(WXYZ) — Watch out for unsolicited messages about your Facebook account. It could be how scammers hijack your page and lock you out, in order to post heartfelt, made-up stories to steal money from your friends.
I'm raising the voices of two women from metro Detroit who've been dealing with this problem, talking with a consumer advocate, and I reached out to Meta for advice.
Kim Perrino of St. Clair Shores contacted 7 News Detroit for help after her Facebook page got hacked on July 27.
"Someone went on my post and said that my father was seriously ill, and we needed to sell all these items because we had to move them into a nursing home," she said.
It was all a lie...to sell everything from nonexistent campers to cars, trucks and minivans. The scammer also added a catch. [00:05:10][11.2] [Editor: fb sob story post in NewsDesk Attachments]
"If anybody was interested, they needed to pay a deposit in order to hold the items because it was first-come, first-served," Perrino said.
“This scammer was really trying to separate your friends from their money," I said.
"Yes, yes. And then they turned off all the comments so no one could go in to comment that my account was hacked," she said.
Kristen Posa of Plymouth has been dealing with a hacked account since late February.
"Did the scammers post a sob story to try to get your friends to purchase items?” I asked.
"Oh yeah! You know, everything. Um, you know, 'Everything has to be sold by this weekend,'" she said. “By the next morning, people are calling me saying, you know, 'I sent money for that car you put up for sale.'
Posa said they posted sob stories like, “'My uncle is going to a facility. He has to, you know, sell his enclosed car trailer for $500. If you, you know, send us this minimal down payment, we'll hold it for you.'”
Both women received security alerts from Facebook and tried reaching out repeatedly to recover their accounts but had no luck.
“You tried to even pay for the service where you can chat with Meta, and you still didn’t get anywhere?” I asked.
“Yes, that's correct," Posa said.
Consumer advocate Michelle Couch-Friedman says hackers often use phishing messages that appear to be from Facebook to gain access to your page.
“What is the one piece of advice you would give to people to prevent this from happening to them?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, put the two-factor, the two-step verification so people can't get easily into your account," Couch-Friedman said.
I reached out to Meta about the hijacked accounts and Meta replied that if your Facebook account was hacked, you should visit Facebook.com/hacked or Instagram.com/hacked to secure your account.
If the email associated with your Facebook account has changed, Meta says you can reverse this.
In a statement, Meta said, "when an email is changed, we send a message to the previous email account with a special link. You can click this link to reverse the email change and secure your account."
I shared this information with Perrino. She searched for that official email from Facebook and followed the steps, including taking a couple of selfies to identify herself.
The first time I had a ponytail, and it did not recognize me because my hair is down in my profile. So, then when I put my hair down, it did recognize me. And then I was able to go in and reset everything and make sure it's just my email and my phone number connected,” Perrino said.
A Meta spokesperson responded to my inquiry about how to protect yourself. Here's what they said.
- Avoid clicking on links within unsolicited messages from Facebook.
- Take a close look at the email address or phone number sending you the message before you click anything, because scammers frequently use deceptive email addresses that closely resemble official support accounts, but they're not legit.
- To check if an email is really from Facebook, see official emails by going to Facebook.com/recent_emails/security
