14 DAY TRIAL // The story of a 14-year-old boy who was shot six times by his stepfather while trying to protect his younger sister is circulating on Facebook, luring internauts by claiming an amount of money will be donated for his recovery each time the ad is forwarded.
Snops informs that the scam has a large number of variants but each one basically sends the same message.
The latest version reads in uppercase letters:
14 year old boy was shot 6 times by his stepfather,this boy was protecting his little 2 years old sister. The little girl did not get hurt thanks to her brave older brother. Their mom was at work when all this happened. Now this brave young man is fighting for his life ,but doctors say he will not survive unless he gets an operation which is very costful and which his mom cannot pay. All Facebook companies have agreed to donate 45 cents for every time someone posts this to their wall,so please paste and pass this on so that together we can help save this boys life.
It seems as the first versions of the hoax began circulating in February 2010 and until recently all sorts of sums of money were advertised, the name of the donor organization also being changed a few times, in some cases to include Verizon and AT&T.
As now the scheme is circulating on Facebook walls, the social media website's name is involved.
I guarantee that no business will donate money in this fashion and by spreading the phony message, all you're doing is scaring people and staining Facebook walls with lies.
Those who really want to make a donation to save a life can address legitimate institutions that handle such transactions. Also, the genuine charity names involved in these types of hoaxes are just meant to make the whole thing seem more realistic, but in fact they have nothing to do with the plot.