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Entrepreneur loses custom after scammers hijacked her business Instagram page and locked her out for weeks - and she says Meta ignored her Julie Ashworth was locked out of her business Instagram page in late June She says she's lost business as a result and now her followers are being hacked She's calling on Meta to do more to help business owners By Angharad Carrick Updated: 01:01 EDT, 27 July 2023 e-mail View comments 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.' RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next Revolut customer left 'emotionally sick' after thieves steal... DIARY OF A FRAUDSTER: Reformed scammer lifts lid on new con... Fraudster opened a Three mobile phone contract in my name...... It's time for tech giant Meta to listen to big banks and... Share this article Share HOW THIS IS MONEY CAN HELP What you need to know about money every week: This is Money podcast 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.' How to protect yourself from scammers While Meta might encourage users to create a strong password and enable two factor authentication, users should be aware of scammers. Jake Moore, global security advisor at ESET said: 'Unfortunately, Meta and other social media platforms tend to make it very difficult to recover accounts and leave it up to the account holder to fix. 'Frustratingly, many of the techniques used to keep an account secure are unhelpful in hindsight as they are only successful in securing an account by proactively putting in preventive measures prior to an attack. 'Using a strong, unique password is vital but it is advised to take advantage of its two step verification method which helps protect cybercriminals from accessing the account. Rather than relying on an SMS one time passcode, it is best used with an authenticator app which is free and simple to use. 'Unfortunately, scammers can still access a targeted account but only with interaction from the user so you still have to keep your wits about you when it comes to any form of communication from what appears to be legitimate. 'Being aware of phishing emails sounds easy but they can be difficult to differentiate between when they are crafted so well. Therefore, erring on the side of caution and not being too quick to click on a link can help protect accounts.' SAVE MONEY, MAKE MONEY Top micro-fix Micro fixed rate Three-month fixed savings at 4.89%* Sign-up via HL savings platform. 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