Port Solent car meet photographer frustrated after being forced to sit back and watch as hacker takes control of Facebook page

Ian Haskell, who is a regular photographer for Port Solent Car Meets, has been left in limbo and desperately trying to retrieve his account that was taken over on June 2 under a new profile name of Chris Andrea.

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The 61-year-old, who has had the account for 16 years, has tried contacting Facebook and going through their appeal process - but has been met by a wall of silence with him unable to talk to a human. When he appeals to the social media giant he is thwarted because the email address used for access to the account has been changed.

The predicament features many of the similarities that Ian’s colleague Jason White, the organiser of Port Solent Car Meets, suffered earlier this year when he was locked out of his Facebook account by hackers who made demands for money.

Jason said it was a ‘nightmare’ period that left him ‘banging my head against a brick wall’. It culminated in Jason being told his page was being removed forever for posts he had never published before intervention from The News saw his account restored.

Ian, of Locks Heath, said: ‘My Facebook account which I have had since July 2007 was hacked and the cover photo, profile photo and name changed to Chris Andrea. My email has been changed, password changed and I no longer have access. It has been very frustrating.

‘Everything on the page of Chris Andrea is mine with my photos, friends and posts. When I tried reporting it Facebook asked for the email address of my account but because it has been changed the email no longer exists.

‘If you look at the Facebook page for Port Solent Car Meets it has a gallery of 262 photos of the cars with my name watermarked in the bottom of each picture…the post now appears to have been made by Chris Andrea which obviously it was not. Any posts that I am tagged in with other friends still reads Ian Haskell as tagged but if you click the link it goes to Chris Andrea.’

The photographer said it was ‘very frustrating’ trying to interact with Facebook which concluded nothing untoward had taken place. Ian said he has been left ‘unimpressed with the security’ and appeal process of Facebook.

He said: ‘I have reported to Facebook but because you can't get any interaction from a human and only a computer, it looks at the page for Chris Andrea and sees it as a normal account. They won't take any action and won't remove the profile. I have been going round in circles getting nowhere with Facebook and very unimpressed with their care and security of their customers.’

He added: ‘If the account can be recovered then so be it but I just want the name Chris Andrea and anything associated with him deleted and I will probably delete the account myself and may or may not start again with another login account.’

Facebook has been approached for comment.