Important Message, BIG JOKE, Not Funny

I was duped. When I received this message I was in a hurry to post it because of the nature of the message. MISSING CHILD it said. I should have verified it first. But I wanted to get this information up as quickly as possible. It is a fake story. I apologize to my readers for allowing myself to be fooled, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I thought a child was in danger. Here is the lowdown from Snopes.


Origins: Most missing child alerts circulated via e-mail fall into one of two categories: genuine reports of missing children that continue to be forwarded long after the child has been found, or hoaxes imploring readers to look for children who aren't missing or don't exist. The above-quoted message bears all the hallmarks of the latter category.


The text of the e-mail (reproduced as we first received it in May 2006) does not include some of the most basic information one would expect to find in a genuine missing child plea: where the young girl (Ashley Flores) went missing, when she went missing, when and where she was last seen, a physical description of her, contact information for her parents, contact information for the local police authorities handling the case, etc. All we're provided with is the ambiguous statement that a "Deli manager from Philadelphia, Pa" has a 13-year-old daughter who has been missing "for two weeks," and even that information seems to have been tacked on to the message by someone other than its originator. Meanwhile, the one piece of identifying information provided in the message, a yahoo.com e-mail address, produces a "no such user" error when mail is sent to it, and a variety of searches through news accounts and law enforcement and missing child web sites, including the site of the Center for Missing & Exploited Children, fails to turn up any mention of a missing girl named "Ashley Flores." And according to NBC-10 TV in Philadelphia:
The e-mail says: "Maybe if everyone passes this on, someone will see this child . We have a deli manager (Acme Markets) from Philadelphia, Pa., who has a 13-year-old daughter who has been missing for two weeks." Acme told Consumer Alert that people have been contacting them wanting to help, but they said the story isn't true. They said it is a sick joke. In the event, it turned out that apparently Ashley Flores is a real girl, but her "missing" status was one concocted as a kids' prank.


Again, I apologize and I promise to check all references before posting this type of story again.