A photo of a pensioner and his dog has been circulating online as a trick used by scammers, who claim the man is said to be lost along with his pet dog.
The post, which has been circulating on Facebook claims the man has dementia and has driven away in his car with his pet and cannot be found.
The post has been proven to be fake, and anyone who engages could fall victim to the fraudsters.
DogsLive, tracked down the man in the photo, only for him to state he was completely unaware that the post was being reproduced to create a fake story.
Posting under various different names, the scammers claimed he was a pensioner called Benson S Bell, and has travelled far and wide, having gained more than 6,000 shares in 25 different locations from Belfast to Boston.
The man’s real name is Rob Jones, 76, from Southampton, and he lives with his partner Lyn Bulman. Neither of the two had anything to do with the scams on social media.
In fact, Lyn actually took the photo of her partner for the local paper, in which Mr Jones explained how his pet dog was almost killed in a dog attack, but is now recovering.
Criminals are taking advantage of social media, email, and messaging services to attack their targets, and getting more sophisticated in how they use technology to grow their reach.
Action Fraud reported in the year leading up to June 2020, the cybercrime reporting centre received over 800,000 fraud reports.
Belfast Live reports fraudsters use a variety of tricks to convince people to share “emotionally-charged” posts.
They tend to target different online groups and cities and can use the same pictures under different aliases. The post eventually appears as a more serious scam, which encourages people to sign up to a bogus scheme.
When the post is shared in good faith and gathers momentum, its contents are then changed entirely and people it is shared with no longer see a post about the lost pensioner or a sick child, instead they see a new post, but this one is about a bogus scheme designed to scam more victims.
The scam works because the posts appear to be endorsed by trusted friends, family and colleagues.
Facebook, now known as Meta, has information about reporting scams here. The company said: “When something gets reported to Facebook, we’ll review it and remove anything that doesn’t follow the Facebook Community Standards. Your name and other personal information will be kept completely confidential.”
