South Bend police want the public to know that they don’t have a female officer who was abducted and has gone missing. While they appreciate the concern, they’re asking Facebook users to be more careful about what they share.
The Facebook post shows a picture of a woman in a police uniform, with her arm patch just out of frame so you can’t read the police department.
It claims a female police officer named Carolyn Lynch, age 27, is missing in South Bend, and her vehicle was found last night with her daughter still inside.
But South Bend Police Spokeswoman Ashley O’Chap says the department has no such officer. O’Chap says the scam has circulated around the country with the name and city changed.
You might wonder how the scammers can make any money off this since it doesn't cost you anything to share it. O’Chap says once a lot of people have shared the post, the scammers change its text and photos to advertise fake products like fake apartments for rent. Facebook users then trust the fake ad because it looks like their friends had shared it, so they share it with good intentions.
"Just Google before you share, or just take another look at it before you share," O'Chap says. "Scammers, we will say, are getting a little more crafty because the missing kid and the missing pet story was kind of getting old and stale, so now they've kind of switched the storyline on us."
