The only reason left right now for regretting being silence-banned on WA is that I want to warn people about something, that probably won't be mentioned in their classes.
So you probably noticed me crying here over my Facebook groups getting hacked and taken over.
The thing is: if you are starting to get a successful Facebook group, or Facebook page, or even Pinterest might be the case, make sure to set up a 2-STEP VERIFICATION for all those channels.
Right now, you might think: that is too much hassle, nobody will hack into my account, but I regret thinking that now. Because maybe, if I had used it, I wouldn't have been hacked! (or not made it easier for them to hack my accounts)
In this article, you can check out what this means : https://social-media-management-help.brandwatch.com/hc/en-us/articles/4499676228765-Two-Factor-Authentication-2FA#:~:text=Related%20articles-,What%20is%20two%2Dfactor%20authentication%20(2FA)%3F,significantly%20increases%20your%20account%20security.
Since Monday night local time here in Belgium, I have been trying to get my Facebook groups back, after they were taken over by several hackers.
Andy here helped me out a lot (thanks again Andy!) to contact them straight into a chat session from my business account, and after my chat with them, they even called me to verify things and for confirmation that it was actually me (well, I think it was the main reason they even called me)
On the phone, the Facebook operator told me that they were going to email me in the next 24 hours, which hasn't happened yet lol, so I'm taking those 24 hours with a big grain of salt LOL!
Right after that call, I got BOMBARDED WITH UNEXPECTED CALLS from countries like Singapore and eastern Europe, etc.
There you go, those were my actual HACKERS CALLING ME FROM BOTS, trying for me to answer their calls, so that they were "IN". I was sitting at the diner table with family, they all heard and saw those calls coming in, right after my chat with Facebook (so they were actually working on my accounts I would think ).
Husband said: let's just put your phone off and let them be, don't answer and afterwards I'll just block their numbers. And we were all like laughing about it : "We get a nice entertainment show here from Lizzy hahahahaha"!
I am telling you all: "it is a MAFFIA WORLD OUT THERE ON SOCIALS! lol!
Moral of the story: protect your accounts as much as possible, starting with 2 step verification!
Otherwise, losing all of that work that you built up during the years, will just be lost and gone.
Take care!
Lizzy
Great advice Lizzy ... I hope you get your accounts back. That's just downright evil.
Hi Lizzy
Yeah, I always set up two-step verification on all my accounts. It's a crazy world out there, for sure!
Hang in there, and everything will turn out well. 🙂
Frank 🎸
@frank thanks 🙂 Still no answer from Facebook, guess I will contact them again today 🙁 Ugh!
@ohnoo_not_her Yup - bug them as much as you could. If they say they will respond within 24 hours and they don't then, I'd be back on a live chat with them 24 hours and 1 second. I've always found that if I write a long paragraph of text (sort of like what I sent to you), where you sort of repeat yourself and tell them that you need this to happen immediately and you're not sure what is going to happen to your business if you don't get access, and don't forget about the ads that you are trying to run, and you just really, really need help, and you tried all other alternatives and this is the only place you can contact them, and the said that they would respond in 24 hours but they haven't, and you really just need to get access to these groups.... Basically something like the above, that usually helps them move a little quicker. Or at least it makes me feel like I get my point across, LOL.
But yes, definitely contact them again.
@andy I'm done with FB, now my personal account is banned due to some bullshit reason that an Instagram account of mine was harassing people, an account that isn't even mine,and there is nowhere that I can appeal. Im done, not going to setup all these accounts again and start from scratch, these took years to build
Sorry If my writing seems od, I jus took a pil to calm down, got a panick attack.
Hope you're ok Lizzy. I know this seems tough at the moment, but it is the nature of internet marketing I'm afraid.
I still remember, nearly 20 years ago, the gut-aching feeling of watching all my content sites quickly going down the pan as Google purged itself of spam.
That was real trauma that took me years to recover from. In fact I walked away for over a decade, only returning when I found WA and more specifically, Mr Partha B 😎
Anyway ... don't do what I did. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep working.