Well that was weird. I just received an Amber Alert and the link led to a spammy looking website.

The link leads to a 3gp file converter which is highly unusual. But the more I look at it, I have the impression it's a mistake. Most likely, they have exceeded the maximum number of characters for the Emergency Service alert.

Here is the message:

AN AMBER ALERT HAS BEEN ACTIVATED BY THE CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL. DALEZA FREGOSO WAS LAST SEEN ON MAY 24, 2026 AT 0400 HOURS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY. THE SUSPECT VEHICLE IS A WHITE 2019 WHITE LAND ROVER DISCOVERY CA 9DAW715. CLICK ON THE LINK FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. https://bit.ly/A0

It seems like the total character count is 288. I'm not sure if the title should be included but if I add Child abduction (Amber alert) and the double space after, then we have 320 characters. Is this the character limit for emergency services?

When I clicked on it, it took me to the bitly preview page:

And clicking on the continue to destination button, I'm taken here:

I was starting to wonder if this was even a real Amber alert, and if somehow this was a spam message that was sent through. But unfortunately, it is a real amber alert, as I was able to find the matching alert on missingkids.com. However, I don't see a way to request a correction.

I understand that bitly was often used to shorten links, but there should be a way for a service like amber alert to test those links before they are sent. At least on my android, once I click on the link, the alert is dismissed never to be seen again. When the link is incorrect, now we have this problem where we can never get the information back. In this case, I was only able to get the link because I received the alert on both my phones.

Also I've learned that Amber alerts have a character limit of 360 characters. So I'm still not sure what went wrong with this one.

Update: 39 minutes later (8:25pm) a second message was sent with a correction.

Most likely a copy and paste error.