile posting these images oftentimes doesn't match the name of the profile. OR it's a business page with a string of numbers. Normal people utilizing business pages post frequently and don't hide comments for every post.
- These posts keep popping up in community groups, garage sale sites, etc So be aware and consider the source!
The Better Business Bureau said these scams are easy to fall for.
“We all get caught up, especially in social media. It can be really easy, we’re going through our feed, it’s kind of one of those things that we do because we don’t have to think a lot. We’re just kind of scrolling through our feed, so it can be really easy to just hit that share button and think that everything that we do is really innocent but unfortunately there are consequences. Especially with this particular scam, you’re hitting share and so after something has changed by a scammer it’s still showing up as yours. Your friends think it’s legitimate because they trust you and that’s what scammers are counting on,” said the Director of Communications for the Better Business Bureau, Lechelle Yates.