KERNERSVILLE, N.C. — When you see a post urging for the public's help, you might feel obligated to do your part and share it.
Well, viral posts like this are becoming far too common, but you need to be careful about what you share.
WFMY has seen a specific post that's been shared to pages across the country, but it is a scam.
The post claims a 3-year-old boy was found walking around a specific location.
It said that 'Deputy Ryan Braidley' saved him, and took him to the police station but no one knows where the boy lives.
The post also claims the boy's mother's name is Emily.
This post in particular said it happened in Kernersville, but others said it happened in Greensboro, New York, California, and even Anchorage, Alaska.
Amber Lake reached out to Kernersville police and the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office.
Both said they haven't been made aware of any reports of a missing 3-year-old, and neither departments even have Deputy Ryan Braidley on staff.
The sheriff's office said one big red flag about the post is that deputies don't work for police departments. They work for the sheriff's office.
Another red flag is when you click on the account of the original poster it says the account was created less than a year ago with a bunch of reviews claiming it's a scam account.
We reached out to the public information officer for the FBI Charlotte division.
She told us: I'm not aware of that particular post, but it is very common on social media for scammers to create fake posts about missing children or found or missing animals in order to get people to click and share and then they will change the post to something else. The best way to tell number one is to go to a legitimate news outlet to double check. Go to that police departments social media account to double check. You can also look at the account of whoever posted it and typically it is someone that has few to little friends and account that was created recently.
The best thing you can do to prevent being scammed is to do some research before sharing.