MindaNews fact-checked a post on a Davao City Facebook group involving an injured dog. It is fake and meant to lure users fall to a phishing scam.
A post on Facebook group Davao City house and lot or lot only for sale that was looking for the owner of a dog hit by a car is fake.
Facebook user Cleo J. Lee posted the fake claim on March 31, a day before April Fools’ Day. In the post were two photos of a pitbull supposedly found lying on a roadside in Davao City, a victim of a hit-and-run incident.
The post was uploaded at 5:25 a.m. on March 31. It gathered at least 1.6K shares and 475 likes as of 3:43 p.m. of the same day. Users who are not members of the Facebook group also shared the post.
It is a fake post designed for an online phishing scam. Phishing is a criminal offense under Republic Act 10175, also known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
Phishing is a method of identity theft that involves using emails, text / online messages or phone calls to trick the victims. The aim is to make people visit a website, which may download a virus into their computer or smartphone, to steal bank details or other personal information.
Cleo J. Lee’s post had been taken down by Facebook on April 1. The user’s profile has red flags all over the account. Created last February 10, there is no other content on her wall except the profile photo. The account’s About tab, which users usually populate first before doing anything else, does not also contain any information.
We found a similar post in a Reddit thread under r/CommonScams a day before the Cleo J. Lee post went viral on Facebook. Notice that the dog is the same as well as the wordings of the post, except the name of the place.
Similar posts with the same message also appeared in Facebook groups West Ishpeming & 906 Area Items for Sale, and Preston and Whiston selling page, both located in Europe.
As early as 2022, Facebook has marked similar posts with a “False information” tag.
As with all our other reports, MindaNews welcomes leads or suggestions from the public to potential fact-check stories.(Yas D. Ocampo / MindaNews)
