Photographer Has 7 Years Worth of Images Wiped by Facebook Scammers
A photographer had his business destroyed after Facebook scammers wiped seven years of his images, videos, and customer orders from his social media account.
According to an exclusive report by ABC News, photographer Doug Bazley, who is based in Queensland, Australia, says that the hackers launched a cyber attack on him that took over his Facebook business page.
The hackers deleted a seven-year-career’s worth of photographs and footage from his social media page.
Bazley says that his photography business page was lost during the weekend — after he clicked on a link sent to his inbox which was purported to be from Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook.
“This Meta thing came up and it said to me, you need to go into this link to fix this problem,” Bazley tells ABC News.
“I hit that link and that was the start of the end, the page just went black, it disappeared.
“Then it changed the profile photo and changed the name and I had no access to my account.”
‘It Feels Like Your Business Has Just Burned Down’
The photographer told the news outlet that it was devastating to realize he had lost so many years of hard work.
“It feels like your business has just burned down,” Bazley says.
“I spent seven years building that and had about 16,000 followers. I love to share and post photos of our travels around Australia.”
Bazley told ABC News that he has spent many days attempting to report the issue to Meta and Facebook. However, his efforts have been without success.
“I’ve not even heard a word from them,” Bazley explains.
“I don’t understand why Facebook don’t stop these, when you report them they say, ‘Oh we can’t see any abuse or anything wrong,’ it’s just ridiculous.”
The photographer hopes his story will serve as a lesson to others who heavily rely on social media to run their own businesses.
“All I can say is people need to be very aware of what links they get and who they let in,” Bazley says.
“I do all my business on there, I have lost every single contact and there was close on $3,000 worth of calendar orders prepaid and those names and contact details have gone.”
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
