LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - They’ve worked hard to reach more customers through Facebook, but for a Casey County company, one wrong click has turned into a nightmare.
After Tarter Farm and Ranch Equipment fell victim to a phishing scam, a hacker took over the company’s Facebook page and began posting racy material.
“When people go to Facebook and look us up, they’re going to see that horrible, horrible posting,” said Ann Tarter, the company’s vice president.
Tarter said it started with a simple Facebook message that claimed to point out a copyright violation in one of the company’s posts.
“It looked to be a notification from Facebook, it looked very legitimate,” Tarter said. “When [the employee] clicked on it, he filled in his credentials.”
But the message wasn’t from Facebook, and whoever got the company’s login information soon shut out everyone else who had access to the page.
Now the page’s 126,000 fans see links and photos that are decidedly not safe for work, and certainly not family-friendly.
“It’s 180 degrees diametrically opposed to the lifestyle that we live, we promote and we sell,” Tarter said.
According to the Better Business Bureau, so-called “phishing” scams like this are all too common, and businesses especially need to watch out for them.
“Facebook also says they will never ask you for a password, login information in an email like that,” said Heather Clary, with the BBB of Central and Eastern Kentucky. “That would have been the warning sign here. Someone probably thought that they were doing the right thing, and it ended up going completely wrong.”
Because the hacker stripped the page’s administrators of their access, the company can’t delete the posts.
Tarter said the company’s attorney has reached out to Facebook about the hacking. So far, however, the company hasn’t gotten much response and is having trouble getting the situation fixed, Tarter said.
As the company works to take back control of their page and stop the hacker’s high jinks, Tarter says they want others to watch out.
“If you’re unsure, just back away, don’t click on anything,” she said. “And if you want to see Tarter products, go to TarterUSA.com, don’t go to our Facebook, just give us a few weeks.”
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