Area Face Painting Business Hacked by Scammers

FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – Tiffany, owner of The Painted Turtle, based in Perham, thought she had secured a big break when she was invited to do a podcast promoting her business.

Instead, she revealed just enough personal information for someone to hack into The Painted Turtle’s Facebook page, lock Tiffany out, and begin posting sexually suggestive links that aren’t even close to the family-friendly ethos the face painting business promotes.

“This is definitely not me,” said Tiffany. “I do not condone the type of content that they are posting. I do not want that on my page whatsoever at all.”

Tiffany believes the goal of the scammers is to get people to click on those links, then collect the revenue from the engagement. The Painted Turtle has nearly 250,000 followers on Facebook, so their reach is large.

Thankfully, that expansive base alerted Tiffany to the mysterious links appearing on her page right away. She was able to get a hold of Meta’s support team, and has heard cautious estimates that she could regain full control of the page in about four days.

In the meantime — The Painted Turtle will be at the Character Pancake Breakfast at the Otter Cove Children’s Museum in Fergus Falls this Saturday, so look out for them there.

Tiffany wants everyone to know that this type of attack won’t shut them down.

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