Is there an active "silver alert" in July 2024 for a 5-year-old girl called "Sofia" who is missing in Edinburgh, Scotland, according to a post on Facebook? No, that's not true: A real estate ad later replaced similar versions of the post about "Sofia." These changes appear to be part of a long-established scam that uses a heart-wrenching tale and compelling imagery to dupe unsuspecting social media users. Silver Alerts are only for the United States. Lead Stories could find no proof in official police and missing-persons databases that such a little girl is missing in Edinburgh.
A version of the claim about "Sofia" appeared in a post on Facebook on July 11, 2024, (archived here) with a caption that read:
Help!!! MISSING Child!! #edinburgh
My granddaughter Sofia only 5years old went out on her bike earlier today and she still hasn't returned.She doesn't know where she's going, new surroundings.There is a silver alert activated on her. Please help bump this post so we can get her home safely!!🙏🏻
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken Fri July 12 09:32:16 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories found many similar posts with the same format in cities across the U.S. and the U.K.
No relevant reports to confirm claim
A Google News search (archived here) revealed that a 10-year-old girl named Sophia Timms from East Lothian in Scotland was found "safe and well," according to news reports from May 13, 2024. Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland.
However, the girl in the photo on Facebook is not 10 years old, and her name is spelled differently. Lead Stories could find no connection between the previously missing girl and the one in the post on Facebook.
Lead Stories also searched the Police Scotland missing persons database (archived here), but no results were returned for a Sofia.
Silver Alert does not apply to Edinburgh
The Silver Alert is a standardized U.S. law enforcement response for sharing information with the public when a senior citizen is missing, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (archived here). It does not apply to 5-year-old children or the U.K., which Scotland is part of.
In the U.K., the public receives alerts about missing children from the Child Rescue Alert, according to the UK Missing Persons Unit (archived here). A search in the missing persons database (archived here) for a 5-year-old female who went missing in July 2024 returned no relevant results.
Bait-and-switch scheme
The post about the missing "granddaughter Sofia" appears to be what's called a "bait and switch" scheme. In this ruse, social media users will post eye-grabbing content to get other users to share the post with their followers. After the post is shared, the scammer changes the original post to "a deceptive rental ad," the Better Business Bureau (BBB) (archived here), a nonprofit business watchdog, warns. The BBB adds:
This scheme has many variations, but the commonality is the emotionality or urgency of the message that encourages concerned people to share the news with their friends ...
These posts are 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. Scammers sometimes also turn comments off on the posts so other group members can't oust them.
Once a post has shares and engagement, the scammer will flip the post -- that is, update the post to be about something completely different, usually a house or apartment for rent. Hence, the name "bait and switch."
Lead Stories found an example of the "Sofia" scheme in a post (archived here) shared in the Facebook group Orange Mound Tennessee on July 9, 2024. We viewed the post's edit history, seen below, by clicking the "..." in the top right corner of the post. That revealed that the same "missing child" content had flipped to include a house rental.
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken Fri July 12 15:39:53 2024 UTC)
Here is the final version of the "flip":
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken Fri July 12 21:53:02 2024 UTC)
The Kelly Ben account that shared the post that is the target of this fact check was created on July 7, 2024 -- the same day the account joined the Edinburgh& lothian💪👌 Facebook group. As of July 12, 2024, the Kelly Ben account contained only one post -- the appeal about "Sofia."
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken Fri July 12 15:15:12 2024 UTC)
Next, using the text from the "granddaughter Sofia" post, Lead Stories conducted a keyword search, without "#edinburgh," on Facebook. The search returned dozens of the same post, including those shared in New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Texas and Kentucky, to name a few. Some examples are shown below:
(Source: Lead Stories compilation of Facebook screenshots captured Fri July 12 2024)
Fact checking at home
BBB offers the tips below to avoid being scammed by a bait-and-switch post on Facebook:
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 Canadian 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 in the news. If a child goes missing or a tragedy occurs, you'll most likely see it on different news outlets or shared by law enforcement, not on a random post.
Do a reverse image search on Google. That will allow you to find out if the pictures you saw were used on 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.
If you suspect a post is a scam, report it to Facebook.
If this scam has targeted you, help others by filing a scam report at BBB.org/ScamTracker.
Lead Stories has investigated other bait-and-switch scams in the past. Those fact checks can be read here.
