Fake missing man appeal uses picture of pet detective

A post shared in a local community Facebook group for a town in Northern Ireland says: “FLOOD YOUR FEEDS ~ MISSING!! #Cookstown Our Dad,Simon Hendricks aged 64 drove out last night with his dog Cami and he still hasn't returned. He doesn't know where he's going, he has dementia. There is a silver alert activated on him. Please help bump this post so we can get him home safely.”

An accompanying picture shows a man in an orange vest and blue hat with a large dog.

But the image is actually of a man called Jim Berns who works as a pet detective in Cincinnati, Ohio and the surrounding areas. A higher quality version of the picture shows his hat actually says “pet detective”. He uses several search dogs, including the one pictured, to help people find their lost pets.

Another clue that the appeal is fake is that if you search the text of the post on Facebook, many identical posts have been shared in local Facebook groups in other places, mostly in the US.

A key giveaway in the posts showing they aren’t genuine is that the comments have been turned off by the person posting them. You would expect in a genuine case of a missing person, a relative seeking information would be keen to hear from people who may have seen their loved one via the comments.

These posts and others about missing elderly people often say that a “silver alert” has been activated. This refers to a way of notifying the public about missing people who may be elderly, have dementia or other conditions and which only operates in the US. It would not be used for someone missing in the UK. 

Full Fact has previously checked many different posts on Facebook buy, sell or trade groups which falsely raise an alarm for missing children, abandoned infants or injured dogs. These posts are often edited later to promote property listings, with comments frequently disabled, so that users who see what is happening are unable to call them out publicly. 

This may cause local community groups to become overwhelmed with false information and potentially result in genuine missing and lost posts being ignored or—perhaps worse—dismissed as fake. We have written to Facebook’s parent company Meta expressing these concerns and asking the company to take stronger action in response to this problem. 

It’s always worth checking whether content is real before you share it. We have written a guide on how to verify viral images which you can read here.

Image courtesy of Christin Hume