You have a big heart, see something on Facebook and click share hoping to help.  Later, you find out it was a scam.  Next time, just a little research may help you determine if the post is legitmate before you share it with your friends.

How can you know if it’s legit?

1. Look at where it’s shared.

The scam posts are usually in fairly unregulated “buy/sale/trade” or “yard sale” groups in for a community.

2. Did they turn the comments off on their original post?

If the comments are off, 99% certain it’s a scam. If someone is truly looking for a missing person, odds are, they’re not turning off comments for fear of missing out on a lead.

3. Besides one mention of a specific community, how vague is the rest of the post?

If they only mention a town/county/whatever one time and there are no details of who to contact if the person is spotted, probably a scam.

4. What other posts has that person made in the group?

If their other posts are the “tug your heartstrings” posts, then it’s likely a scam. If their other posts are selling things or putting things up for rent, it’s probably a scam. Also, if you hit the three dots in the upper right corner of those for sale/rent posts, you can see if the post has been edited. If they’re trying to sell/rent something out, and it’s an edited post, dollars to donuts the post started out as one of these “tragedy” posts they asked everyone to take two seconds to share.

They do this to make people share posts. Then they will come in days later after it has a lot of shares and change it from the “please help!” post to the “buy or rent my property” post. People see their friends share this, and they assume that person is helping out a friend, so they roll with it and keep sharing. Then, these people (with vague, no reference to the community other than the group it’s in, so people assume it’s in/near that area kind of info) start accepting “applications,” “application fees,” and/or “deposits” for the property. Not only have you helped them scam a friend or a friend of a friend out of money, you’ve also helped them get sensitive personal info about folks to potentially steal their identity.

The same rules apply to the “dog that’s been hit by a car” posts or “person who was hospitalized by a terrible accident and their family needs to be found” posts or the “found this jewelry, and obviously someone is missing it…share to help them see it!” posts, etc.

Yes, it only takes two seconds to hit share, but it only takes 10-15 seconds to check the legitimacy before hitting the share button.