Hoax calls can also land innocent bystanders in dangerous situations. Four Black undergraduate students at Harvard University wound up being held at gunpoint during a swatting incident at the Ivy League school in 2023, according to reporting by The Harvard Crimson.

Late Thursday afternoon, police rushed to Villanova University over a report of an active shooter — later determined to be a hoax — searching for someone who did not exist and at one point misidentifying a victim of a gunshot wound who had not been shot,