‘People are posting that I’m this scumbag’: What can you do when your Facebook profile is hijacked?

DENVER, N.C. — A woman says someone took over her Facebook page, posed as her, and tried to con people out of money. She says she tried to do something about it, but Facebook was no help.

Jen Mintun says someone hijacked her Facebook account and locked her out. “With all of my friends, all the pictures, and they were posting as me,” she said.

She says the scammer even re-posted some of her old messages but with new captions. “One of them recently was ‘Bonded in Love’ and it was like a Christmas picture from a couple of years ago with my husband, me, and my kids,” she said.

Mintun believes the scammer’s goal was money. “They would post items for sale and say that my dad is going into an old person’s or an assisted living house and that they need to get rid of these items ASAP,” she said. The items posted for sale included vehicles, a lawn mower, appliances, and the list goes on. “And people are posting that I’m this scumbag and selling things and scamming people.”

She says the scammer even mocked one victim, “You’re such a sweetheart. (Laughing emoji). Thanks for the $4K.”

“I was really distraught and frustrated and didn’t know how to handle it,” she said.

She says she turned to Facebook for help repeatedly. “I was not able to reach a single human being,” she said. “The whole thing has been just a nightmare.”

Action 9 investigator Jason Stoogenke emailed the company three times in six weeks for her and never got a response. So, he called, but the company’s automated message referred callers back to digital. So Stoogenke emailed again. Still no response.

Now, Mintun can’t even find her original Facebook page anymore, the one that was stolen. In a lot of ways, that’s good. But she still wants to send a message of her own: “To have Facebook be accountable and be able to reach someone ASAP.”

Cyber analyst Bob Sullivan says when criminals take over people’s profiles, it’s like an ongoing crime scene. The more time that passes, the more damage the con artists can do. He’d like Facebook to have an emergency hotline, its own 911.

“I honestly, at this stage in the game cannot believe how poor Facebook’s customer service is. And one of my schtick lines that I use all the time is that poor customer service is a massive security vulnerability,” he said. “Because it is so hard to get a human being at Facebook to talk to you, because it’s hard to get help there, the criminals are running amok with all these stolen accounts and they’re using them for all kinds of crimes.”

Advice from Action 9:

1. Be very careful of phishing scams designed to get you to share your Facebook information. That’s usually how the criminals get into profiles.

2. Sullivan says back up all your Facebook data. It’s easy to do — just go to your “Settings” in Facebook and look for exporting data. After all, the main thing most people who’ve lost their pages regret is losing their photos, their memories.

3. If someone hijacks your Facebook page, the platform says to take certain steps to combat it.

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