Better Business Bureau, Facebook users see increase in hacks

SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) - The COVID-19 pandemic left many of us working from home or without a job, which meant many of us had extra time on our hands. In turn, millions of people across the globe turned to social media.

But a warning is being issued about a popular social media site seeing an uptick in hacks, especially in the ArkLaTex.

Facebook has more than 2.8 billion active users, but Khalisha Savage Starr is no longer one of them.

“I knew at the moment I couldn’t log in that my account was hacked,” said Starr, who claimed an unknown hacker changed her Facebook password while she was sleeping.

She was locked out of her account and no matter what she tried, she couldn’t recover her page.

“I kind of felt like my house had gotten broken into. Everything that I tried to recover it, didn’t work. A backup password didn’t work, which is what they have for the options. I had my husband as a backup in case this happened and they didn’t let me activate that,” she said.

Even with the two-step authentication activated, 14 years of memories and personal connections were all lost. Starr says she fell victim to a second scam when she called a customer service number on Facebook’s help page, but it too was fake.

That’s when she filed a report with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The BBB has Facebook listed with an “F” rating, with a 1.1-star rating by consumers.

Tim Shane is the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Shreveport. He says this case is one of the hundreds of cases reported to the BBB in the last year. In fact, Facebook says it disabled 1.3 billion fake accounts between January and March of 2021, which is likely why hackers wanted Starr’s account.

“It’s a constantly evolving challenge,” said Shane. “Some people don’t even know that they’ve been hacked.”

Shane says there are easy ways to protect yourself from hackers:

• Make sure you take your password seriously. Change your password frequently and make sure it isn’t too simple. Don’t use the same one for all of your accounts.
• Use the two-step authentication process. Even though it didn’t work for Starr, it can send you a warning if someone tries to hack your page.
• Use the “trusted friends” option. That’s where you give permission to certain friends or family to access your account if you get hacked.
• Lastly, don’t befriend strangers — those people are likely out to hack you.

“Especially after the pandemic, our gateway to the world is through our phones and through online, so that just makes it that much easier for scammers. We have to become more educated and more vigilant,” Shane said.

For Starr, she says this entire experience has left her feeling like she will never trust Facebook.

“I want them to give me back access to my account so I can download my information and then I’d like to suspend my account on my own terms, not on a hacker’s terms or their terms,” she said.

Copyright 2021 KSLA. All rights reserved.