There's no shortage of hackers and scammers online who will try to get a hold of your data and accounts, and if you do so successfully, you might find yourself in a difficult position since customer support may not be helpful at all. Several state attorneys general recently pointed out this flaw and demanded change from Meta.
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Demands for Meta Customer Support Improvement
When you lose access to your Facebook or Instagram account, it's usually a long process before you reacquire them, and even then, you're not even sure if things will swing your way. If you're out of options, you might resort to contacting customer support.
While it may be an extreme measure for anyone to take this problem to the state attorney general, some people are desperate to get their accounts back especially if they use it for businesses or important pages.
Subreddits and other forums are suggesting turning to law enforcement to recover accounts, and some reported that they regained access after the state attorney general's office stepped in. Since then, the office has been receiving a lot of similar requests.
"Our offices have experienced a dramatic and persistent spike in complaints in recent years concerning account takeovers that is not only alarming for our constituents but also a substantial drain on our office resources," 41 state attorneys general complained.
The letter detailing the complaint was sent to Meta's Chief Legal Officer, which also mentioned that the offices "refuse to operate as the customer service representatives" for the company, as reported by Engadget.
Meta was requested to take immediate action and substantially increase its investment in account takeover mitigation tactics, as well as respond to users whose accounts got compromised.
Facebook and Instagram users do have difficulties with contacting customer support sometimes, especially since it is mostly automated. Users will find it hard to be assisted by human employees in more complicated cases.
A Meta spokesperson said, "We invest heavily in our trained enforcement and review teams and have specialized detection tools to identify compromised accounts and other fraudulent activity."
Read Also: 4 Reasons Cyber Security Is Crucial for SMBs
How to Prevent Losing Your Accounts
There are many ways you can prevent your account from being hacked and avoid the headache of dealing with customer service in the first place. For starters, enable two-factor authentication, as it will provide authentication codes to your phone number or your email.
Without the codes, the hackers won't be able to enter your accounts even if they have your password, and it will be easier to recover accounts even if they get stolen. You should also create stronger passwords so bad actors cannot brute-force their way into your account.
Refrain from using the same password in all your accounts. If you have trouble remembering them all, you can always resort to password managers, which keep track of your passwords or even generate passkeys that cannot be guessed or stolen.
If you think someone got a hold of your account while you still have access to it, change your password immediately. The new one should be as far from the old one as possible, and check your account for suspicious changes.
Related: 5 Things You Should Do When Your Email Gets Hacked
