A woman who claims her Facebook account has been hacked by cyber attackers during her holiday in Bulgaria has seen her business left in tatters - losing out on thousands.
Catriona Smillies, who owns a wedding planning and cakes business, can't access her business Facebook pages because her personal profile attached to the page has been disabled for breaking community standards.
This means she can no longer respond to customers or promote her work - and has subsequently lost thousands of pounds.
A hacker changed her profile picture to an indecent image of a child, she says, and as a result, her account has been deactivated for 30 days.
They also took £200 from her linked PayPal account, which she was eventually refunded for.
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The 53-year-old has complained to Facebook countless times in an attempt to get her page back up and running but says the only response she has had is them reciting the guidelines, without acknowledging it wasn't her that changed her picture to child pornography.
The three-week-long ordeal has devastated her mental health and she feels completely helpless.
"It wouldn't enter my head to commit suicide because of my family but that's how you feel - it's just devastating," Catriona, tearing up, tells The Mirror.
"The last two years have been stressful enough with covid and wedding cancellations.
"I've tried to bounce back my business and it started to pick up again and then this happens."
The mum-of-two adds: "Brides are messaging my page and are confused why they aren't being read, so it's not only distressing to me but also to existing and potential clients.
"It's making me just want to throw in the towel on what was a very successful business".
Catriona believes the hacking took place when she was on holiday with her mum last month, where she had been connecting to unsecured wifi connections.
It wasn't until two days after returning home to Sulgrave in West Northamptonshire that she noticed someone had been into her Facebook account.
When she was at her local pub with a friend, she suddenly received a message from her daughter who alarmed her about the obscene profile picture change.
With poor signal, Catriona struggled to do anything about it and when she got home 15 minutes later in a bid to rectify it, her account had been disabled.
The following day, on July 8, £200 was taken from her linked PayPal account - which after a lengthy process to contest, she was later refunded.
The mum thinks cyber criminals targetted her page due to it being linked to PayPal for business ads, and then purposely posted something they knew would cause her account to be disabled at the same time as the bill going through.
After 10 days of not getting anywhere, Catriona set up a new Facebook profile to let a few friends know about what had happened.
But she has to wait and see if she can be reunited with her original profile, containing hundreds of family photos and videos that she fears will be lost forever.
"They encourage you to run a business on Facebook with pages and then this is how they treat a genuine business," Catriona, who has run the business pages - Smillies Weddings N Events and Smillies Cakes Pops - for 10 years, continues.
"I know I've definitely lost three or four orders because they were discussing them with me before I went on holiday and because we were still having conversations, I don't have their contact details.
"One of them wanted a big venue dressing for October which would have cost around £500. I said to them I would check things when I got back from holiday.
"If I get my account back, I'll expect to see loads of messages.
"Luckily, I've had some people contact me and phone to see if everything was okay because they'd messaged twice on Facebook with no response.
"I've potentially lost in the thousands, easily."
While Catriona says she wasn't 'obsessed' with Facebook, she admits she heavily relied on the social media platform - not just for the functionality of her business, but as her main form of communication with friends and family.
She has had people stop her in the street asking what has happened to her, while her 'supportive' husband has had messages from friends asking why Catriona has been ignoring them.
"Most people use it and check it regularly but to suddenly have that taken away from you and not being able to check it..." she adds on the difficulty she has faced.
"I'd just come back from a lovely holiday with my mum and would usually share photos.
"Facebook has encouraged you to do all of this and then without any warning, have taken it away when it has nothing to do with you.
"It's not your fault, and you can't discuss it with them."
The businesswoman is now warning other Facebook users who run business accounts on the platform to ensure they have a second admin account in case they ever get blocked.
She also advises people with business pages not to opt for a subscription to advertisements and to disconnect PayPal from their profile.
Facebook has told the Mirror they are investigating Catriona's case.
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