Concord, NH - Attorney General John M. Formella announces that he has joined a bipartisan coalition of 41 attorneys general in calling on Meta Platforms, Inc. (Meta), to take immediate action to address the recent rise of takeovers of user accounts by scammers on both Facebook and Instagram. In a letter sent to Meta today, Attorney General Formella and the multistate coalition are calling on Meta to better respond to users whose accounts are compromised and to substantially increase its efforts in mitigating account takeovers.

“Scammers on social media platforms pose a real threat to public safety daily by engaging in fraudulent schemes such as identity theft, and other criminal activities that we often see resulting in financial losses for individuals, families, and businesses. Meta must do more to protect its users’ accounts from being compromised and locked out,” said Attorney General Formella. “Meta must also provide better assistance to those who are victimized and who seek the company’s help in regaining access to their accounts.”

An account takeover occurs when a scammer compromises another’s Facebook or Instagram account and changes the password. Once an account is compromised, scammers can steal personal information, read private messages, pose as the user to scam contacts, and even post publicly as the rightful user. All these actions cause undue harm and stress to account owners and their connections. While account takeovers are not a new phenomenon, there has been a dramatic increase in these schemes over the past year. As users have struggled to receive help from Meta, they have turned to state attorneys general seeking assistance and support. New Hampshire has seen a significant increase in consumer complaints involving account takeovers on Meta platforms since the beginning of the year.

To address the account takeover crisis and provide better quality services to the millions of users who rely on Meta platforms daily, the letter from Attorney General Formella and the bipartisan coalition outlines a series of commonsense steps Meta should take. These include the need to increase staffing to respond to account takeover complaints and greater investment in account takeover mitigation tactics. The attorneys general also call on Meta to adopt new procedures for users to protect themselves from account takeovers including multi-step authentication measures.

Additionally, Attorney General Formella and the bipartisan coalition urge Meta to take this issue more seriously and take stronger enforcement actions against scammers.

Users who experience an account takeover from a scammer or bad actors are encouraged to raise this concern to Meta immediately. Users unable to get in touch with Meta or have the issue resolved can refer to the Facebook page with information on how to address an account takeover situation.

For the full letter, click here.