"It's so discouraging": Small business owner in Vancouver helpless after Meta stops responding
The Find Luxury consignment store in Vancouver was subject to an increasingly common problem faced by small businesses: issues reaching Meta’s helpline.
The Find Luxury’s Instagram account was hacked on August 7, 2024, and deactivated. The hackers then contacted the store’s founder, Sarah Marschall, demanding money to reactivate the account.
“It just feels like someone has invaded your privacy,” Marschall said. “I’ve worked so hard for this account and to build it up. For it to just be taken by someone so easily, it’s quite traumatizing in a way.”
As soon as Marschall realized her account was hacked, she turned to Meta’s helpline.
“I immediately tried to get a hold of Instagram, like all of the troubleshooting online. Nothing works,” she said.
“You click the links that they provide for you, and it just takes you in circles and brings you back to the original front page, which is so frustrating.”
Sarah Marschall/Submitted
About two weeks later, Marschall finally managed to get hold of someone at Meta through the Facebook business suite. Unfortunately, the actions taken were only partially helpful.
The small business account was reactivated under an altered handle. However, Meta did not provide Marschall with the information to change her password, which means she still can’t access the account.
“They put a bunch of random letters in front of the name, but they still did not change any of the passwords. They didn’t change any of the contact information, so I still have no way of accessing my account,” Marschall shared.
“They reactivated the account and then closed the case and did nothing further.”
Marschall continued to reach out to Meta to solve the issue, but she was put on hold in the open help chat while she collected the necessary information to reopen the account.
When she had all the information at hand, Meta went silent.
“The Facebook person put me on a hold on the chat. So, he just kind of muted it temporarily. Then, when I was ready with the information, I was told to just reopen the chat and say, ‘Hi, I have the information,’” she said.
“Nobody is responding to the chat now, and so I have no way of contacting Facebook anymore.”
Daily Hive reached out to Meta for a comment but did not hear back in time for publishing.
Sarah Marschall/Submitted
Marschall expressed her frustration with the situation, sharing how she finds it “unbelievable” that such a large company does not have the support structures in place to help businesses like hers.
Since she already has a help chat open, Meta is unable to open a new chat. Therefore, her only option now is to reach the security contact email, which told her it could take months to resolve.
“It’s so discouraging. I just keep going in circles, and no one’s giving me any information.”