Photo of a missing elderly woman holding a Yoda toy is part of a bait-and-switch scam

Viral posts that are making the rounds on Facebook ask people to share a photo of an elderly woman who is reportedly missing. 

The posts, which are popping up in local buy-and-sell groups, claim the woman with dementia showed up at the poster’s house but “doesn’t know where she’s going.” 

In the photo attached to the posts, the woman is holding a Yoda toy, which the posters say she took from their daughter. Each post asks readers to “flood” their feeds with the post so the woman’s family can find her. A VERIFY reader reached out to ask if there is any truth to these posts. 

THE QUESTION

Are the posts about a missing elderly woman holding a Yoda toy legitimate?

THE SOURCES

• TinEye, a reverse image search tool

• A review of Silver Alerts in Lubbock, Texas and Surprise, Arizona

• Better Business Bureau 

THE ANSWER

No, posts about a missing elderly woman holding a Yoda toy are not legitimate. 

WHAT WE FOUND

Posts about a missing elderly woman holding a Yoda toy are scams. The photo of the woman has been spread on the internet under various contexts for several years.

The posts are consistent with bait-and-switch scams, in which scammers use a photo to prey on people's emotions and get them to share the post before changing the text to a different message with malicious links after the post has gained traction.

VERIFY found that the posts about the missing elderly woman have been shared multiple times across Facebook. But the posts are inconsistent in where she was allegedly found. Identical posts that differ only in location are typical of bait-and-switch scams.  

For example, one post says the woman was found in Surprise, Arizona. Another says she was found in Cagliari, a city in Italy. The Facebook post sent in by a VERIFY reader was shared in a Facebook group for residents of Lubbock, Texas.

VERIFY took a look at the active Silver Alerts listed for Surprise, Arizona, and Lubbock, Texas, and did not find any image of the woman pictured or anyone who matched her description.

VERIFY also looked at the account of the user who posted about the missing woman in a Lubbock, Texas, Facebook group and found they have made several posts in the group about home rentals that sound too good to be true. 

The posts contain links to an “application.” However, the links were generated with a URL shortener so it's unclear where they actually direct to. It’s likely the links lead to a malicious website. This type of home rental post is consistent with content we have found shared in other bait-and-switch Facebook scams. 

VERIFY conducted a reverse image search of the photo of the woman using TinEye and found the image has been circulating for at least four years with different captions.  

The earliest version we found was posted in a Facebook group in September 2020, with the caption, “My 89 year old grandmother has dementia. I brought my baby Yoda along for a visit, and she instantly fell in love with it. Now it’s hers and she’s named it Lady Bug.” 

Over the years, this story has been reposted on Facebook and Reddit pages, without any mention of the woman being missing. VERIFY could not determine the original story behind the photo. 

Facebook scams that use sensitive subjects like missing people are fairly common. Sometimes these posts prompt the user to share an important cause with their friends, but after the post is shared the “scammer changes the original post to a deceptive rental ad or sometimes to a link pointing to a survey that ‘guarantees’ a cash prize,” the Better Business Bureau says. 

Scammers can then steal personal information through malicious links added to the edited posts.

People may be more susceptible to falling for these scams because they were shared by a friend or seen in buy-and-sell groups with a sense of community. 

To avoid falling for these scams, the BBB recommends looking at the profile of the user who is sharing the post. There are often red flags, such as when an account was created or locations that don’t add up. Conducting reverse image searches or copying and pasting the text to see if the post is being spread with inconsistencies are other ways to spot these scams.