Yes another hoax that has been around for a long time.


Another familiar urban legend hit the email circuit in 1999 as warnings appeared about the attempted abduction of a child in the restroom of a discount store called Sam's Club (a nationwide chain in the U.S. owned by Wal-Mart). At least three different versions are circulating.

Purportedly written by a witness who saw the events unfold, all three texts tell the tale of the mother of a 4-year-old who looks up from the meat counter and discovers her daughter has vanished. The management of the store is notified, at which point all exits are locked and employees search for the child. Minutes later, she is found in the restroom, unharmed except that her hair was partially shaven and some of her clothing removed in an apparent attempt to disguise her appearance. The moral of the story is bluntly stated: "Please keep an eye out for your kids when going to these shopping places."

The narrative itself is at least 20 years old and did not originate at Sam's Club. It's a staple of American folklore, with versions set in amusement parks, shopping malls, and department stores of virtually every metropolitan area in the U.S.

Jan Harold Brunvand catalogued several of these in his 1986 collection of urban legends, The Mexican Pet. This version was told by a teenager in Fairfax, Virginia:

My mom's friend told her about a little boy around 7 years old. It seems that the boy and his mother were shopping in the "Toys R Us" store and the boy wandered a little bit away from his mother to go look at something. A few minutes later, this mother started looking for the boy. She couldn't find him. Crying, she rushed up and told a clerk, who immediately locked the doors. Everyone searched. They found the boy, with two men. Only his hair was cut and his shirt was changed so he would look different.

– The Mexican Pet, W.W. Norton & Co. (1986), p. 153