Ever Been Hacked? Here's what to do
Have you ever been hacked, identity stolen, house broken into or somehow felt violated digitally?
In August I got a call from my daughter asking if I had changed my Facebook profile as there was a foreign flag as my profile picture. Within moments, my personal Facebook page was shut down and I later found out my Instagram was shut down as well. Facebook owns Instagram.
I started getting emails from Ebay, Amazon, Xfininity, Walmart, places I had accounts asking if I had requested a change of password and they were from hackers from Utah, Florida and Russia! Someone had taken my email address and was trying to hack into my accounts. They got nowhere. Thank God! But I immediately went in and deleted all my credit cards off all of the accounts and changed passwords.
I was working on the SPCP Fall Quarterly at the time and personal messaging a number of people writing articles for the next issue, those people all got blocked with no notice to me or them.
As my Carefree Beauty Business Page and my Group Beauty Page is attached to my personal page, I had no access to either of those pages until one of my lovely clients invited me to my OWN page!
Truly, as a positive person, I figured that I would just ask for a review and Facebook would see their error and reinstate me......NOT!
Since there is no customer service for Facebook, no one to talk to, email, or even chat with, all you can do is send in your ID and ask for them to review your case. I did that and did it again five days later and was told they reviewed my case, and it would not be reversed, and I was disabled. I even had an acquaintance (who is now a friend) on the phone with me for two hours working with me on this. She does advertising with Facebook and we did a chat with someone who worked at Facebook trying to get me reinstated, NOPE!
Another good friend tried to reach out to someone she knows who works at Facebook - and crickets....nothing.
Lessons I learned that I want to share with you.
I know that I am not alone in some of the mistakes that I have made along the way.
Whenever possible do not use your email address as your username.
Have different passwords for each place you sign into (not similar ones like I did.)
Save those passwords in a hard copy book that you write down and can look up. (My husband has told me this forever.)
Get an app that can save your passwords for you and have it connected to your computer, your phone, etc. (I am using Last Pass now) I only have to remember one password to get into it and it saves all my other ones. Use a random password generator to make passwords. (Last Pass has one on their app.)
Do NOT use the google save on your computer or phone. (This is the automatic fill in of username and password.) I did this ALL the time! If someone hacks your computer, you are toast!
I had to set up a whole new account, different name, birthday, photo, everything. I have since gone in and changed my name now to Molly S. Klipp and have since changed my birthdate to my real one.
On Facebook - Settings - Security and Log In - there is a spot that says, If you are locked out - name 3 - 5 people who are on Facebook who can help you get back in. Do IT! If you are locked out - you can do nothing to get back in yourself - you need someone on Facebook to do it for you. I even opened up an account for my husband so I could use his account to get me back up if I needed to.
If you have a Business page, name at least two other admin people whot can help you post your info on your business page and/or unpublish it when you have rebuilt a new one. There is a New Official Site on my new business Facebook page and on my new Carefree Beauty Group page – I had to repost old posts and recreate the whole thing from scratch.
On your Facebook page - consider all those lovely pictures you have. (I lost all mine because I didn't know this.) You should download all those photos and save them into your cloud so you won't lose them. Do it!
Your Facebook page is now connected to your phone number, so if you have to rebuild your Facebook page you will not be able to log in to your new Facebook page on the Facebook app on that phone. You can go to Google and log in that way, but obviously it takes longer. You can go on another phone, iPad and computer but not on the phone that your Facebook account is attached to. For a time, I am told. It has been three months and I still can’t do Facebook or Messenger apps on my personal phone, only on my business phone.
Since Instagram is attached to Facebook, my Instagram also got shut down, so be aware of that also.
Be careful with your info out there, where you put it, how you save it and who you give your info to.
As you can see getting hacked is a colossal time waster. The hours I had to spend rebuilding everything from scratch was crazy and frustrating. But very educational.If this helps you to change some of the ways you do your social media and create your username and passwords, then it is all worth it.
I have heard this lesson from many of my business coaches and I cannot tell you enough that this is true.
All Social Media modems are rented space. What that means is that at any given time, you could be shut down through no fault of your own. (My case is a great example). If you use social media as the only source of building your business, you are in trouble. Social media can be used wisely and very profitably but know the pitfalls as well and Use social media as a funnel. Gather your followers, invite them to receive a quarterly newsletter or monthly newsletter that you send out to your followers and get their email addresses. There are ways that you can gather email addresses through your social media accounts and market through your email contacts consistently.
Get a business coach if you don’t know how to do all of this. While it is important to be a great artist in whatever modality you choose to do, knowing how business works, marketing works and how you can continue to fill your funnel of new clients is what makes you successful!
2020 proved to be a remarkably interesting and educational year. I know that you CAN teach an old dog new tricks, be a learner and continue to grow!
To Your Success,
Molly S. Klipp, CPCP
SPCP Secretary and Quarterly Editor
