Sheffield Facebook group hit by ‘missing girl’ scam

The tragic disappearance of a little girl in the United States has been used to try to con people on multiple Sheffield Community Facebook groups.

Harmony Montgomery went missing in America in 2019, aged five, and is now presumed dead, though her body has never been found.

Her father, Adam Montgomery, is facing a murder trial in the US, whilst step-mother Kayla Montgomery admitted two charges of perjury for lying about when she last saw Harmony alive.

Now Harmony’s photograph has been shared on a post on the ‘Sheffield Community’ group with 16,500 members who have been asked to share it among their online friends. Since the original post it has been shared on the ‘Sheffield people doing Sheffield things’ group and continues to spread.

Once shared, the posts are then edited to include links to false crypto investments, fake giveaways and more vicious scams.

The Facebook post read: “My 7 year old daughter is partially blind and she has been missing for 7 hours now. Please if anyone has information about her whereabouts PM me. Please help share this post.”

Facbook Post

Harmony was living with her father Adam Montgomery - who already had multiple felony convictions -  and his wife Kayla Montgomery when she was last seen. 

It is believed that she went missing in October of 2019 but was not reported missing until 2021 and the search for her by local authorities didn’t begin until December 2021.

The person under whose name the picture was shared on the Sheffield Community Facebook group only recently joined Facebook and only joined the group two days before the post was shared.

The post is similar to other missing people Facebook scams reported in the UK.

The Mirror reported a Facebook post purportedly featuring Brayden Johnson, a young, autistic boy who had supposedly been missing for 8 hours with his dog in Hartlepool, which police later confirmed was completely false and the boy didn’t exist.

The Mirror exposed the “cruel scam which is actually a trick to con well-meaning Brits so instead of helping reunite a desperate family you could end up helping a crook profit.”

Read the article on The Star here