Hacked on Facebook!

Facebook user locked out after hacker assumes her identity.

Eileen Rodriguez says her Facebook account was hacked into last Sunday, February 8th. It began when she started getting calls from friends asking if she was alright. What Eileen learned was that someone had hacked into her Facebook account as "her" and was telling friends that she and her husband were in London, they had been robbed and now needed money to get back home.

Because Eileen had attended a family party the night before, her family knew the message was false, but many friends on Facebook did not. She immediately tried to log on to warn people, but was unable to because the hacker had changed her password. Eileen then reached out to Facebook for help and was frustrated to find out that for problems like this, there are no emergency phone numbers or customer service assistance, all she could do was e-mail them and wait for a response. When they did e-mail her back with a link to change her password, she followed their instructions, but it was too late, Facebook had disabled her page completely.

When Eileen's friend Shaila saw the message, she immediately tried to call Eileen, but couldn't get thru on her cell phone, because it wasn't working at that time and she didn't have Eileen's home telephone number. So Shaila thought the message was real and sent $650.00 via Western Union to the person in London whom she thought was Eileen. As soon as she sent the money, the hacker asked for even more money and that's when Shaila began to question what she had done.

On Monday morning both women spoke to each other at work and that's when Eileen learned that Shaila had sent the money. She tried to help her friend get the money back, but Western Union said the money had been picked up by someone, who had shown picture ID and there was nothing more that they could do.

Help Me Howard instructed both women to file police reports and complaints with the Federal Trade Commission. We also reached out to Facebook who had this to say:

"This is a very low-volume attack, affecting a small number of users, but we are concerned about any potential security threat and we're taking this issue very seriously. To combat this, we're instituting changes that will better notify users when their account is modified and empowering them to reverse these changes....and we're reminding users to be very suspicious of anyone, even friends, who ask you over the internet to send money."

More then a week later, Eileen still cannot access her Facebook account and is not so sure she wants to, but according to Identityfinder.com, there are ways to protect yourself on sites like Facebook.

1. Password - Choose a strong password and use different passwords for each of your web accounts. If hackers are phishing your password on one site, they may try that same one on other accounts.

2. Change - Change your password every couple months. Hackers steal as many passwords as possible at one time and may not get around to using them for a while, giving you time to change yours, before they do.

3. Storage - Don't store your passwords online, where hackers can possibly steal them.

4. Verify - Be suspicious of anyone, even friends that ask you for money online. Verify with them in person or thru close mutual friends.

5. Reset - Reset your Facebook account as soon as you suspect your account has been compromised.