Officials encourage Connecticut Facebook users to be on alert for scam posts

Experts are warning about a post that says an injured baby was abandoned, and another circulating right now claiming a police officer is missing. Both are deemed scams.

Over 100 people in Old Lyme shared a post on Monday where the poster claims a police officer is missing. On Tuesday, those photos appear to be deleted, and the post turned into a food distribution event with a link.

"Once they garner enough reaction and enough people seeing the posts, they'll change it from a lost kitten, or a lost child, or an injured police officer to something completely different, such as a real estate listing or a contest,” Kristen Johnson, with the Better Business Bureau, said.

Johnson said these Facebook scams have resurfaced after seeing popularity in 2022. She said they're phishing for you and your Facebook friends' personal information once you've shared the post to your page.

"We don't always realize that our personal information has been stolen. We're not aware of how much is already out there,” Johnson said.

In relation to this missing police officer post, Connecticut State Police tells NBC Connecticut that any law enforcement facing an emergency would share the information through official publications, and say if there was a missing police officer, they would be aware.

“It is very common that we see examples of fraudulent posts such as this. Missing persons posts like this are consistent with content that people will share frequently, which then opens up users' accounts to push out other scams and links involved in fraudulent activity,” they said.

“Anyone with concerns of a fraudulent social media post such as this is urged to check the photo through Google Lens or conduct a reverse photo search, which will most often result in a return of the information being false," they continued.

In Fairfield, Sergeant Jenna Wellington said they received multiple calls to their department about a post claiming an injured baby was abandoned at the police department. She said there are many red flags about these posts for people to look out for.

"There's no way to contact the authorities. There's no list for the authorities. Notice how the officer's pictures, like you can't see their patches. You can't see any identifying information, and comments are turned off,” Wellington said.

Experts also say you can search for the post on Facebook, and if you find multiple of the same post in different states after claiming to be from Connecticut, it’s likely a scam.

We did a search of the missing police officer post and found it duplicate in another Connecticut town, and at least four other states across the country.

For the abandoned baby post, we found a duplicate post in other Connecticut towns and two other states.