There is a group of attorneys general from 41 states demand that Meta is strengthening its support services for users who have been victims of hacks and account takeovers. “We refuse to act as your company’s customer service representatives,” the group wrote in a letter to Meta’s chief legal officer. “We urge Meta to take immediate action and significantly increase its investment in account takeover mitigation tactics, as well as respond to users whose accounts have been taken over.”
The first letter by Wired, forcing Meta to tackle a problem that has long frustrated Facebook and Instagram users: difficulty accessing support after losing access to your account. Although the company has taken steps to make things easier for people over the years lost accounts, Meta is largely based on automated systems and there are still many people who fall through the cracks.
As the letter points out, this can be particularly devastating for people who lose access to their business accounts and pages. Even Unless they have a personal relationship with someone who works at Meta, they won’t be able to get support from a human employee of the company. Other users sometimes apply or they employ themselves to get their accounts back.
While it may seem surprising that state law enforcement officials would get involved, Reddit and other online forums for hacking victims often recommend that people file a complaint with their local AG’s office as a last resort. There are some users restoration Accounts after the General Prosecutor’s Office intervened on their behalf.
Now, it seems, AGs are full of such desires. “Our offices have experienced a dramatic and sustained increase in account takeover complaints in recent years, which is not only a concern for our constituents, but also a significant drain on our office resources,” the letter states.
In addition to devoting more resources to customer service, the letter asked Meta to “number account takeovers over the past five years; suspicious reasons for the increase in account takeovers; safeguards currently in place to prevent account hijacking; Meta’s current policies and procedures regarding its response to account takeovers; and staff on protecting platforms against account takeovers and responding to complaints.”
In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said that “fraudsters use every platform at their disposal and are constantly adapting to avoid enforcement from the company.” “We invest heavily in our trained enforcement and verification teams and have special detection tools to identify stolen accounts and other fraud. We regularly share tips and tools that people can use to protect themselves, report potential violations, work with law enforcement and take legal action.”
in 2022 Bloomberg Meta said it was “in the early stages” of creating a customer service unit that could help users with account issues. It is not clear what the plan is. Later that year, the company laid off thousands of workers. In their letter, the state AGs noted that they saw an increase in complaints “around the same time Meta announced massive layoffs in November 2022 of approximately 11,000 employees focused on the ‘security, privacy and integrity sector.'”
