Video that proved Sydney business owner had been scammed by follower

The Sydney man was horrified when he found a message waiting for him from someone he trusted. But then he watched a chilling 30-second video.

Warwick Levy’s heart sank back in December as he watched a 30-second video of a man promoting Bitcoin.

For anyone else, it might just be a tedious — and potentially fake — clip about how this crypto enthusiast made $10,000 from Bitcoin mining in a very short period of time.

But for 33-year-old Levy, he was watching the ransom video he’d have to replicate if he wanted his business back.

The man in the video was acting “tense”, according to Mr Levy, “breathing heavily” and speaking “robotically” as if reading from a prompt.

“He’d obviously been ransomed as well,” the Sydney-based entrepreneur told news.com.au.

The small business owner’s world was turned upside down last month after a hacker gained control of his Instagram account, causing a loss of $8000 in revenue between then and now.

If the problem persists, Mr Levy expects to lose more than $60,000 over the next year.

And he says the way he got hacked could happen to anyone.

Warwick Levy has been devastated by a hack that has brought his business to its knees.

Mr Levy started his ethical fashion brand, The Lonely Kids Club, when he was just 20 years old.

He created a social media account for the company eight years ago during which time he built up 20,000 loyal followers.

But at the end of last year, he was tricked into handing over his account details to a cunning scammer.

Now he’s warning other business owners about what to look out for.

“I realised I was the target of a very sophisticated scam, someone played me over the course of nine months,” the distraught business owner recalled.

In May last year, a new person starting following his Instagram account.

“Someone direct messaged [the Lonely Kids Club account], it began a back and forth conversation,” Mr Levy explained. “It’s not uncommon among my followers.

“They engaged with all my Instagram posts and reels, they built a relationship with me over that nine months. It felt like they were a part of my broader community. It’s a big part of my brand to offer help and support whenever we can, that’s what they took advantage of.”

Then on December 20, the hacker made their move.

The scammer tried to trick his followers into investing in a bogus Bitcoin scheme.

The page has since been taken down after complaints from his loyal followers.

“They said their friend had lost their phone and they needed a phone number to reset their mobile,” Mr Levy said.

“I used my phone number and they told me to send on the link. It was the link to my own password reset.”

What followed has been a month of hell for Mr Levy.

The hacker quickly removed all Mr Levy’s details from the Lonely Kids Club account and set up their own two factor authentication system.

Then they contacted him privately with a link to a video showing a nervous man promoting Bitcoin.

They said “If you do this video word-for-word, you can get your account back,” Mr Levy recalled.

“I’m the face of the brand, I was worried my audience would jump on board so I refused to do it. I’m not going to actively scam my audience.

“At this point the hacker told me to forget it and that’s when they started posting Insta stories and they started direct messaging my followers”.

Mr Levy wearing one of the shirts from his humorous fashion brand.

Mr Levy knew he was in trouble once the ransom message came in so he quickly limited the amount of money his account could spend on Facebook advertising.

“Otherwise they could charge me as much money as they wanted,” he explained.

“Because Instagram and Facebook are linked, it could be as easy as setting up a promotion and pumping a $40,000 bill into it,” which could funnel directly back into the hacker’s pocket.

He and his loyal customers reported the page and it was eventually deactivated but he desperately wants it back under his control.

As the months go by, Mr Levy is beginning to realise how important social media was to his brand’s survival.

“Now that we’ve lost it [Instagram] we’ve realised how big of a sales channel it was,” he added.

Mr Levy created a new account which has 2,000 followers, “but it really doesn’t compare and I expect I may never fully recover my audience”.

The small business owner spent eight years organically growing the brand and he is now back to square one.

To make matters worse, Mr Levy has been getting nowhere with Facebook despite multiple reports of his account being hacked.

It’s particularly a slap in the face considering he typically forks out between $1000 and $5000 a month to Facebook and Instagram on advertising for his business

“I genuinely think you’d be hard pressed to find any other company in the world, after spending 10 years working together, and spending almost $500,000, to be so unhelpful and uncaring,” he said.

“There needs to be more of an onus on Facebook and Instagram to support the recovery of compromised accounts.”

News.com.au flagged the issue with Facebook and a spokesperson confirmed an investigation is now underway.

Facebook said it was crucial to stay vigilant against hackers.

“It’s important people understand how to protect their accounts from suspicious activity which is why we’ve built features that give people the power to manage their experience with our platforms and take action when they see something suspicious,” they said in a statement.

Steps involve turning on two-factor authentication, reporting suspicious accounts, and avoiding phishing including by not clicking on dodgy links or responding to strange messages and emails.

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