NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) – On the morning of July 28, a post was put on a Facebook group for buying and selling in Lincoln County stating that a newborn baby was found in Maxwell and that help was needed in identifying the parents of the child.
There is only one problem with this post: it’s a scam.
This same post was placed on multiple groups from across the United States by the same person with the same text.
How does this scam work? Why a child?
News 2 spoke with Officer Rory Little at the North Platte Police Department who was able to shed light on these questions and more.
“Typically what these people will do is, they’re trying to elicit responses and get people to message them.,” Officer Little said. “And then, lots of times, they’ll ask for your phone number or figure out some other way they can contact you that’s not on Facebook. And they’ll use that to try and phish out more information.”
These scammers have a few goals, the first of which is to get you off of Facebook. Facebook has counter measures in place to detect fake scam accounts, and the longer they are on Facebook, the more likely they are to be taken off of it.
The next goal of the scammer is to get any personal information from you. Whether or not that is your phone number, your credit card, or even just your email address, scammers want it.
“The big thing to look for is spelling or grammar. A misplaced word is also a key indicator,” Office…
