Did social media posts share the true story of the disappearance of Raymond Peterson and his wife Sophie from Livingston Parish in Louisiana? No, that's not true: The posts were part of a bait-and-switch technique commonly seen on Facebook where the content of emotionally charged posts calling for help later get replaced by a scam real-estate ad. The real names of the couple seen in the claim are Stephanie and Daniel Menard, found dead in California before the bait-and-switch post was published.
The claim appeared in a post on Facebook on September 24, 2024. The caption about the supposedly missing couple read:
FLOOD YOUR FEEDS ~ MISSING!
Our Dad, Raymond Peterson aged 80 drove out last night with our step mom Sophie and they still haven't returned. They were last seen around here in livingston parish.
He doesn't know where he's going, he has chronic memory loss. There is a silver alert activated on them. Please help bump this post so we can get them home safely🙏🏻
This is what the post originally looked like on Facebook:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Sep 25 13:49:44 2024 UTC)
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing. It is now an advertisement for real estate:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Sep 25 13:50:17 2024 UTC)
Clicking the three dots in the upper left-hand corner, then "View edit history" on the current real estate ad shows Facebook users that the post used to be about Raymond Peterson and Sophie. Evidence of this is below:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Sep 25 14:33:25 2024 UTC)
The bait-and-switch post was found in a Facebook group for a virtual yard sale in the Ascension Parish and Livingston Parish areas of Louisiana.
The Livingston Parish's Sheriff's Office has a website that includes a missing persons page. At the time of writing, neither Peterson nor his wife are listed as missing people (archived here).
A Google News search using keywords (archived here) related to this claim did not yield any reports that Peterson or his wife were ever missing.
A reverse image search of the couple in the claim led Lead Stories to an August 29, 2024, local news article that reported authorities suspected foul play in the disappearance of a Redlands, California, couple. The same photo as in the post on Facebook is embedded in the article. Their real names were Stephanie and Daniel Menard. A September 16, 2024, CBS News article later reported that a coroner determined they died from blunt-force trauma and classified their deaths as homicides.
Another example of the Peterson bait-and-switch is here, but this time in Shreveport, Louisiana. Evidence of the edit history is below:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Sep 25 17:11:35 2024 UTC)
Real estate scam postings
Lead Stories defined what real estate scam posts are in a previous fact check that debunked a similar bait-and-switch claim:
Real estate scam posts are a tactic used on Facebook by spammers that 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 documented by a post's edit history, which also notes additions or deletions of content. Sometimes, time stamps on the posts indicate when the switches were made, but timestamps don't change on some posts 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 that the links lead to new sites with 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.'
Additional Lead Stories fact checks about bait-and-switch scams can be found here.
