Are social media posts about 16-year-old "Paul Ferrara" genuine calls for help in a missing person case? No, that's not true: These posts were flipped to "rent-to-own" scam posts shortly after publication. The supposedly missing teenager was described as "the son of a local police officer" in multiple U.S. locations. Lead Stories found no public confirmation as of August 30, 2024 that a 16-year-old teenager of this name was missing.
The appearance of the post on Facebook has changed since August 29, 2024, (archived here) when it first showed up. As of August 30, 2024, the post (archived here) said:
RENT TO OWN HOME!!!$580/Month 3 bedrooms & 2bathCute and clean house ready to go.Recent updates in the kitchen and bath.Newer floors. Direct access garage.Big backyard. Excellent location.No down payment or credit check required, Section 8 is accepted & we are pet-friendly.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Aug 30 18:11:10 2024 UTC)
However, as the edit history shows, the initial content of the entry on Facebook was different: It described the supposed disappearance of a 16-year-old called ""Paul Ferrara," described as autistic and "the son of a local police officer." The post claimed that Ferrara could "possibly be in EXTREME danger and in need of medical assistance," and urged viewers to share the information.
(The post's edit history can be accessed by clicking on the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the post and choosing "View edit history" from the pulldown menu.)
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Aug 30 18:14:35 2024 UTC)
Here is what the post looked like on August 29, 2024, before the change of content (archived here):
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Aug 30 11:34:54 2024 UTC)
A Google search across Facebook for the keywords seen here (archived here) showed that posts with identical language simultaneously appeared not only in the Pennsylvania group seen in the screenshot above, but in groups from many other locations, including Florida, Colorado, Tennessee and New York. One "Paul Ferrara" cannot possibly be "the son of a local police officer" in so many places at once.
Had the story been true, the age of the supposed 16-year-old "Paul Ferrara" could trigger an Amber Alert. Police in the U.S. issue this alert to emergency warning systems for missing children aged 17 or younger who may have been abducted or are believed to be in imminent danger. But, as of this writing, a "Paul Ferrara" did not appear on the list of active Amber Alerts (archived here), run by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
(Source: National Center For Missing & Exploited Children screenshot taken on Fri Aug 30 22:14:07 2024 UTC
A search of the Center's database of posters about missing children did not include that name, either:
(Source: National Center For Missing & Exploited Children screenshot taken on Fri Aug 30 20:52:37 2024 UTC)
Furthermore, a search across NamUs, which is a national database of missing people, did not show any matching entries:
(Source: NamUs screenshot taken on Fri Aug 30 19:21:23 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories also searched the Pennsylvania State Police's official X account, which posts relevant Amber Alerts (archived here); missing children databases in Florida (archived here) and New York (archived here); Colorado's Bureau of Investigation official X account (archived here), which posts information about missing people; and Tennessee's active alerts for minors and its list of all missing children.
But none of these official resources contained anything about "Paul Ferrara."
A Google Lens reverse image search (archived here) showed that the images of a seated teenager that had appeared on Facebook with the "Paul Ferrara" posts have been online since at least October 2017. Thus, they cannot portray any person in 2024.
As posts about "Paul Ferrara" gained traction, they were flipped to encourage people to follow a link supposedly offering some "rent-to-own" affordable housing. That led to a GoDaddy website with the title "Rent to Own Homes" on its home page and a See Listings button for visitors to click. The site had no information about who runs it.
According to Google Lens (archived here), the image of a one-story, suburban brick house used in the post that is the focus of this fact check has been circulating on Facebook since the beginning of 2024. One of the earliest examples (archived here) found by Lead Stories was published this year on January 11. It was another example of a "rent-to-own" post that said nothing about the specific location of the property in question.
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 has found such links 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."
Lead Stories has written extensively about bait-and-switch scams. Those fact checks can be found here.
