Dear Diary, someone hacked my Facebook account and spent £300 advertising ugly shoes

This is going to ruin the tour

Well, folks, after going viral on Instagram earlier this month, and having my child shamed on Facebook a few weeks earlier, I really thought it would surely be a long, long time before I had any more social media drama to report here. I mean, surely?

But alas no: because this week someone decided to hack my Facebook account and use it to spend £300 on adverts via the linked Paypal account.

Wild weekend for that person, huh?

Honestly, I thought it was all going to be fine. Sure, the hacker had essentially just stolen £300 of our hard-earned cash, but I’d changed the password on the account, removed the payment source, and filed a dispute with Meta, so now all I had to do was sit back and…

Oh.

That’s… inconvenient.

Even more so when you consider the fact that the snappily-named ‘banhgockhanh9874322’ isn’t actually my Instagram account — or, indeed, anyone’s Instagram account — which means I can’t just log into it to appeal the decision. In fact, without access to Facebook, there would appear to be NO way for me to appeal this decision.

Handy, no?

So, now I’ve lost my Facebook account as well as my £300 — and while the theft of the money was obviously a big ol’ deal, the loss of the account itself didn’t really bother me at first, because how often do I use Facebook anyway? Other than to fight with the neighbours about sidewalk chalk, I mean?

Hardly ever, girl. Does anyone still use Facebook on the regular, though? (Again, other than the people in my street who like to post photos of kids they don’t know there?¹) Because I don’t. I hardly ever use my personal profile these days — not even to wish people a happy heavenly birthday, or share posts about missing cats in Alabama even though I live in central Scotland — and all of the photos I’ve shared there in the past are backed up elsewhere, so did it really matter if I never got back into Facebook again?

I was going to go with ‘no’ in answer to that question.

Then I remembered that my Facebook account is linked to my Facebook pages, which are fairly essential in promoting my blog and books. It’s also linked to my Instagram account. And God knows how many other apps and websites which I couldn’t be bothered setting up a separate log-in for, so which I access using the ‘log-in with Facebook’ option.

I thought about the parents’ group for Max’s school, which is pretty much the only reason I ever remember which days are non-uniform days, and when the money for the school trip to the zoo has to be paid. The street’s Facebook group, which is like a little mini soap-opera, complete with a cast of characters which people would dismiss as completely unrealistic if I were to put them in a book (which I will totally do one day, but only once we’ve moved away, and they can’t find me). How will I know if a dog poops in the street and its owner fails to pick it up, for instance, without access to that group? What if a mysterious van is spotted in the village, and everyone’s all a-flutter about it… except me, because, DUH, NO FACEBOOK?

No, this is intolerable, people. Intolerable.

And then there’s the people.

I’m not talking about my ‘real life’ friends and family here, because obviously, if the worst comes to the worst, and my Facebook account is never reinstated, I can easily just start a new one and re-friend them all (assuming they’ll have me, that is). No, I’m talking about the random strangers who have somehow become part of my Facebook world, and who’ve been there for years now without me having even the slightest clue why.

Am I the only one who has people like that on Facebook?

I am, aren’t I?

The thing is, though, I opened my Facebook account in 2007 (I think). Back then, I had literally No Clue. About anything, really. So I just blindly accepted every friends request that came my way, without stopping to wonder who the hell these people were, and why they wanted to be ‘friends’ with me. I know at least a few of them came from Livejournal and a forum I used to be a member of, but I’m guessing the rest probably found me via my blog, and decided to shoot me a friends request on the off-chance that I accepted it?

And I did.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the wilder that sounds. It’s just… I guess it made me feel popular? Or I thought that was what you were supposed to do at the time? To be nice? And then, once the people were there, on my friends list, posting photos of their kids and pets, and all the other things people used to use Facebook for before it turned into a dumpster fire, I kind of got used to them, and felt like it would be rude to just abruptly get rid of them when they’d done nothing wrong. So they stayed… and now they’re gone, along with the account. And although I can re-friend the people I actually know and interact with, I’m thinking it would be weird even by my standards to try to re-friend Bob from Minnesota, say, who I have never exchanged so much as a single sentence with in my life, but whose life I have nevertheless watched from afar for … actually, let’s not try to figure that out, OK? It’s making me kind of hate myself…

Facebook people I do not know, but will nevertheless miss:

• Bob-from-Minnesota

• Jim-from-Georgia whose daughter went to university in England and ended up marrying a nice English boy, and now I come to think of it, I haven’t heard from Jim in a while. I hope he’s OK. Do you guys think Jim’s OK? How can we find out without Facebook?

• That one woman who begins each day by posting her ‘angel reading’. How am I supposed to get through each day without knowing what Tanya’s angel reading for Tuesday was?

• That other woman who married the son of someone famous and now spends her days jetting around the world and posting the photos on Facebook.

• The octogenarian from the village Facebook page who is currently waging a one-woman war on dog poop, and goes around the village accosting dog walkers and demanding to see their poop bags, before returning home to post a tirade about them on Facebook. She’s both terrifying and awesome. I feel like if I ever saw her in real life I’d want to ask for her autograph or something. I mean, I wouldn’t, obviously, because I’m scared of her, but still.

Things I won’t miss about Facebook:

• The pressure to post either a ‘happy birthday’ message or a ‘sorry, I forgot to wish you a happy birthday’ message for every single person I know.

• The ensuing guilt when I realize I’ve missed the window of acceptability for both the ‘happy birthday’ AND the ‘sorry I didn’t say happy birthday’ messages, and have deeply offended a close family member who low-key hates me now because I said Happy Birthday to their brother/cousin/pet cat, but not to them.

• The over-thinking that comes with that.

• The frequent reminders — in the form of ‘memories’ — of all the inane shit I used to post back in the day when every status update started with ‘<your name>is…” and you’d post fascinating insights into your day, like, ‘Amber is thinking about going to the gym later’ and ‘Amber is a dull, dull girl’.

• The weird Facebook ads. This is a wig for a cat, for instance:

  

  If I had a cat I would 100% buy this, ngl. It would be worth GETTING a cat just to be able to buy this for it, actually…

While this is… I have no idea what this is supposed to be, but I’m quite offended that Facebook thought I might want it, tbh:

Me realising my Facebook got hacked right in the middle of the Jay Slater drama I was following like it was my job…

OK, I’m lying, I will actually miss these. And if I’m totally honest, I think I’ll miss Facebook too, if what I’m being told is correct and there really is no hope of me ever getting it back. Because I can start a new account, sure, but will it show me adverts for ceramic pig-like things? Will Bob-from-Minnesota even remember who I am considering I haven’t interacted with him for over a decade? WILL IT EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN?

For now, though, the most important thing is to try and get my £300 back. On that front, I did manage to file a dispute with Meta before the account was suspended, and they responded to that yesterday morning saying they agreed that the account had been ‘compromised’ (NO SHIT), and that they’d refund the money taken. To date, though, they still haven’t done that, and, as far as we can tell, they probably won’t be able to do it while the account is suspended. Paypal, meanwhile, say it’s up to Meta to process a refund, so they won’t refund us either, and, well…

I’ve replied to the last email they sent me, which is the only line of contact I have for them right now, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope, which means my next step would be to either contact the police and report it as fraud (Seems extreme, but, then again, my money has been stolen, and Meta know that…) or… sign up to Meta Verified via my Instagram account and try to speak to someone that way. Which I really, really don’t want to do, because then I’d be one of the Blue Tick People, and everyone would hate me.

I really don’t want everyone to hate me.

If you happen to look at my Instagram account over the next few days, though, and I suddenly have a blue tick next to my name, you’ll know it’s because I’m having to pay Meta to speak to me about my stolen money and suspended Facebook account, not because I actually wanted a blue tick. And if you were Facebook friends with me, well, you’re not any more. But happy birthday when it comes!

Until next week,

1. Oh, hey, guess who’s still not over that?!