Fact check: Posts that describe wandering boy are social media scams, photo dates to 2020

BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: Image shows boy found wandering in various cities

An April 26 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows an image of a young child sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle next to a police officer.

“This baby – Jonathan – was found today walking behind a home in #Northport,” reads the post. “We can’t find his parents, the neighbors don’t know him or how he got there. He says his mom’s name is Wendy. Let’s bump this post so it may reach her family, thank you.”

The post was shared more than 200 times in one day. Another version of the claim that said the boy was found in a New York town was shared more than 300 times before it was deleted.

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Our rating: False

The Northport Police Department and Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office in Alabama said it had no such reports of a missing boy in the area. The image actually shows a boy found wandering alone in Iowa in 2020. These posts are a copy-and-paste scheme scammers use to identify potential targets.

Scammers use copy-and-paste scams as a 'gullibility check'

The Northport Police Department said no such incident happened in the area, which lies about an hour southwest of Birmingham, Alabama.

“We have had no report of this in Northport,” said Assistant Chief Keith Carpenter, who also pointed out the officer sitting next to the boy in the photo is not wearing the department’s uniform.

Jessica McDaniel, public information officer for the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office, said the post does not match any reports the office is investigating.

The image dates to at least October 2020 and shows a boy found walking by himself in Ottumwa, Iowa, a city near Des Moines, according to WOI-TV. Ottumwa police later reported that they identified and contacted the boy's parents, the TV station reported.

Fact check: Scammers using photo of teen from 2016 car crash in copy-and-paste scheme

The posts are an example of a copy-and-paste scheme scammers use to identify potential targets. Telltale signs of such scams are that the person who created them is often times posting from a new account and comments on the posts are disabled.

Jeffrey Blevins, a misinformation expert and professor at the University of Cincinnati, previously told USA TODAY sharing such posts can make someone a target for future scams.

“It’s a gullibility check,” Blevins said. “They’re likely to circle back to you later to see what you’re willing to share, or they might try to engage you one-on-one, get you to accept a friend request, that kind of thing.”

Police tape
Police tape

USA TODAY has previously debunked similar scams that claimed an image showed an abandoned infant, a hospitalized woman and a missing boy in various places.

USA TODAY reached out to users who shared the claim for comment.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Posts of boy found wandering are social media scam