I spent thousands on ads with Meta – it nearly ruined me

A small business owner almost lost her business after her Meta account was hacked. She wants the consumer watchdog to step in so it doesn’t happen to others.

Ayla Akyol, whose Meta accounts were suspended for two weeks after being hacked. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

A Melbourne beauty business owner who was suspended from her Meta accounts after being hacked says she lost as much as 40 per cent of revenue, and is now calling on Anthony Albanese and the ACCC to stand up for small business against the tech giant.

The US social media giant made no effort to help Ayla Akyol recover her accounts over that period, she told The Australian, and now she is calling for compensation from the company and for a sit-down with the ACCC and the Prime Minister’s office.
It comes as analysis found 99,690 scam hits on Meta’s platforms since October last year.

Ms Akyol, a mother of two who runs Lash Boss Melbourne, said she spends thousands of dollars each year advertising on Meta yet the social media giant almost obliterated her business and was still charging her a monthly fee for a verification service which was meant to provide support when she was suspended.

“We’re vulnerable, we invest money into Meta and most importantly, we spend a lot of time on social media growing our audience, trying to build up exposure – it’s not easy,” Ms Akyol said.

“I have the blue verification tick which means that once you’re logged into your business on an Instagram account you can actually go through your settings and chat with somebody from Meta but if you don’t have access to your account there’s absolutely zero support.”

Ms Akyol’s business teaches people to run their own business selling eyelash extensions. Social media was its main avenue to reach customers and the only place it advertised.

“It happened just a few weeks ago and I was horrified to see when I woke up I had been logged out. I found out that my account was suspended,” she said.

Ayla Akyol, whose Meta accounts were suspended for two weeks in March after someone hacked into her business pages. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Ms Akyol also found that $500 had been debited from her card linked to her Meta advertising account. The hacker, who had come from Vietnam, was somehow able to bypass two-factor authentication to log in, she said.

A Meta spokesman told The Australian the company was aware of the incident and that scammers “are constantly finding new ways to deceive people”.

“We use both technology, such as new machine learning techniques, and specially trained reviewers to identify and action content and accounts that violate our policies,” he said.

“In the final quarter of 2023, we removed 691 million fake accounts globally.”

It’s understood that hackers will sometimes breach business accounts and use linked cards to pay for malicious advertisements.

After allegedly spending $500 from her card the hacker set her age on the platform to 13 which resulted in all of her accounts being suspended.

Ms Akyol criticised the age-related suspension, adding it never should have occurred after she had verified her age – providing a copy of her driver’s licence and passport – when she signed up to the company’s paid verification service.

“The fact that my account was suspended because of my age just made me question why Meta even ask for my ID? Why was that important? It raised some alarm bells,” she said.

Meta followed the likes of Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, in introducing a pay-to-play verification service which had previously been free to government officials, celebrities, media and businesses.

Ms Akyol had applied for verification several times in the past but was knocked back. “The minute I was willing to pay the $46.20 per month they’re happy to take that money even though I met all the requirements for free verification,” she said.

The majority of Lash Boss Melbourne’s sales come through its major social media channels on Facebook and Instagram where it has nearly 15,000 followers.

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