Tag Archives: hoax

A Facebook post shared to a buy and sell Facebook group called “Aber swap shop” claiming an autistic boy called Brandon has gone missing with his family dog uses images taken in 2019, which we previously wrote about after they were used in a nearly-identical set of hoax posts.

The post says: “HELP!!!  #aber MS My son Brandon Smith took off this morning with our dog hank. He is autistic and has been missing for eight hours if anyone sees him please PM me please re-post on any sites.I already contacted police. [sic]”

As we’ve previously explained, the pictures used in the posts have been circulating online since 2019, and reportedly show a boy in the US being reunited with his dog, Piper, which had been found after going missing for over a fortnight. 

They…

Hoax posts shared to local Facebook groups claim that an autistic boy named Brandon Smith has gone missing with his dog Hank. 

Full Fact has seen an example of this post in a community “what’s on” group in Eastbourne, East Sussex, but it has also appeared in groups in the US such as one in the town of Morganton, North Carolina. 

The full text of the post says: “My son Brandon Smith took off this morning with our dog hank. He is autistic and has been missing for eight hours if anyone sees him please PM me please re-post on any sites.I already contacted police [sic].” 

Alongside the text is a professional-looking picture of a young boy sitting on grass, holding a small white dog on a lead. 

This picture is not of a missing boy—it’s from a set of stock…

Thousands of people on Facebook have shared a hoax post appealing for the identity of a dog allegedly found injured at the side of the road in Plumstead, southeast London. 

The post, shared 3,700 times at the time of publication, says: “Hello. If anyone is looking for this sweet girl, found her lying on the side road in #Plumstead 

“She was hit by a car in a hit and run incident.I took her to the vet she is in a critical condition,sustained multiple fractures and on pain relief and oxygen. She is not chipped I know someone is looking for her. Please bump this post to help me find the owner.” 

This is not a real appeal, and Full Fact has written about posts with similar wording many times before. 

All three pictures used in the post appear to have been taken…

Several Facebook posts being shared to local community groups claim to be someone searching for their birth parents. But the posts are fake.

One post, which appears in a Nottingham and Nottinghamshire car sales group and has almost 2,000 shares, says: “Hello my name is Javier Thomas. I was born here in Nottingham  June 17 1993 looking for my birth mother or father. Mother’s name is Cathy M Evans and she was only 16 at the time of my birth. That’s all info I have. Please bump this post and help me reunite with my family.I really need them at this point of my life. [sic]”

There are multiple posts that have almost identical text but use different names, dates and locations. These posts appear in community groups across the UK, including Lurgan Town in Northern…

Hoax posts claiming that an elderly man with dementia named Martin Jones has gone missing with his dog have been shared on social media.  

The posts say: “My uncle Mr Martin Jones aged 79 drove out with our dog Baxter and he hasn’t returned. He doesn’t know where he’s going, he has dementia. There is a silver alert activated on him. Please help bump this post so we can get him home safely.” 

We have written about fake appeals for the whereabouts of “Martin Jones” before. The picture used in the posts, of a man wearing a dark jacket and cap holding a small dog, is taken from a post thanking a local volunteer for a community group in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

The post is likely to have originated in the US as it makes a reference to a “silver alert”—a…