I have deliberately copied the title of another blog of that name posted today by a friend of mine, Jennifer Marohasy, and used the same photographs that I’d supplied to her, because it is on the same topic, and it is worth reading alongside this post. Together, we are hoping to raise awareness about a very basic scam that is affecting a lot of people.

Many readers of this website will be familiar with my Facebook page, Norfolk Island Time, on which I cross post many photographs and blog posts about the marine life in the lagoons on Norfolk Island. Indeed, I know many of you found this website via that page.

I have run Norfolk Island Time for around six years. It has about 8,500 followers. There is also an Instagram page of the same name with about 1,200 followers. In the last 28 days it was seen by 670,000 people.

These figures are all approximate, because as of 17 January I can no longer gain access to the page, nor the Instagram page, my personal Facebook page and my Messenger accounts. They have all been taken over by some random person hell bent on getting a free lunch at someone else’s expense. This person has shut me out, changed the email address, changed the password, and removed all security backstops that were in place, for example, the two-step verification process.

I received email notifications from Facebook telling me there had been activity on my account and asking if it was me. Each time I replied that, no, it wasn’t me and I didn’t authorise the changes. However, the links for reporting were already invalid or expired when I clicked on them. Seconds later!

Since then, I have tried every way possible to reach Facebook, including phoning* them in the US (but the number no longer takes calls).

(*That sounds easy, but from Norfolk Island it is a bit of an expensive exercise unless you use an app such as Skype or WhatsApp. More on that in a minute.)

Norfolk Island is a territory of Australia. Our phone numbers are not the standard number of digits and are not recognised by Facebook – and, as I discovered, nor by Skype and WhatsApp – consequently, you can’t verify them, nor do they respond with a promised SMS or a call giving you a code to reset your Facebook account. Our phone code, +672, is for Antarctica. (I won’t bore you with the other issues we have around communication, such as our postcode!)

So that is it.

• No responses from Facebook to any of the various reports that were submitted via friends’ accounts.

• No one to answer that phone number.

• And no email address to write to for help (you can find some that you can ‘try’ if you do a Google search, which I’ve done, but no response).

Silence.

Oh, except for a bill from PayPal for $320.

The textbook scam – played out on repeat

The next instalment in the saga came yesterday, 20 January, when PayPal charged my account $320 for a ’subscription’ to Meta (Facebook). Of course, I immediately disputed this charge, but so far they have rejected my claim. I’ve appealed, and raised a report via my bank as well. But it seems I have little redress because back in 2013 (11 years ago!) I connected my PayPal account to Facebook for the purposes of doing a small amount of advertising on my professional Facebook editing page, Write-now! While I haven’t done much with this page in recent years, this page is now also being controlled by the hacker.

I am hoping that after all this, my financial details are now sewn up tighter than a fish’s fundament! Impregnable to the marauding hordes!

In all the kerfuffle around losing my account and being billed rather rudely by PayPal, my attention was drawn to an article at 9News, posted back in 2021: Facebook hackers target small business owners to scam money for ads. The circumstances and the same sum of money were involved: $320.

I was incredulous to read it and realise that this same scam is going on three and a half years later in exactly the same way. It is a textbook version of what happened to me this week.

The Norfolk Island Time Facebook page is a mix of lifestyle and environment (#DownArthurs, #NorfolkIsland #outonaswim #mylaplane #LittleFig #citizenscience etc etc); it celebrates our wonderful environment here on the island, but its main point is to raise awareness about our amazing coral reef here. It is something I do in my free time, it has grown organically, and I certainly wouldn’t pay to advertise. If you love fish, Norfolk Island and our environment, you will eventually find me.

It is bizarre that this scam has been around so long and not shut down. It is bizarre that Facebook takes no responsibility or has no customer service to assist those who get caught up in this kind of thing. And it is bizarre that I was unaware of the ramifications – back in 2013 – of connecting the PayPal and Facebook accounts and that this connection is still active after all this time. But I take responsibility for that. Although, wouldn’t it be an idea for Facebook to ensure these kinds of permissions are reviewed regularly, seeing as these scams are ongoing?

I’ve watch six years of hard work, and, yes, admittedly, a lot of fun, evaporate.

There is no help for anyone who finds themselves in these circumstances. Appeals to the broader community attract a deluge of similar scammers, all ready to relieve you of any password they can get their hands on (so beware!).

Facebook is a closed shop. Happy to mine your data and make the profits, but not so happy to assist when you need them.

We should all be angry. I know I am!

A candid postscript: where to from here? Unless a human from Facebook surfaces from their computer long enough to see the trauma they’ve caused, it looks like I’ll have to walk away from the page. Will I set up another one? Right now, I just don’t know. I need to gather myself together first, and then decide if the price of time and effort is worth it in order to keep advocating for Norfolk Island’s reef.