One of the wonderful things about social media is its amazing ability to instantly inform people when there's a threat to public safety.

One of its less wonderful attributes is its inability to establish whether or not the threat is real.

This week in Burnaby, an unverified social media post was shared so many times the Burnaby RCMP issued a statement saying it was unable to locate any report or investigation related to the complaint.

"The information in the posts has been circulated in the past in the United States and appears at this time to be a hoax, it said.

"We would ask that if this has occurred to anyone in Burnaby that people contact us immediately, but as of right now, this appears to be a post that has unfortunately been shared on social media and caused unnecessary concern to Burnaby residents. We caution people to think twice, do some research and if they are concerned about whether this occurred or not to contact police before sharing these posts."

The story goes like this: a woman was shopping at Northgate mall in Burnaby when she found a $100 bill taped to her car with a red ribbon, while a man watched from a nearby van.

It goes on to say she called police who told her this ploy is just one way sex traffickers kidnap women and children. In fact, the officer tells her, $100 bills are often laced with drugs to sedate the victim.

Chilling ... except there was no such call to police.

A similar story has been going around the internet since the early 2000s

Burnaby RCMP want residents to know, if they had received such a report, an investigation would have been launched immediately and a warning would have been issued to the public.