Blog #478: The Pirates of Facebook

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Before I go any further into this blog, I want to make it clear that I am not referencing “The Pirates of Penzance” in the title. As I have stated in past blogs, pirates have been taking on a whole new meaning in recent years when it comes to making your online life a living hell.

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This past weekend, the pirates struck again this time targeting my professional Facebook profile that I have had since 2021. It all started with a pirate pretending to be one of my colleagues needing help to log onto Facebook. It wasn’t until one of my other colleagues sent me a private email telling me that my professional account had been hacked did I realize that I had been tricked.

Naturally, I was angry and upset that people who have nothing better to do with their meaningless lives would just go and make my life a living hell. Being an entrepeneur, I’m very much responsible for whatever I post and how to maintain my social media platforms. When I learned that I had been scammed, I felt that my reputation at running a business like Going the Distance had taken a beating.

The truth of the matter is that pirates don’t just target bank accounts, they can target anything and the sad thing is that this was a chain reaction as the pirates who targeted my colleague and me on Facebook also went onto hack my godmother’s account.

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Of course, one of the approaches that you should take in addition to changing your password is essentially not putting on your phone number or other contact information because that’s how the pirates will get sneaky with you. The less personal information you put on, the better.

Still, this doesn’t erase what happened to me on Sunday morning. From absorbing what happened to being asked constant questions, I felt like having a meltdown, but I didn’t. In fact, I consider it a miracle that I didn’t have a meltdown.

As an added bonus, I also have a backup account that I have used since 2011 that has been reinstated as my primary account after what happened. Again, I use Facebook and all other social media platforms for the sole purpose of business matters. The days of using Facebook for personal purposes are over to me.

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If there is one thing that I can say to the pirates who scammed me, my colleague and my godmother, that is to say that you need to go get a job and earn money like the rest of us. Robbing people of their Facebook accounts isn’t going to get you anywhere in life and will only lead you to negativity and possible jail time.

However, as a moment of lightheartedness, I often think back to the movie, “The Beekeeper” (2024) that shows what happens to pirates when they do what they do.

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Catch you all later!!