Did authentic social media posts offer genuine concern over the discovery of an urn marked "Zachary Levi Bowers" in various places? No, that's not true: This is a common bait-and-switch scam in which social media users post heart-tugging stories they later edit to display supposed real estate offerings. The same post often circulates under the names of many different towns.
PLEASE HELP ME FIND THE OWNERWe found this tiny urn with the name Zachary Levi Bowers with ashes in the parking lot inLumbertonI think it fell out of someones bag or car. Please flood your feeds and pray she finds her way back to her family.It only takes seconds to share.
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Aug 27 17:32:23 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories found an example of the urn post (archived here) on Facebook on August 26, 2024, after it was switched to a rent-to-own advertisement. It said:
Cheap Rent to own Apartments available at very low affordable prices2 Bedroom & 2 Baths - from $450/ Month3 Bedroom & 2 Baths - from $550 / Month4Bedroom & 2 Baths - from $850 / MonthDirect all questions to the property management team, set up an appointment, and view the home to your satisfaction
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Aug 27 17:32:10 2024 UTC)
The edit history of the post reveals it previously showed the "Zachary Levi Powers" urn story, claiming to have found it in a parking lot in Detroit. In the upper right corner of a Facebook post are three dots that will open a menu for "View edit history." The edit history will open as a pop-up window (pictured below) that shows if the post has changed and when.
This is the edit history of the post:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Aug 27 17:32:15 2024 UTC)
Its wording matches the other Facebook post claiming to have found the urn in Lumberton; only the location changed.
There were several more recent posts made largely by the same Facebook account and published in different groups, purporting to have found the ashes of Zachery Levi Bowers in a variety of locations. The account is not a person but a page, in the health/beauty category. One post (archived here) said to have found the urn in Ravenna. Another post (archived here) in Monticello. In both these Facebook groups, it wasn't clear which state they were supposed to be in.
Lead Stories did not find credible evidence of the claim in a Google search (archived here). A reverse image search with Google Lens (archived here) also did not offer credible evidence corroborating the lost urn story. With a slightly different spelling, Zachery Levi Bowers was a real person who died in 2019, as his obituary shows.
It appears that the information in the post is only being used to lure people into a real estate scheme.
Real estate scams
Facebook accounts employ "bait-and-switch" content to lure people into a scam. A post's creator will pair an alarming or heart-wrenching claim with a compelling image to catch people's attention -- missing children or aging adults, injured animals, injured people in hospital beds and sex trafficking tactics -- and drive engagement.
Once a post has garnered sufficient attention, the content switches to push a deceptive real estate advertisement. The wording and images of these eye-catching posts, typically seen on local Facebook "yard sale" pages," are frequently identical, even when the offered property is located in different cities, regions of the U.S. or countries.
The content switch is clearly documented by a post's edit history, which also notes additions or deletions of content. In some instances time stamps on the posts indicate when the switches were made but on some posts, timestamps don't change even though the content does.
Commonly, such posts use links that lead to landing pages with disclaimers or false promises and contact information requests that can be used to gather personal data, including financial information, from people who follow the trails. Some links purport to connect people to a U.S. Housing and Urban Development site to help them search for deals on foreclosed homes.
Lead Stories found the links often lead to new sites that carry disclosures at the bottom of the page that note they are "not affiliated with, endorsed, authorized, or approved by the Federal Government or the US Department of Housing and Urban Development."
Other Lead Stories fact checks of bait-and-switch scams are found here.
