SEDAN, Kan. (KSNW) – The Sedan Police Department is warning the public about fake missing person and pet scams.

“While social media is a great way to communicate and stay in touch with friends, family and businesses, it has also become a favorite outlet for scammers attempting to steal our personal and financial information,” said the SPD.

This scam targets social media users by creating posts on local buy-and-sell pages about missing children, older adults, or pets that aren’t actually missing. The posts are designed to pull at your heartstrings and convince you to share them.

“These posts are usually shared in local buy-and-sell groups because there is already a sense of community and trust within these crowds, and people may not realize that scammers are targeting members,” said the SPD.

After the post begins to trend, the scammer will change the original wording, sometimes changing it to promote a supposed property rental, sale, or even a survey link that promises a cash prize for participating. When content is changed, it updates all of the shared posts to display the same content as well. This leaves your friends thinking you may recommend the promotional post.

“This scheme has many variations, but the common thread is that it plays on our emotions, and the urgency of the message encourages concerned people to share the news with their friends and family. Then it puts your loved ones at risk because the ads attempt to get respondents to spend money or share personal information that could lead to identity theft,” said the SPD.

The Better Business Bureau offers the following tips to avoid being scammed by bait-and-switch ads:

• Do a bit of digging before resharing a post on your profile. Read the information carefully and look at the profile of the person who created and shared the original post. If the profile is from Florida but shared the post in a Tennessee group, it may be a red flag of a bait-and-switch publication.
• Find out when the poster created the Facebook profile. Scammers always create profiles when their old one gets banned. If you click on their profile, it will tell you how long they have been a member of the group. You can also find additional information on their public profile.
• You should see it on official outlets. If a child goes missing or a tragedy occurs, you’ll most likely see it shared by law enforcement, not on a random post.
• Do a reverse image search on Google. You can right-click on the photo and use a service like Google Lens to see if the pictures in the post are showing up as being used in other ads or websites in different cities.
• Find similar posts. Copy and paste the text from the post into Facebook’s search tool to see if other posts with the same text and different pictures show up.
• Alert moderators. Alert administrators to fake profiles, compromised accounts and spam messages by reporting them on Facebook and Instagram.

“Navigating social media in the 21st century is riddled with dangers and pitfalls. Staying informed and being vigilant remains your best protection from any scammer,” said the SPD.