Did teenager Misty Lang go missing after leaving a friend's home in Ohio, Michigan, California, and numerous other locations? No, that's not true: Posts saying she vanished from anywhere other than Decatur, Alabama, are part of a bait-and-switch scam. As of July 12, 2024, Lang has been missing from Decatur, Alabama since July 4, 2024.
One example of such a scam post (archived here) was published on Facebook in the Clermont County, Ohio, No Rules Sell or Trade Anything group on July 7, 2024. The post was captioned:
MISSING TEEN| It takes two seconds to share!
#clermont county14-year-old Misty Lang has been missing for 48 hours after she left her friend's home. Unfortunately, there is still no sign of her. We are asking for the community's help.MISTY LANG5'1 around 130 lbsGREEN EYESRED HAIRShe was last seen wearing a pink tie dye shirt and blue jeans.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Jul 12 14:03:05 2024 UTC)
Other posts claimed she went missing from numerous locations, including White Lake, Michigan and Tulare County, California. The false posts are part of a bait-and-switch ruse that Lead Stories has observed used on Facebook since 2022. The deceptive posts use a variety of narratives to entice people to share them, then are later edited to entice people to give up information used in a scam. In this case, Misty Lang, 14, is a real missing person but scammers have changed the facts of her disappearance to target communities all over the United States.
Real teen missing from Alabama
A post from the Decatur Police Department in Alabama on July 5, 2024, (pictured below) and updated on July 8 identified Misty Lang as a missing runaway juvenile. She was last seen at Point Mallard, a water park in Decatur. The post reads:
7/8 UPDATE: The Decatur Police Department continues to request the public's assistance locating Misty Lang, a runaway juvenile last seen in Decatur, AL.Anyone with information is asked to contact the Decatur Police Department at 256-341-4660.
The bait and switch scam
The screenshots featured in the composite image below are just a sampling of posts that surfaced from a Facebook search for "Misty Lang missing."
Images of a child (clearly not a teen) walking a dog were posted in a group called I Love Usa with a caption saying "📍Eldorado 14-year-old Misty Lang." Lead Stories exposed a similar bait-and-switch scam that used these same images.
Another post in a Facebook group called "anything stolen in the azletx area" had the same caption with photos of a different young woman with red hair. The wording about Lang was changed to better fit the photo: "She was last seen wearing a white shirt and blue jeans."
One post in the Tri-State Treasures Garage Sale (NY, NJ, PA) group used the real photo of Lang, and a #newyork hashtag.
(Source: Lead Stories composite image with Facebook screenshots taken on Fri Jul 12 16:01:40 2024 UTC)
Many posts in the search results feature real estate photos and captions about Rent to Own homes (two real-estate photos are pictured above). These are posts that started as a missing-person alert and now have been edited to capitalize on shares of that initial post.
The edit history of a Facebook post can be accessed by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner (pictured below).
The edit history of a post about Misty Lang placed in the Local Gossip (Madison, Indiana) group indicates that two photos have been swapped for four new images. The original caption about the missing teen now reads:
Rent to Own Home
$650/Month
3-bedrooms, 2-Bath rooms, Recently painted house with new appliances and upgrades! ready for a new owner.
-Located near shopping center
-Parking Space Available!
- All Pets allowed
For more information kindly visit >>> https://cutt.ly/1egGgu82
and fill in the application to set an appointment
(Source: Lead Stories composite image with Facebook screenshots taken on Fri Jul 12 16:01:40 2024 UTC)
The rent-to-own scam
The bait-and-switch posting scheme may lead to a variety of different scams, of which rent to own is one common theme.
A reverse image search with TinEye finds that the house seen in the rent-to-own ad pictured above is not in Madison, Indiana, as implied, but in Raleigh, North Carolina. The residence was taken off the market on January 20, 2024, according to the listing for the image from HotPads.com, a rental-search site. In that listing, the interior of the home does not match the interior photos included in the Facebook post that supplanted the post about Misty Lang.
The home ad used to target viewers of the Misty-related post is just a ruse to get people to click on the shortened link in the post -- https://cutt.ly/1egGgu82 -- which goes to rentownclubusa4.godaddysites.com. This GoDaddy website displays the seal of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, but it is not affiliated with the government agency.
Clicking on this website's blue View Homes button leads to another website, rentownclub.com, where users' personal information is collected. The Terms of Use, linked at the bottom of the page, state clearly under section two:
This Site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, authorized by, or associated in any way with any government (whether federal or state), government agency, military, or country.
The disclaimers page on the rentown-club.com website does not have anything to do with real estate. The page is copied text from a vehicle warranty service.
Near the bottom of the Terms of Use webpage, an address is given for Rent Own Club: 531 Main St. #112. El Segundo, CA 90245-3060. But neither the Better Business Bureau, nor the California Secretary of State's Business Search for registered businesses lists Rent Own Club as an active business in California.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of narratives used in such bait-and-switch scams can be found here.
