Julie Ashworth, who runs Mummys Magic, had her company Instagram hacked last month
A small business owner who relies on social media to run her company was locked out of her account for weeks as scammers took control of her account, leading her to lose business.
Julie Ashworth, who runs nappy care spray company Mummys Magic, was left reeling after her business account was hacked in late June and scammers contacted customers pretending to be her.
She has called on Meta to do more to help entrepreneurs after seeing her sales decline as a direct result of the scam.
Julie started her Instagram page in 2020, and since then has built up 11,500 loyal followers, including a number of celebrities, and it has become her go-to place to sell.
One night she received a message from a customer who said she had bought some of Julie’s products.
‘She then asked me if I was getting strange emails. I looked and I was. She said she’d been hacked and to contact this Instagram email because hackers were trying to get into my account.
‘She said I needed to secure my accounts and gave me the email. She told me to contact them and said there was no time to look it up.
‘I was half asleep at 11pm, if it was during the day I would have been like hang on a minute…’
After contacting the email address, she received ‘all sorts of emails saying my password had been changed. There were about half a dozen different Instagram logins.
‘I went on the first one and clicked to secure my account by logging in. I thought it was Instagram and it wasn’t. Among all those emails, one was from Instagram and all the others were from the hackers. The chances are you’re going to pick one of.’
Julie was then blocked from her account and the hackers started to post about bitcoin trading – far from Julie’s usual nappy care posts.
Once she had realised what had happened, Julie sent emails to Instagram but heard nothing back.
‘I spent a week and a half trying to get the account back. I never got one response back [from Meta] even though it’s a business account… I was up all night. You have to do a video of your face to prove who you are. I did about 40 of them and each one of them came back and said they can’t prove it’s me.’
She eventually filed three separate cases of trademark infringement to Meta.
‘I put in three separate [claims], saying I’m Mummys Magic, they’re pretending to be me and contacting people saying they’re Mummys Magic… Because I filed the report, Instagram contacted the hackers so they’ve got all my details.’
Someone’s just stolen my business in seconds… It’s absolutely broken my heart
While Julie battled the hackers, they made their way through her follower list.
‘They went through the followers I’ve been in contact with, telling them I’ve got the account back and to help me bring the hackers down.
‘They told my followers ‘you need to contact this security email at Instagram to secure your own account so no hackers can get in.’ And people were falling for it, exactly the same as me.’
It’s a sophisticated scam that relies on taking advantage of the trust small businesses have built with their small but loyal customer base. Now Julie fears her followers no longer trust her due to the scam.
‘I’m waking up every morning with so many mails off people, with some giving me abuse saying they’ve lost their account because of me.’
The hackers have even told Julie’s followers that the back-up account, which she was forced to make after she was blocked, is actually a hacker.
‘It’s honestly been awful. This is my business. I feel like people have lost trust in me. I never thought this would happen. I’m on the ball, I’m secure, my email’s not out there to hack. But they got it in seconds and they locked me out in seconds.’
There’s been a knock-on effect on business too. Julie says she has ‘without a doubt’ lost business and said her sales ‘have gone right down.’
‘It took me years to build this up. I’ve done baby shows, mum and toddler shows… I’ve got videos with [celebrities]. I’ve lost everything, it’s gone. You put so much into it and then someone’s just stolen my business in seconds because I was half asleep. It’s absolutely broken my heart.’
She is understandably furious with how slow Meta has been to respond, saying her emails have ‘fallen on deaf ears’. She’s calling on the tech giant, which also runs Facebook, to increase its security.
‘Meta need something else. They need some sort of facial recognition or thumb print.’
This Is Money contacted Meta to ask what had happened. A spokesman for the company said it had secured Julie’s account.
Julie thankfully now has her account back but is now having to trawl through her messages and deleting and unsending the messages the hackers sent to her loyal followers.
The user who was originally hacked and told Julie to check her emails is still scamming: ‘I’m seeing posts of former followers which she has hacked from our account by making them believe they were helping us stop the hackers.
‘It’s awful, there are so many accounts and she is actively doing the same on her Instagram, unchallenged.’
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