Images of a girl on social media who is said to be ‘missing’ are being used to steal personal information from Facebook users.
Posts circulating this week warned that Hannah Green, 14, was missing in Norfolk.
However, Hannah Green does not actually exist, and scammers are using a fake photo of a teenage girl to harvest data.
Norfolk County Council Trading Standards has alerted people to the phishing scam, which says that the girl arranged to meet up with someone she had never met online and has not been seen since.
The links have been spotted in several Facebook groups across Norfolk after being reposted by bots.
Scammers will also disable comments so people cannot warn others of a potential scam below the posts.
Martin Richardson, senior partner at National Fraud Helpline, said: ‘Even by scammers’ standards this is a very low act.
‘To try and take advantage of people’s goodwill by pretending a schoolgirl is missing is particularly sick.
‘This is another example of social media comapnies needing to do more. These posts need to be taken down quickly.’
A spokesman for Norfolk County Council Trading Standards said: “Fraudsters often create posts that appear to be missing person alerts or posts about lost pets that are placed into community pages.
“The same post can be placed onto a large number of pages, with a link for more information and a request to share the post to help get them home.
“The fraudster will use the links to try and gather personal or financial information with fake login sites, or they will change the post to link to survey sites enabling them to gain money.
Read: How to avoid phishing scams.
Have you lost money to a scam? Contact National Fraud Helpline. Call 0333 0033218 or fill out our Claim Form.