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Ask HN: Facebook Business Manager hacked and now locked out of accounts

27 points by fantalamera 4y ago

Sorry in advance, but it's my turn for HN big tech support. Our Meta/Facebook Business Manager account was hacked July 12, despite having 2FA. The hackers got away with spending $800k on scam ads and got our business manager & all ad accounts blocked. We’re an adtech business and are losing tens of thousands in revenue per day until our ad accounts are re-instated. We have several open tickets with Meta/Facebook but not getting in contact with anyone who seems to be able to help. Almost 2 weeks later and still no update. Anyone at Meta/FB that can help or point us in the right direction? Thanks in advance

radiojasper 4y ago
Ah yeah the good ol "we're losing tens of thousands a day". If you really make such money, you also should be able to afford a legal department.
Volker_W 4y ago
> We’re an adtech business Get fucked.
- throwaway67743 4y ago
joshstrange 4y ago
See if your state has a Social Media liaison position/role, or even specifically a FB/IG liaison. I had no clue this was a thing until a relative's business IG account was hacked. No amount of screaming/begging or filling out all the forms helped, the liaison had her account restored in under a day.
- solardev 4y ago
  What? Which states DO have this? Never heard of this until just now.
lrvick 4y ago
Your centralized exploitative adtech business that exists at the expense of the well being of society is failing because another bigger centralized exploitative adtech business will not care about your well being? Now you want a tech worker community who is among the people you track and exploit to help you get back to doing that. I suggest you take this as an opportunity to seek out a living producing something that has a chance of being actually positive for society.
- Volker_W 4y ago
  Seeing this comment in the #1 spot makes me proud of the HN community.
  - throwaway67743 4y ago
    And yet agreeing with a concise "get fucked" version results in downvotes, sadge
    - radiojasper 4y ago
      the "this" is what got you the downvotes, not the agreeing with. Because when you say "this", you also could've just upvoted.
      - throwaway67743 4y ago
        You say that, but upvote seems to have disappeared, re shadow banning thread. This is why shadow banning is just stupid, deal with confrontation and ban properly or not at all - that is ignoring all of the other people it affects, I share an IP with 1000s of people, it could be them or it could be me, who knows because there is no feedback. I do find it pretty funny that this needs to be explained to a HN audience, but then it's verging on a tech support forum with all the Facebook and Apple woe is me.... Interesting, it does intermittently appear, perhaps ad blocking is filtering it, also maybe js disabled might be related.
        4y ago
przeor 4y ago
I got similar situation with Twillio and we got fast response and full refund. Just saying :-)
eurasiantiger 4y ago
Sincerely, I hope your product fails and your company goes under. Screw adtech and screw your investors.
ilamont 4y ago
You don't have an account manager? You can't freeze the payment method?
- fantalamera 4y ago
  We have spoken with several account managers, but they’ve ”forwarded the ticket to another team and can’t do anything more” The hackers are currently thrown out, so we’re not losing tens of thousands in revenue daily because they are spending it, but rather because the account is blocked we can’t run campaigns on behalf of our customers.
  - gaws 4y ago
    > we’re not losing tens of thousands in revenue daily because they are spending it, but rather because the account is blocked we can’t run campaigns on behalf of our customers. Imagine centralizing your entire business, your employees' livelihoods, on a demonstrably terrible platform like Facebook.
LonisHamaili 4y ago
Sad to hear
nathanaldensr 4y ago
Time to call a lawyer.
mcraiha 4y ago
Did they bypass/disable 2FA or did they get the code somehow?
- suitcase 4y ago
  They probably stole the cookie from an active session via malware
steve-222 4y ago
How was your 2FA method compromised? Until you're able to fix that, re-instating your account might mean another round of hundreds of thousands of dollars in scam ads on your behalf.
yieldcrv 4y ago
Was your 2FA just coming as a text message to your phone?

27 points by fantalamera 4y ago

radiojasper 4y ago

Ah yeah the good ol "we're losing tens of thousands a day". If you really make such money, you also should be able to afford a legal department.

Volker_W 4y ago

> We’re an adtech business Get fucked.

throwaway67743 4y ago

joshstrange 4y ago

See if your state has a Social Media liaison position/role, or even specifically a FB/IG liaison. I had no clue this was a thing until a relative's business IG account was hacked. No amount of screaming/begging or filling out all the forms helped, the liaison had her account restored in under a day.

solardev 4y ago
What? Which states DO have this? Never heard of this until just now.

lrvick 4y ago

Your centralized exploitative adtech business that exists at the expense of the well being of society is failing because another bigger centralized exploitative adtech business will not care about your well being? Now you want a tech worker community who is among the people you track and exploit to help you get back to doing that. I suggest you take this as an opportunity to seek out a living producing something that has a chance of being actually positive for society.

Volker_W 4y ago
Seeing this comment in the #1 spot makes me proud of the HN community.
- throwaway67743 4y ago
  And yet agreeing with a concise "get fucked" version results in downvotes, sadge
  - radiojasper 4y ago
    the "this" is what got you the downvotes, not the agreeing with. Because when you say "this", you also could've just upvoted.
    - throwaway67743 4y ago
      You say that, but upvote seems to have disappeared, re shadow banning thread. This is why shadow banning is just stupid, deal with confrontation and ban properly or not at all - that is ignoring all of the other people it affects, I share an IP with 1000s of people, it could be them or it could be me, who knows because there is no feedback. I do find it pretty funny that this needs to be explained to a HN audience, but then it's verging on a tech support forum with all the Facebook and Apple woe is me.... Interesting, it does intermittently appear, perhaps ad blocking is filtering it, also maybe js disabled might be related.
      - 4y ago

przeor 4y ago

I got similar situation with Twillio and we got fast response and full refund. Just saying :-)

eurasiantiger 4y ago

Sincerely, I hope your product fails and your company goes under. Screw adtech and screw your investors.

ilamont 4y ago

You don't have an account manager? You can't freeze the payment method?

fantalamera 4y ago
We have spoken with several account managers, but they’ve ”forwarded the ticket to another team and can’t do anything more” The hackers are currently thrown out, so we’re not losing tens of thousands in revenue daily because they are spending it, but rather because the account is blocked we can’t run campaigns on behalf of our customers.
- gaws 4y ago
  > we’re not losing tens of thousands in revenue daily because they are spending it, but rather because the account is blocked we can’t run campaigns on behalf of our customers. Imagine centralizing your entire business, your employees' livelihoods, on a demonstrably terrible platform like Facebook.

LonisHamaili 4y ago

Sad to hear

nathanaldensr 4y ago

Time to call a lawyer.

mcraiha 4y ago

Did they bypass/disable 2FA or did they get the code somehow?

suitcase 4y ago
They probably stole the cookie from an active session via malware

steve-222 4y ago

How was your 2FA method compromised? Until you're able to fix that, re-instating your account might mean another round of hundreds of thousands of dollars in scam ads on your behalf.

yieldcrv 4y ago

Was your 2FA just coming as a text message to your phone?