Is a social media post saying that a girl "approximately 3 years old" was found by "Deputy Amy Braidley" authentic? No, that's not true: This is a bait-and-switch post that sends readers to a real estate ad. Lead Stories has previously debunked similar posts with a 3-year-old being found in different locations across the country, each time by a deputy named Braidley.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on September 11, 2024. Above images of a young brown-complexioned girl wearing a white tank top and blue shorts, the caption said:
This little girl, approximately 3 years old was found last night walking behind a home here in #Moses Lake
Deputy Amy Braidley saved her and took her to the Police Station but no one has an idea where she lives, the neighbours don't know her or how she got there. She says her mom's name is Kira.
Let's flood our feeds so that this post may reach her family, thank you.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing, with Lead Stories concealing the child's face:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Sept. 12 15:19:29 2024 UTC. Face obscured by Lead Stories to protect minor's privacy.)
In a July 15, 2024, fact check and a September 2, 2024, fact check, Lead Stories debunked a claim about a 3-year-old boy found walking alone. Like this claim, the deputy in both previous fact checks was also named Braidley.
Lead Stories found a September 11, 2024, post (archived here) advertising a rent-to-own home purportedly in Akron, Ohio, that originally had this claim of a 3-year-old girl being found by a deputy named Braidley, the edit history shows.
Three dots in the upper right corner of a Facebook post open a menu for a social media user to view its edit history. The edit history opens as a pop-up window, displayed in the image below, showing if the post has changed and when. Although the original photos of the girl are not visible, the edit history shows that a day after the post was made, two attachments were removed, four new attachments were added, and the location changed.
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Sept. 12 15:29:29 2024 UTC)
Real estate scam postings
A Lead Stories fact check published August 14, 2024, defined what real estate scam posts are:
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 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 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.'
Additional Lead Stories fact checks about bait-and-switch scams can be read here.
