How two aspiring young Brisbane entrepreneurs suddenly found themselves labelled thieves by amateur Facebook detectives
Two young owners of a small business who went door-knocking to find new customers were later shocked to discover they had been falsely accused of robbing a home.
Blake Hammersley, 20 and Cade Conroy, 21 were canvassing locals in Newport, north of Brisbane, on Wednesday afternoon to drum up interest in their solar power business.
The entrepreneurs run SolarShield Australia, a tier 1 solar provider who install solar panels on homes, which they set up in October last year.
They were stunned when images of them door-knocking were posted on a Facebook page on which they were labelled as thieves.
Young businessman Cade Conroy (left) and Blake Hammersley (right) who went door-knocking in Newport last week in a bid to find new customers, were falsely accused of robbing a home
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-sleeve shirt, black shorts and a pair of brown work boots as the pair were captured walking up a driveway to greet a homeowner.
Those images were posted along with unrelated security footage of a home invasion which happened around two kilometers away on Friday, that showed a group of hooded men entering a property and peering into cars parked on the driveway.
Mr Hammersley told Daily Mail Australia that they were told about the images by an ex-manager from their apprenticeship days and some friends who spotted the pictures online.
'It was pretty shocking,' he said.
'It went up on the major crime ones (Facebook pages). It's pretty crazy how it spread like wildfire.'
Images of Mr Hammersley and Mr Conroy (pictured) quickly circulated on Facebook, with social media users falsely accusing the pair of allegedly committing a home invasion
The young entrepreneurs (pictured) run a small business called SolarShield Australia, that specialises in installing solar panels for homes
The colleagues were linked to the robbery by social media amateur 'detectives' because the Birkenstocks worn by Mr Hammersley were similar to a pair of slides worn by one of the alleged thieves.
Soon, the images of the businessman were reposted onto several other Facebook groups.
'We know these guys did it,' one person wrote.
'We need to get and ID on them. I'd like my car back.'
Mr Hammersley and Mr Conroy quickly visited a police station to let the cops know they had nothing to do with the break and enter.
'The [officer] advised us to message the [Facebook] groups and told us to tell them to take the pictures down as well,' Mr Hammersley.
Officers were able to verify their activities by tracing their exact location using a navigation mobile app called Waze.
Mr Hammersley said he wasn't sure why the victim of the alleged home invasion, didn't try to identify the young business owners if he believed they were responsible for the alleged robbery.
'It's just crazy that we were in a completely different location and he's happened to match us over a pair of shoes, he said.
Social media users incorrectly connected a pair of Birkenstocks worn by Mr Hammersley to a pair of slides worn by one of the alleged thieves (pictured)
Mr Hammersley said the false accusations could have affected their business if they went unchallenged.
'We're definitely not going back to Redcliffe (to go door-knocking) for a while,' he said.
'It's definitely made it a bit murky waters because now when we're going out and testing our pitches, it just makes it a bit harder because in the back of [the minds of people] they've still got a subconscious image of us being painted to that action.'
Peter Olsen, the victim of the robbery, expressed his remorse after Mr Conroy and Mr Hammersley were incorrectly identified as the alleged thieves.
'Pretty unfortunate coincidence,' he told 7 news.
