Police Warn of Facebook "Abduction" Scam

Modern law enforcement is certainly complicated. Not only is there the "real" world of Franklin's 27.03 square miles, there is also a vast virtual world linked to Franklin-- including various Facebook pages, one of which was the site of a recent scam posting.

According to the post, an eight-year-old child was nearly abducted by a man in a gray pickup truck...

The only problem, according to Sergeant Connor Crosman of the Franklin Police Department, is that nothing of the sort happened in Franklin -- or in dozens of other communities where the same person posted a nearly identical story.

The Department itself, took to Facebook to set the record straight:

“A Facebook post on the Franklin MA Virtual Yard Sale group has been brought to our attention alleging a potential child abduction yesterday The Facebook post states the child ran away from the attempted abduction and the incident was reported to the police. This post had over 75 shares. After looking into the matter we can confidently say this post is a SCAM. No incident similar to this was reported to the FPD. The poster, Nobuhle Magutshwa, posted the same post on various Facebook groups all around the country. Other activity on her Facebook page is consistent with other social media scams. In the future, any urgent public safety matters like will be shared immediately by the FPD social media accounts.”

Crosman shared images of sone of the other posts in the "series":