Facebook Hijacking Issues

dave34

Note: Contacted boards support team direct & they advised this area as the best place for this issue. Please move to relevant area if not thank you.
(Sorry this could be quite long)
Have recently had a number of clients calling to me with there facebook accounts after being hijacked and its virtually impossible using the methods that facebook/meta give to recover the account! One in particular (which I was working on yesterday or trying to) was caught by the scammer using the 'Request a friend to help you recover your account feature' .. IMHO it is singly one of the most daft ideas that facebook came up with and was readily open to abuse of the negative behavior! It has merits but the positive use is far outweighed by the negative aspects and facebook should stop this feature immediately.
Anyway The client received a code and without thinking passed it on thinking it was for her 'Friend' to recover her account. Obviously what was being done was the scammer sending a code to recover there own account and the 'friends' account was a clone. Within minutes they lost all access and email changed & password etc..
This shut them out of 3 other pages they manage also, one a religious pilgrimage page and another a cooking recipe page apart from there own personal page.
Although we have twice now managed to regain some form of access, due to how facebook works we have been unable to reset the email or password. Even using the 'Reconised Device' feature which shows devices that have access (An iphone supposedly located in Dublin), and saying No i do not reconise device which takes you directly too a page to secure your account and you have to first input your current password which obviously we can't do as the account is compromised. (I have no clue as to how we even have access to the admin features or the account that part makes no sense ) ..

So to point of post? Does anyone know a way to directly contact facebook without having to resort to solicitors and a court order (They actually suggest this on one of the clients who was locked out ) or does anyone know of how the issue can be fixed? Part of the problem I see is the automated A.I. systems that really are restrictive in being able to ascertain if the request is genuine or not and this is where the service requires a direct human contact.
There must be some way for these accounts to be returned to there rightful owners & going forward with advice on how to create more secure passwords and what to do and not do keep them safe. One of the clients decided to abandon there account (10 years + of content) & create a new account with new email etc. all was well until a couple of hours later facebook locked and suspended that account for 180 days and that was appealed and client was advised to go to court (as mentioned above) or use a verified arbitration service - which of course no details of which can be found…

A relatively simple task made near on impossible due to over complicating an issue..
It would be as well to note for people to never give codes to a person who requests them via messenger and to contact them direct - search your friends list to ensure you only have one friend with that name - they send a friend request from the cloned account so more than one account will show up in your friends list and you can quite easily spot the fake account. Contact them direct by phone call and if you can't do not send the code - the code is the scammer/hijacker trying to take over your account.. sadly people need to be more vigilant and start using more complex password structures.

The amount of times I see 'Football123' or there favorite team 123 or simply the home town name or even just 'Password' (Not joking there either!) - it is getting to be a nightmare and they will attack anyone so please do up your security , use a vpn or service to see if your private details have been compromised.
Yes, I do work within the I.T. trade but this is not touting or advertising for work just to make that clear, all I'm trying is to warn people to be more careful and to see if there is a way to help people more proactively to recover there accounts and content, i.e. wedding photos, baby/toddler, grand parents friends etc its heart breaking to see people so upset and not being able to help them…

Furze99

What's this 'codes' business? Not come across it on FB. What can be tricky are Friend Requests, good to look through all friends first before accepting any request.

dave34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122334266#Comment_122334266

Its part of facebook's account recovery options. You can send a one time code to a friend to recover your account. Scammers are using this feature to hijack peoples accounts by 'Cloning' an account on a persons friends list, requesting an account recovery to the target account which then sends a one time passcode - they message you for that code and within seconds your locked out of your account… facebook need to remove that option as it is just to open to that kind of abuse..