Asick baby hoax is aconfidence trick where a person claims, often on a website, that they have an ill child (or sometimes a pet) and are struggling to pay for their medical expenses. Some versions of the hoax ask people to make a monetary donation directly, while others simply encourage people to share the story.
Professionalbeggars have been exploiting sick children since ancient times. The success of such scams relies on a particularcompassion in people towards children. When a child is sick, this particularly touches people's hearts.[1] An early example of this kind of hoax online is the "sick childchain letter",[1] an email making the claim that "with every name that this [letter] is sent to, theAmerican Cancer Society will donate 3 cents per name to her treatment".
Social media, such asFacebook, facilitate the following form of this scam. A photo of a sick child is posted online, commonly without knowledge of the relatives, accompanied by a heart-touching story and sometimes a request for donations, which are simply collected by the scammer.[2] Often these photos becomeviral, so it becomes close to impossible to take them down. Since Facebook has been slow to address the problem efficiently (relying on user takedown requests and reports only), several scam- and hoax-combatting websites have worked together to raise the awareness of social media providers regarding this issue.[3][4]