Scammers use ‘missing autistic child in Malta’ to build up Facebook business

Scammers are using fake missing child notices to get people to share their pages on social media.

On Monday evening, MaltaToday was sent a Facebook post by a certain Mitchell Burns requesting the public’s help in finding her missing child.

“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,” the post read.

The post also features a photo of a child next to a Golden Retriever dog on a sofa.

The Facebook post uploaded on Monday evening

Further investigation revealed the post was being shared by a page, not a profile, which had been created just hours before. The comment section on the post was also turned off by the user.

A reverse-image search revealed the photo was actually taken in 2016. The photo is from a Facebook post in 2016 of a boy who has autism who had just met his dog after waiting two years for a service dog.

The profile picture used by the scammer was uploaded just minutes before the notice was posted

Scammers urge Facebook users to share the posts on their own profiles in order to raise awareness about the so-called missing children. The more shares a post gets, the more legitimate it appears to be.

Once the information has been widely disseminated, the scammer goes into the original post and edits it — transforming it into an advertisement for surveys or housing websites with embedded links to fraudulent websites.

Because the post has already been shared on thousands of people’s profiles, the ads appear real. Unsuspecting Facebook users who click on the links are asked to enter their credit card details, only to later find their bank accounts apparently drained.