In the last few days you might have seen posts relating to missing 15-year-old Gracie Mae Thompson, especially if you live in Texas, where the teen is reportedly from.
The case has received widespread attention online; after all, this is a young child whose life is on the line, right? Well, you can’t always believe everything you read online — although many have been sharing posts relating to Thompson, there’s evidence to suggest that the whole thing might very well be a part of a malicious scam.
If you’ve seen the post you might remember the details, but for those who haven’t seen it, it features an image of a young girl along with details about her appearance and where she went missing. Apparently, Thompson is 15 years old and recently dyed her hair black, she is 5’2” and weighs 103 pounds, and was last seen wearing black shorts along with a black shirt.
The posts also claim that she went missing from somewhere in Texas, although exactly where in Texas tends to change depending on the post. She’s also supposedly been missing since July 22nd, although the first post shared about her wasn’t until August 8th.
Naturally, people began doing what they could to help out, sharing posts and giving as much attention to the case as they could. It’s only natural, considering this is a missing child we’re talking about here.
People began to get suspicious
Already we can spot a few red flags from these few details. Firstly, the specifics of exactly where Thompson went missing — some posts claim it was Odessa, while others say Stockton, or Pickens County, and the list goes on. Also the fact that Thompson supposedly disappeared on the 22nd of July, but the first post appeared on the 8th of August; typically, when a teen goes missing, we’re all made aware of it pretty fast.
There also weren’t any news reports or credible sources talking about it, and all the news was originating from Facebook pages, which isn’t exactly the best place for reliable information. Everything about this missing person case seems to point towards it being fake, and many online have already come to the conclusion that it’s some sort of scam. But what is the point, is there really any sort of benefit to scamming people in this way?
What is the point of the scam?
Although it may not seem like it, the pages spreading the misinformation do benefit from the post. According to an article from Reviewdiv.com, these scam pages exploit people’s good nature in order to increase reach. Over on Reddit, people pretty much speculated the same thing. It increases a page’s reach, as the algorithm will see this post has been shared multiple times.
What’s more concerning is that the posts could also be used to financially scam people, convincing people to give money to help out. Outlook India reports that posts like these also often link out to sites that contain malware which could harvest user’s bank details, passwords, and usernames.
It’s pretty despicable that people would go to such lengths to increase their reach on social media, especially when you consider the fact that this can lead to distrust when actual missing person cases are shared online. If you see a post relating to Gracie Mae Thompson the best thing to do is not interact with it, or better yet, report it for misinformation.
Published: Aug 13, 2024 12:09 pm