Do posts about a "little boy approximately 3 years old" found and "saved" by "Deputy Ryan Braidley" authentically describe a real-life situation? No, that's not true: Near-identical versions appeared on social media, claiming the rescue happened in locations as much as 600 miles from each other. Once social media users re-post and spread them, the posts are then heavily edited, turning into posts about a "lease-to-own" scheme, reusing stolen images of a publicly listed property. The real estate version tricks people into clicking a link and sharing sensitive personal information.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook where it was published on July 12, 2024. It opened:
This little boy approximately 3 years old was found last night walking behind a home here in #franklinDeputy Ryan Braidley saved him and took him to the Police Station but no one has an idea where he lives, the neighbours don't know him or how he got there. He says his mom's name is Emily.Let's flood our feeds so that this post may reach his family, thank you.
This is what it looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Jul 15 14:05:45 2024 UTC)
Using a keyword search on Facebook, Lead Stories found multiple identical posts, claiming that the same child was found in localities from San Antonia, Texas to Daytona Beach, Florida to Arkansas, locations up to 600 miles distant from one another. Somehow "Deputy Ryan Braidley" was present at the scene at all of them at once:
(Source: Facebook screenshots taken on Mon Jul 15 between 16:57:03 and 16:58:53 2024 UTC; composite image by Lead Stories)
The posts did not offer genuine concern about the child's well-being: After getting some traction on social media, they were quickly flipped to show different content, promoting a real estate "offer."
One example (archived here) of how such posts appeared on Facebook after the switch can be seen below:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon July 15 14:08:18 2024 UTC)
As the edit history shows, the post boosting a lease-to-own "deal" was initially an entry about the same boy "found" by the police in a different county:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Jul 15 14:33:10 2024 UTC)
In reality, the property whose images were seen in the flipped posts was located in San Antonio, Texas. The photos of it were taken from Zillow (archived here and here). The listing did not mention the lease-to-own scheme. The estimated monthly mortgage payment that appeared on the page was $1,764 -- not $500.
Contrary to a line in the flipped version of such posts -- "Section 8 is accepted too!" -- Section 8 (archived here) has nothing to do with purchasing properties. It is a federal government program providing rental assistance to low-income households.
Photos of the same home were previously part of a similar ruse in July 2024, as reported by Lead Stories.
If one clicked a link in a flipped version of those posts, that would lead to a series of websites that don't disclose anything about themselves but collect people's personal information. In the end, an internet user would be asked to sign up for some product claimed to help monitor one's credit score.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about bait-and-switch schemes can be found here.
