Woman Loses Facebook Business Account to Impersonator

Laura Stotts' Diary of Abandonment page was hacked and taken over by a person posing as a social media influencer.

Published on Feb. 24, 2026

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A North Carolina woman who runs a Facebook page called Diary of Abandonment says her account was hacked and taken over by someone posing as a social media influencer. The scammer tricked her into sharing her account information, locked her out, and then stole her 218,000 followers by creating a duplicate page. Her original page was then deleted, devastating her small business.

Why it matters

This case highlights the growing threat of social media account takeovers, where scammers exploit users' trust to gain control of valuable online presences. As more small businesses and creators rely on social media platforms, these types of hacks can have devastating financial and emotional impacts, disrupting livelihoods and undermining years of hard work building an audience.

The details

Laura Stotts, who runs the Diary of Abandonment Facebook page, was invited to participate in a Facebook Live event by someone claiming to be a social media influencer. During a Zoom call to walk her through the process, the scammer tricked Stotts into revealing her account information, then quickly removed her as the administrator and took full control of the page. The scammer then created a duplicate page, stole Stotts' 218,000 followers in real-time, and ultimately deleted her original page.

  • A few months ago, Stotts was just starting to monetize her Diary of Abandonment Facebook page.
  • The hacking incident occurred a couple of months ago.

The players

Laura Stotts

A North Carolina woman who runs the Diary of Abandonment Facebook page, which features photographs of abandoned buildings and other neglected sites.

Diary of Abandonment

Stotts' Facebook page, which she had built up over 9 years to have 218,000 followers before it was hacked.

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What they’re saying

“It felt like the equivalent of having somebody coming into my shop, holding me at gunpoint, clearing out the register, stealing my business, all of my customers, and then shutting it down and kicking me out.”

— Laura Stotts (wtvm.com)

“These people study the operational processes of social media and they study us and they just know how to be one step ahead of us. They'll actually point you to credentials that are legitimate credentials of somebody else-- a real podcast show, a real influencer, a real organization - and then they take over the account and then they monetize the account.”

— Theresa Payton, Cybersecurity Expert (wtvm.com)

What’s next

Stotts reported the hack to Meta and is working to rebuild her Diary of Abandonment page and following from scratch.

The takeaway

This incident underscores the vulnerability of social media accounts, even for established creators and small businesses, to sophisticated scams. It serves as a warning to be extremely cautious about unsolicited outreach, even from accounts that appear legitimate, and to always protect access to critical online assets.