For many independent retailers, their shop’s Facebook page is essential for keeping in touch with customers – and in fact, some stores use their Facebook page in lieu of a website. It is understandably distressing to get a message that your page is being removed by Facebook for violating community standards. 

It usually happens like this: a message turns up in your Facebook inbox from a sender impersonating “Facebook Business Support,” “Facebook Copyright Division,” “Facebook Community Operations” or a similar misleading name, reports Malwaretips. The message claims that your Facebook page has been disabled as per reports of violations received from one or more copyright holders or organizations. When you click on the “Confirm Account Ownership” or similarly titled link provided, it takes you to a fake Facebook login page instead of the real platform. This phishing page looks legit, but the scammers then capture your credentials, which allows them access to your content and connections.

It turns out that Facebook does indeed sometimes unpublish or remove pages. According to an article by JG Bezuidenhout for Bastion & Flow Digital Integration, “If Facebook removed your page, it would send the page admin an email to let you know why. You can also find a reason in the Page Quality tab. In most cases, the reason is that the page violates Facebook’s terms of service.”  If this sounds very similar to what happens in the case of a scam, that’s not accidental. But you will most likely get an email as the page administrator stating that there’s been a problem. In case the email is also phishing. You can usually tell by looking at the email it’s sent from – legitimate Facebook emails come [email protected] or @support.facebook.com. But just in case, don’t click on any links. Instead go to Facebook’s Help Center, and look for the “Submit a Request” link.

If you’ve fallen prey to this all-too-common scam, there are great suggestions for what to do next on the Malwaretips link above. As many as 62% of Facebook users encounter scams weekly, we all need to be cautious.  Keep in mind that you didn’t do anything to attract the phishing attack – your account was chosen at random.  I think that Malwaretips offers great advice when they say that the first thing to do is to stay calm, because scammers want you to panic and act without thinking. That’s hardly ever a good idea!

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder