How two aspiring young Brisbane entrepreneurs suddenly found themselves labelled thieves by amateur Facebook detectives
Two young small business owners who went door knocking to find new customers were shocked to discover they had been falsely accused of robbing a house.
Blake Hammersley and Cade Conroy were visiting locals in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, on Thursday afternoon.
The aspiring entrepreneurs in their 20s run SolarShield Australia, a small business specializing in installing solar panels for homes.
They were captured on CCTV knocking on doors in an attempt to find new customers, but then found pictures of themselves on a Facebook page calling them thieves.
Young businessman Cade Conroy (left) and Blake Hammersley (right) who went door-knocking in Redcliffe last week in an attempt to find new clients were falsely accused of robbing a house
The footage showed Mr Hammersley wearing a dark-coloured T-shirt, black shorts and a pair of Birkenstock sandals.
Mr Conroy was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, black shorts and a pair of brown work boots when the pair were caught walking up a driveway to greet a homeowner.
But the men were left shocked when photos of them were falsely circulated on social media, along with CCTV footage of a home invasion on Friday morning.
The video footage showed a group of hooded men entering a property in the early hours of the morning and inspecting several cars parked in the driveway.
Mr Conroy said he was shocked when the pair found out through a friend that they had been wrongly linked to the robbery.
‘[My] “the stomach dropped and we thought, ‘gee, what are we going to do about this?’ so we took immediate action,” he said 7 News.
Images of Mr Hammersley and Mr Conroy (pictured) quickly circulated on Facebook, with social media users falsely accusing the pair of committing a home invasion
The young entrepreneurs (pictured) run a small business called SolarShield Australia, which specializes in installing solar panels for homes
The colleagues were linked to the robbery by amateur ‘detectives’ on social media because the Birkenstocks worn by Mr Hammersley resembled a pair of slippers worn by one of the alleged thieves.
Soon, the businessman’s images were reposted on several other Facebook groups.
“We know these guys did it,” one person wrote.
‘We have to identify them. I’d like my car back.’
Mr Conroy and Mr Hammersley quickly visited a police station to inform police they had nothing to do with the burglary and went inside.
Police investigation revealed that they were knocking on a property about two kilometers away while the alleged robbery was taking place.
Agents were able to verify their activities by tracking their exact location using a mobile navigation app called Waze.
“It’s just an unfortunate circumstance that the wrong people got involved,” Conroy said.
Social media users have mistakenly linked a pair of Birkenstocks worn by Mr Hammersley to a pair of slippers worn by one of the alleged thieves (pictured)
Mr Hammersley said that as business owners, the false allegations could impact their ability to attract customers.
“The fact that it has ended up on two major Facebook pages and gotten so many shares now makes it a bit cloudy where we want to go to do our business,” Mr Hammersley said.
Robbery victim Peter Olsen expressed his remorse after Mr Conroy and Mr Hammersley were wrongly identified as the alleged thieves.
“Pretty unfortunate coincidence,” he said.