PORTLAND – A Southeast Portland woman said her Facebook account has been hijacked by thieves trying to get money from her friends.
She said the crooks sent messages to all her Facebook friends, explaining that she got mugged in London and needed help paying her hotel bill.
Now Kristen Francis’ phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from concerned friends and to make matters worse – she can’t figure out how to get back into her own account. The hackers locked her out of her own Facebook page.
Francis said she alerted Facebook about the scam but for several hours, nothing changed.
“And so they're chatting, they're striking up conversations with my friends and it’s really freaky," she explained, frustrated she couldn't warn her friends online.
KGW contacted Facebook’s press office Monday and they disabled Francis’ account. They also promised to help her regain control of her page so she can tell her friends not to send any money and that it was all a scam.
Francis said part of the problem was that her Yahoo! email account was linked to Facebook and the crooks took that over as well. So she was not able to email Facebook directly with her concerns.
When contacted by KGW, Yahoo! emailed this statement:
"Yahoo! treats issues of security and privacy very seriously. As I mentioned, to protect the privacy of our users, we are not able to comment on the details of a specific user account. Generally, if Yahoo! receives reports that an account has been compromised, we investigate for suspicious activity and take appropriate action. As the largest Web mail service in the US, Yahoo! Mail seeks to help educate consumers with online safety tips at security.yahoo.com.
The email went on to recommend that certain steps are taken to ensure security, including using multiple passwords, updating Web browsers often, checking the "from" line in emails to make sure they're legit before opening them, and using common sense to avoid being scammed.
More tips were listed on the Yahoo! help page
