Several months ago, Debbie Hickman of Chestertown, Maryland, began receiving messages from friends about joining a cryptocurrency training program they thought she was behind.
“I’ve had people come to me, and call me and send me messages on if that’s what I’m doing now and asking me questions. [They] were gonna join,” she said.
She soon realized the information came from her Facebook page, which had been hacked. Pictures posted on her account showed happy people holding signs that claimed Hickman helped them make big money by investing in cryptocurrency.
“It’s very upsetting,” Hickman said.
According to Hickman and others that WTOP talked to, scammers hacked their accounts and reached out to their friends with the goal of duping them out of their money.
A Facebook search of the text from one of the suspected scammer’s posts revealed what appeared to be a never-ending list of identical posts made by the accounts of other potential hacking victims.
“It’s irritating because they won’t take it down,” Hickman said.
Hickman said a compromised password allowed the hacker to gain access to her account. But for Erin Solomon, a schoolteacher from Kissimmee, Florida, it was an unused email account that a scammer targeted.
The harassment of those hacked does not end after the accounts are broken into, as Solomon found out. According to Solomon, her account was taken over last May, and since then, she said the scammers have been watching and posting pictures she’s put up on a new Facebook account.
Both Solomon and Hickman said they have since locked down their new accounts, so users who are not connected to them can’t see their new posts and photos.
Solomon said the scammers even tried to trick her elderly mother, who has memory issues, forcing Solomon to go to her mother’s home and block her original profile.
“It’s really sad,” Solomon said.
Solomon and Hickman both said they, along with many of their Facebook contacts, have reported the stolen accounts on multiple occasions, and both said Facebook has failed to act.
“I reported it and they said, basically, it wasn’t harming anybody,” Hickman said.
At this point, Solomon said she has lost hope on regaining access to her old account, but she urges Facebook to take the profile down.
“They’ve made my profile public. They have deleted photo albums that were very precious to me,” Solomon said.
Both women fear people they’ve connected with over the years may get duped into handing over money to the hackers. Hickman is also very concerned the nefarious activity could lead to the harassment of her family, whose pictures remain in the compromised accounts.
“[The account] has a picture of my children as my profile picture,” Hickman said. “I just don’t want my family to get harmed in any way.”
Both Hickman and Solomon are troubled that Facebook doesn’t seem willing to help them regain control of their accounts or take down the profiles impacted.
Hickman said she blocked her old account, but Solomon hasn’t. Instead, Solomon said she looks out for likes on posts from the compromised account and, if she can, contacts them to let them know she is not the one making the posts.
WTOP reached out to Facebook on four occasions since Dec. 22, requesting comment on Solomon’s case and has yet to receive a response.
“Facebook doesn’t care,” Solomon said. “I just want it to stop.”
Both hope that speaking publicly about this will result in Facebook addressing the problem.
“I don’t want other people in my life getting tricked into giving, whoever this is, any money,” Solomon said. “It’s really frustrating that … there’s no person [from Facebook] that reaches out.”
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