Facebook Hacked!

They Don’t Care. They Don’t Have To.

Facebook users around the world are getting hacked and there’s nothing we can do about it.

It happened to me. The thieves gained control of my page and access to my five thousand friends. Then they started trying to scam them by using my name to rip them off.

When I realized I’d been hacked, I immediately started working to get my page back, thinking this must happen to Facebook users all the time. Yes, in fact it does, but it turns out there is nothing we can do to restore our pages. I tried Facebook’s online help center, which gives us hope that we can restore our pages but just runs us around in circles until all hope dies. I couldn’t even get the page taken down. There is no customer support, no number to call. You are on your own. 

Aside from the frustration, I also feel violated, like my house has been broken into and robbed. And I’m worried sick about my friends getting scammed. The thieves want money and they posted a car for sale on the site to get folks to call them. They also use Messenger to contact people. 

When I couldn’t get into my account because it is now owned by someone else, I asked friends to look at it and report back to me. The car ad was posted, taken down and then posted again. A couple of weeks later, after many friends reported the hack (and many called me to ask about the car), the account was deleted, presumably by Facebook. But they never contacted me nor offered any help. Friends did send me numbers to contact Facebook, but none got me anywhere.

After much research, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is nothing to be done. 

It turns out this happens to lots of folks. Some, those who run businesses through Facebook especially, are losing thousands of dollars without any hope of getting the money back. There are companies that charge a lot of money to restore a page, but that can take weeks, even years, if it works at all. 

It makes me think of the snarky Lily Tomlin character Ernestine who represented the phone company in a skit. “We don’t care,” she told customers. “We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”

I was a Facebook user for many years. A retired electrician, I belong to a worldwide community of women who work in the construction trades. Women in the trades are still isolated and targeted with harassment. Facebook is/was a great way for us to communicate, tell our stories and support each other.  

So now I am Facebook free. I’ll miss my Facebook friends, but I won’t miss Facebook.

More than two billion people use Facebook or one of its other services, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger, every day. And despite a rising number of privacy scandals and public backlash, Facebook is still growing, reporting $39 billion net profit in 2023.

There oughta be a law.