What was claimed
A little girl has gone missing in your area and police need help to find her.
Our verdict
This is not a real missing person case. This is an ongoing scam. Do not click on it.
This little girl called Alice is not missing from your area
12 May 2020
Multiple Facebook posts showing a little girl with the text “[Location]: Little girl vanishes after getting into a stranger’s car. Help us find her” have been shared thousands of times.
As we’ve said before, the story is false and takes you to a website that attempts to gather your Facebook password by asking you to watch a fake video. You should not click this link.
There are a number of clues on the page which bring into question the page’s legitimacy.
The website appears to be hosted via a Polish domain, despite claiming to report UK local news.
The story claims that the child went missing on 12 May in one paragraph, but on 15 January in the next. As we’ve also seen before the article headline appears to have been adapted to say the little girl went missing in various locations, for example, Watford, Milton Keynes and Aylesbury, all using the same photo.
It includes a quote from a police “Captain”, a rank that does not exist in UK police forces.
The apparent Facebook comments under the article are not real, and clicking on them does not lead to any Facebook profiles.
There have been no reports from Missing People, Child Rescue Alert, or news stories about a child called Alice going missing in the UK this year.
This all suggests the story about the missing girl is not real.
You should never give your Facebook password to a website other than Facebook. (You can check the website address in your browser’s address bar to see if it says “facebook.com”.) Facebook has tips on how to keep your account secure and says “When in doubt, type www.facebook.com into your browser to get to Facebook.”