Pem Pfisterer Clark wants all her friends to know that she’s not selling bitcoin or cryptocurrency, despite what her Facebook page may say.
“I know nothing about bitcoin,” she said.
But if you’ve been watching her Facebook page since about Aug. 14, you’d beg to differ. For the past two months it appears that she’s been hawking bitcoin opportunities and posting photos celebrating those who have taken her advice and struck it big.
But that’s not what has happened.
The truth is Pfisterer Clark is a victim of a Facebook page takeover. And not just one page, but five different pages, including business pages that Pfisterer Clark once ran. Besides her personal page, she had a page for Gallery Gifts and Bridal, Ms. Pem’s Art for Kids, Worsham Wedding Chapel and Marry Me Simply. She can’t get into any of them now, she said.
The main page she’d used was her personal page, and looking at that, one can see a stark difference on it before Aug. 14, when a photo of Pfisterer Clark and her mother was added as the profile picture, which was the day she thinks the page hijacking occurred.
Pre-Aug. 14, Clark made posts about one of her businesses; the podcasts she does with Bill Stevens-Stark, “Around Town with Stark and Clark” and “Wedding Planning with Pem;” and a column she writes in the Hendersonian also called “Wedding Planning with Pem,” among other posts.
After Aug. 14, no remnant of those subjects remains. Instead, it’s filled with success stories and debts paid off as a result cryptocurrency, all with a message to send a direct message to her if interested in getting into it.
Pfisterer Clark said there’s nothing she can do to get back her pages. She’s tried, finding a local social media expert and filling out paperwork to send to the global media company. It was all to no avail, she said, because nothing has changed and she never heard back from Facebook.
That’s a big complaint of the company—there’s no one to call and no one has to answer to the general public when something goes south on a person’s individual page.
She has no idea who it is that’s stolen her page—“None whatsoever.” The hackers changed her email address and password associated with the page and now “there’s nothing I can do about it.”
It’s not a singular event in the area. The Hendersonian posted a question on its Facebook page, asking if others have experienced a Facebook page hijack. One had her Facebook page hacked and the hacker was selling imaginary cars and having people pick them up at her home. She said the hacker convinced two people to send him $500.
Others mentioned local businesses that have been hacked and locked out of pages, and another man said he was locked out and the source of the hack was traced to Nigeria.
Overseas hackers, such as the one in Nigeria, is one reason that local law enforcement can do very little when Facebook page takeovers occur, said Henderson County Sheriff Chip Stauffer.
“The suspects are generally not from this country,” Stauffer said.
What’s more, Facebook, or Meta, doesn’t go out of its way to help, according to Stauffer. He said the company will supply materials that are subpoenaed but will omit logical connections that would be needed for an investigation because it wasn’t specifically asked for. That causes law enforcement to file another subpoena. It all ends up taking time and are tedious, he said.
“Facebook typically isn’t going to help with an investigation,” he said.
Stauffer said generally an investigation of a page takeover is outside the scope of what local law enforcement can do. Most likely, that type of investigation would need specialists who deal in cybercrimes to make any headway, he said.
Meanwhile, Pfisterer Clark said the theft of her page has “affected my livelihood.”
The fall weddings she’s normally involved in are way, way down, she said, and the weddings she normally picks up at this time for after the new year aren’t materializing.
Because Facebook seems to be an indispensable need for any small business locally, Pfisterer Clark has already started two new, unhacked Facebook pages. The one she uses most, her personal page, has a profile picture of the Gallery Gifts and Bridal shop on Main Street and a cover page photo of a young couple.
The personal Facebook page that has been hacked shows a profile photo of Pfisterer Clark and her mother and a cover photo of Worsham Hall/the Gallery Gifts and Bridal shop.
More than losing business, she’s afraid she’s lost friends, too. And she fears that some of her Facebook friends on the page that was stolen from her will end up losing money. She wants to warn them about the scam.
“For all the world it looks totally real,” she said. “They are talking to my friends and soliciting money from them. It’s a scam and somebody’s going to get hurt.”
Pfisterer Clark said she was recently in Butler’s Apothecary and was talking about the ordeal with owner, Chris Butler. The conversation spilled over to other customers, and according to Pfisterer Clark, they all were saying how Facebook holds them hostage, and what can small business owners do—especially when considering there are no daily newspapers that businesses can advertise in anymore and social media offers it for free?
“Cross your fingers and take your chances,” she said. “And pray you don’t become a victim.”
