Stories Parents Shared with Us
*please note, the content of these cases might be disturbing for some readers*
BULLYING
An 8-year-old boy was bullied by classmates for over 4 months. He never told anyone, not even his parents, since he was embarrassed and ashamed. On the last day of school in 2017, the bullies tied him to a tree, stripped him of all his clothes and belongings and ran away. The boy remained tied for 6 hours until a jogger found him and called 911. His parents were horrified thinking he was abducted while looking for him. his mother tells that he has been in therapy ever since -and doctors say that the downward spiral was the 6 hours he spent tied to the tree...
SEX TRAFFICKING
A 16-year-old, straight A student, cheerleader, from a very wealthy family in Houston has been groomed by traffickers pretending to be seniors at her high school (when in fact they were 23- and 24-year-olds). One night they offered to give her a lift home after a party. The girl was responsible enough to not drink and drive, so she agreed to be taken home by a sober driver. Once in-route, she realized they are not headed towards her house. She couldn’t call for help as her phone was dead and the windows of the car were locked. She thought of jumping out of the moving car, but the doors were locked as well. She was trafficked for 8 days, raped numerous times, severely beaten and injected with drugs. Her father had the means and hired private help to find her and managed to save her…but their lives turned upside down forever. the father said: “If I had had her last location before the abduction or where she was taken - we could have found her sooner and saved her from so much pain…”
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
A second-grade girl, who thankfully, had been trained by her parents to recognize when adults are misbehaving towards her or trying to touch her private parts, had been taking swimming classes.. Her coach, age 32, father of 2 young children, had been extra nice to her and she later reported she thought she was his favorite as he would often comment on her beauty and how her swimsuit matched her eyes. Swim practice was held 3 times a week. Twice as a group, and once a week one-on-one practice where the girl was alone with her trainer for 90 minutes. At the end of one of the private sessions, the girl’s mother arrived to pick her up, not suspecting anything, when the girl ran into her arms, crying. When the mother asked what happened the girl told her that for the whole 90 minutes she was there, alone with the trainer, he has been forcefully holding her in the locker-room and has been touching her private areas. The girl was aware it was wrong, but she had no way of calling her mother or asking for help as she couldn’t get free of his grip on her. Girl’s mother said: “We did everything right. We taught her early on what to expect from predators and she knew that what he was doing is wrong, but she couldn’t reach out to me or anyone else. If I had known what was happening I would have never let her go through this hell for 90 minutes!
BULLYING
"My son, Will, was 9 years old when he was bullied in school by an older boy who would punch Will in the face every day before the ride home on the school bus. One day he hit Will so hard, he lost a tooth and was bleeding badly. The bully panicked and threatened Will telling him not to move. Will missed the bus, staying at school until the bleeding was over. He doesn't have a phone and he couldn't call me for help. The bully took the school bus home while my son was left, bleeding, at the school until I started looking for him when he didn't come home. I found him and took him to the hospital but the time between me seeing the school bus without my son and the time I found him in school was absolutely the most horrifying in my life. I thought the worst has happened and that I will never see him again. If my son had a RingOn with him, it wouldn't have gotten to that point and I would have been able to see immediately that instead of being on the move toward home after school, my boy was still in school. RingOn shows the location of the child and alerts when the child is not in the right location at a certain time of day."
Cindy M. Houston, TX.
SHOPPING MALL
"I went shopping, with my 2 daughters ages 7 and 11, at a busy shopping mall in town. My 11-year-old daughter went to use the bathroom while the 7-year-old and I were eating pizza at the food court. After about 10 minutes, I started to suspect something as my oldest hasn't returned to our table yet. I gave it a few more minutes but she wasn't back yet. I grabbed my 7-year-old and our belongings and walked quickly to the public restroom with an uneasy mind. I walked in and a woman in her early 30s was talking to my daughter by the sinks. The minute I walked in my 11-year-old turned to me and said enthusiastically "Mom, Alice is a talent recruiter. She says I'm so pretty I could become a model or an actress and make a lot of money on TikTok as I'll have a lot of followers". My heart dropped. I grabbed my oldest by her arm, my youngest was already holding my hand and pulled them both out of that restroom and straight outside of that mall. I ordered my daughters to get into the car and buckle up. All I wanted is to get as far away as possible from that place. On our way home my eldest said that Alice took a few pictures of her in the bathroom to send to a "model agency". Alice also offered my daughter to try some clothes on at a store on another floor and take some photos in them. I kept asking my daughter more and more questions and the next day I filed a report with the police. Unfortunately, 'Alice' has never been found and I am dreading the thought of how many "Allices’" there are out there preying on our girls. I can't imagine what could have happened if my daughter agreed to go with Alice to do a "photo shoot" someplace else. In cases like these, RingOn is literally a life saver. I will make sure my girls are always wearing a RingOn Ring - for their safety, and for my peace of mind."
Vanessa T. Las Vegas, NV.
VACATION WANDER AWAY
"We went on a family vacation in early August of 2019. My husband and I have 3 kids ages 10, 7 and 2. We were enjoying ourselves on the beach, the kids were building castles in the sand and my husband, and I were unpacking the bags of food we brought with us, so that we can have lunch right there, instead of going back to the hotel. Another family with 2 young children settled not too far from us. Their children were playing in the sand with ours. They approached us to introduce themselves and my husband and I offered to have lunch together as we brought a lot of food. While we were mixing and matching the items both families brought, I glanced at the kids to make sure they were ok and noticed my 7-year-old wasn’t there. I asked my 10-year-old where his sister is, but he shrugged and said she went after the man who was giving away popsicles. Both my husband and I started running towards our kids, I grabbed the 2-year-old, my husband took the 10-year-old by his hand and we ran on the beach screaming our daughters name. It took us about 7 minutes to find her. She was fine, thank God, and was enjoying her strawberry popsicle. When I asked her why she left the play area while knowing that we don't allow that, she answered that the popsicle man told her that I allowed it as she has been behaving so nicely and was a good girl and that I asked him to reward her with a popsicle. We tried to investigate further without putting too much pressure on her. According to her the popsicle man "only" kissed her on the cheek and left.
This was a terrifying moment for us. Ever since, we take family vacations with a nanny or another family member so that the kids can be always watched. I'm afraid to think of a different ending to this story and I thank God every day for sparing us from this trauma and keeping our daughter safe. If she had a RingOn ring on, she wouldn't have strolled away as we would have been alerted immediately.
Stacy H. Miami, FL.
DISNEY STORE
"I have a 7-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl. We went to the Disney store in our hometown Lone Tree, CO, as both their birthdays were in May and we allowed the kids to choose anything in the toy store, up to $50 each. My son knows the store well, so he rambled between the aisles, searching for the toy he wanted. He was a few steps ahead of me but in my sight. A Disney character set the kids in the store down for story time. My son joined the group and was the only boy there. He didn't mind. Neither did I. the parents were standing further away, enjoying the show our kids were participating in. A gentleman in his 40s appeared to my left and stood with us parents watching the kids. After a while, I asked him "which one is yours" pointing at the kids sitting on the magic carpet listening to the story the Disney character was reading in a playful manner. The man, without hesitation, said "the boy", pointing at my son. My heart skipped a beat. The only boy in the group of kids was my son! I wanted to punch this guy in the face but I didn't want to startle the children or to make a scene. I turned to him and said, "the boy is MY son, not yours!". He immediately turned away and walked outside the store. I tried to find a store employee as fast I could to inform him of what happened. The store employee went ahead to inform the security of the shopping mall. If I wasn’t paying attention, this man could have walked away with my son, or another child! RingOn is exactly what we need for similar situations as it will alert the parents once the child leaves the proximity radius. It's perfect for shopping malls or vacations. RingOn makes sure the child will not wander off or will be taken by someone when you're shopping."
Deborah F. Lone Tree, CO.
AIRPORT
"My husband and I travel a lot for work. Our daughter is 9 and our son is 6 and he has sensory issues. We were at O'Hare airport in Chicago on a crowded and noisy afternoon. We had to walk about 15 minutes to our gate. Each of us carried at least one suitcase. My daughter walked ahead of us, and my son was by my side. We were about 5 minutes from the gate, passed by a restroom and I turned to my son to ask him if he needed to go… but he wasn’t there. I started screaming his name and looking around frantically but he was nowhere to be found. Turns out his suitcase's wheel fell off and he stopped to fix it. My son lost sight of us and without panicking he decided to just keep walking until he catches up with us. Unfortunately, he got disoriented when he was trying to fix the wheel of his Spiderman suitcase, turned the suitcase around, and then walked on the other side to try and fix it. When he resumed walking, he was in the opposite direction. Big airports are infamous when it comes to human trafficking. My thoughts took me to the darkest places possible. It took an additional 45 minutes to find him, thankfully safe and sound. Even now, I avoid crowded places when I'm with the kids and always make them always walk ahead of me so that I can keep my eye on them. Overall, it took almost an hour to reunite with our son at that airport. We missed our flight but what we gained is experience. I wish I had a device like RingOn back then. It could have saved so much trouble. The geo-fencing feature, which allows parents to set a radius for the RingOn ring so that when the child leaves this radius it immediately alerts the parents' phones, is an absolute must nowadays. Also, the GPS tracking feature would have helped me track my son down my son immediately and the panic button option would have allowed him to contact us when he realized he was lost. RingOn is priceless. You don't realize how much until you lose your child in a crowded place and don't know if you'll ever see him again."
Michelle J. Chicago, IL.