Viral plea to help reunite lost 3-year-old with family was a scam, his mother says
NORTH TEXAS — The story spreading online was a heartbreaking one: a young boy with two black eyes was found by police and needing his parents.
When CBS News Texas tracked down his mother, Analyn Thomas, in Phoenix, though, she said her son was never missing at all.
"It was horrible honestly," she said of finding the picture of her son had gone viral online.
She first shared the picture that she's now asked us to blur as part of a vulnerable Facebook post detailing the abuse she says an ex-boyfriend committed.
"This is an ongoing situation for us. It's a traumatic event for us," she said.
Then several days ago, Thomas says she began receiving messages. First, just a few. Then, thousands.
"They were like, 'Hey girl! Isn't this your kid?'" said Thomas. "I ended up with about 50,000 messages from around the world, just telling me my son was missing, and that I needed to get in contact with the police stations… It reached New Zealand, China, Germany, all of the United States, every single state."
It's not the first time this has happened.
This past July pictures began popping up online of the same baby supposedly found in towns across the country, from Boston to Duncanville.
The posts all urge users to "flood our feeds to help identify who this newborn baby belongs to."
A reverse Google image search reveals San Bernadino County in California first shared the pictures of police caring for an abandoned one-month-old baby last year. At that point, they'd already figured out who the mother was.
"It's just a new evolution of social engineering tactics that hackers and spammers use to basically tug at the human heartstrings," said Andrew Sternke of DarkBox Security Systems.
The cyber security expert said the scam is becoming more common.
The goal, he says, is first to go viral and then to add a link that will either solicit donations or steal your personal information.
That's exactly what Thomas said was happening.
"Once they got 5,000 shares, they were switching the photos to a scam link," said Thomas.
Sternke says the first red flag is often that the quality of the photo is low since it's been copied.
Posts will usually have comments turned off.
And, if you look at the source of the post, it's often not family, friends, or any official entity, but someone whose home page has little history.
"It's just ridiculously blank," said Sternke.
You can also search keywords in the story to see where else they're popping up.
Thomas said her already difficult situation is now even harder, as she works to convince people her son is right where he belongs.
"You're trying to prove no that's my child. He's with me. No one's believing you. It's just… it's an insane experience to go through," she said.