'Getting Instagram to fix my account was almost traumatising'

When wedding dress designer Catherine Deane saw her company's Instagram account get hacked, she says it was "devastating".

"It felt like the rug had been pulled from under us. Instagram is our primary social platform, and we've invested the most amount of time and business resources into it.

"To keep the account current we post content every day. Suddenly all this work… it was just pulled."

Ms Deane's UK-based business, which is named after her, sells wedding dresses online, with her biggest market being the US.

On Instagram it now has 59,000 followers, but a few years ago the firm lost control of the account after a member of its social media team received a message suggesting that the business had been selected to get blue-badge verification from Instagram, which is owned by Facebook's Meta.

This was the stamp of authenticity that Ms Deane had long sought. "We were obviously very excited about that," she says.

So her employee opened a link to what turned out to be a fake Instagram verification form that requested log-in credentials. She filled it in, divulging the username and password, and shortly afterwards the account was taken over by hackers.

What added to Ms Deane's anguish was that she says she had to fight with Meta to get her account back, which took four months.

Initially she filled out the admin dispute form and sent it off, but heard nothing. Multiple emails followed but no action was taken.

"It's so incredibly frustrating when you're dealing with your account being hacked and there is no-one to talk to," she says. "It's almost traumatising because there is no-one who understands and can help escalate it."

Eventually an email came from Meta, telling her that the case was closed, even though she was still unable to access her page.

In the end the matter was finally resolved for Ms Deane because someone in the firm had a contact at Facebook, and the team emailed that person daily for the four months.

"Finally, I think they just needed to get us off their backs and they reinstated the account," says Ms Deane.

Hackers want to take over business social media accounts for a number of reasons. These including using the pages to sell fake products or place scam adverts, harvesting personal information, spreading malware, tricking people into sending money, or blackmailing the company in question to unblock the account.

The last of these happened last year to David Davila, who is part of the marketing team at Quantum Windows & Doors, a small, family-run business based in Washington state in the US.

He got locked out of the firm's social Facebook account when he responded to what turned out to be a fake message purporting to be from Meta.

Because his phone number was linked to the account, that also fell into the hands of the scammers and, soon after the lock-out, he got a WhatsApp message demanding $1,200 (£900) to unlock the account.

Unable to find a helpline, he searched on Google, but the number he rang put him through to more scammers. That link has since been removed by Google.

Thankfully, Mr Davila was able to get the Facebook account unlocked a few days later.