What to do when you get hacked … and Facebook deletes you off the face of social media

 “I’ve invested my time, money and content over the last 10+ years. And in a hackers’ second … gone.”

So, do you remember that time when I got hacked? And lost ALL my social accounts, for months? Well, here’s what happened – and how you can minimise the impact if something like this (which I hope it never will) happens to you.

First up, what happened?

Well, despite having two factor authentication I was hacked. Someone supposedly in Vietnam took over my ad account and probably posted ads that contravened FB guidelines. They set a budget of £7888 a day … I’m wondering if this is some kind of auspicious number?! For them … clearly not for me!

Fortunately I cancelled ALL my credit cards. Total ball ache, but glad I did it.

Any monies spent were returned by the banks – eventually.

So how are Facebook supporting their customers through this?

THEY. ARE. NOT.

And that my friends is what I want you to focus on.

You have NO control over your FB or Instagram accounts.

It is virtually impossible to reach an actual person.

There is ZERO support.

I have tried every link that every person has sent me to get my account back. They all go back to the same format … you need to have a validation code sent to your phone.

The code gets sent to me, but FB tells me it doesn’t recognise the number and to check the number and try again.

GROUNDHOG DAY.

So I try the alternatives – supposedly they can call you or email you, BUT both those options go back to getting a validation code sent to your phone … and there we go again. Stuck in a loop.

So what did we do?

Well, the first thing is it made me wake up and realise even more how important my list is.

It’s the only thing we actually own.
Sure, I can start a YouTube account (and I did) and as an early adopter of Twitter I could pick that back up, but the truth is FB and Insta are the platforms I’ve invested my time, money and content into over the last 10+ years.

And in a hackers’ second … gone.

Now I’m not going to say these platforms don’t have their uses … they absolutely do BUT you need to recognise every minute you invest in them, you are investing in something you don’t own.

So make sure you get those awesome lead magnets and Pop Up Products out there so you start to move each and every one of your followers from FB and Instagram to your own email list.

And you should be doing this on every platform you use.

It’s not how you get knocked down that counts … it’s how you get back up.

Love,

Shaa X

PS: you’ll have noticed I DID get my profiles back, after a hell’a fight. I’ve now verified my Ig account – so I have that little blue tick. An extra bit of assurance for the future. Pop over and give me a follow.