“Your account will be deleted.”
“Your page will be disabled.”
“Your account has been locked.”
“Your page has been reported by someone else.”
You open Facebook (or other social media channels) and see one of these or countless other dire warnings. What now?
We are seeing a record number of attempts to perform account theft, especially on Facebook. They can look fairly dire, intimidating and confusing to someone not familiar with what to look for. At the same time, we have seen an actual Facebook account suspension communication that looked very fake but needed to be appealed so the account could be recovered.
So what can you do? Here are the first steps we suggest.
First of all, DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS, SIGN INTO YOUR ACCOUNT OR FILL OUT ANYTHING ON A FORM! If you did any of those things, contact us immediately and we can try to make sure your account is secure.
So what can you look for to know if it is a scam or legitimate?
First of all, read the message carefully. If there are spelling, grammar or punctuation errors, it is a scam.- Secondly, look at how the message came to you. Facebook will not post a message on your page or tag you (and dozens of others) in a post to tell you about the issue. If that is how the message came to you, it is a scam.
- Third, look at the Facebook ad or Meta logos. Are they the actual logos or a close but not accurate imitation? If logos are not right, it is a scam.
- However, emails actually coming from Facebookmail.com may be legitimate communications from Meta or Facebook even though that domain looks suspicious. These may not be a scam and may need your attention.
The techniques and appearance of these are changing all the time so at the end of the day, if you see something like this, and you are not 100% sure, please give us a call and let us take a look. If you do something wrong, undoing the damage can be very time-consuming, expensive or impossible.
We are happy to help you resolve these issues but we would rather help you make sure they do not become a problem to begin with!