Adam Levin:
Adam.
Beau Friedlander:
Oh. I see you’re practicing to do radio trailers.
Adam Levin:
Well, my wife actually said, “Enough with the screaming and the yelling on your part, I’m getting bored.”
Beau Friedlander:
I’ve been saying that for weeks. Travis, what do you think?
Travis Taylor:
Yes.
Beau Friedlander:
Did you guys see this article about Zelle, et cetera, Venmo?
Travis Taylor:
Yep.
Adam Levin:
Yeah, and the banks are saying to their customers, “Eh, go to Zelle.”
Beau Friedlander:
But you can’t say that because it’s against law. And they still say, “Go to Zelle.”
Adam Levin:
Yeah. They say basically, “No, no, you authorized it.” “No, I didn’t authorize it.” “Oh, of course you did. You existed, you had a Zelle account. That means you authorized it.”
Beau Friedlander:
The instance I saw in this article was about a guy who actually got mugged and the mugger made him open the phone, his phone, for his mugger. And he just sat there with his phone after he’d opened it with the dude’s face, transferring out thousands of dollars to-
Travis Taylor:
Oh wow.
Beau Friedlander:
Another account. And then he just gave the phone back to his victim and was like, “See you later, bub.”
Travis Taylor:
Welcome to the future.
Beau Friedlander:
What a way to get mugged.
Beau Friedlander:
Personally, I thought that was a pretty horrible story. And this week’s story, it’s pretty rotten.
Adam Levin:
It’s a heartbreaker. But the story is someone who took, you know what, in both hands and said not going to let this beat me. And we see somebody who has toughed it out, resilience.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, Adam, I don’t know if you know this, but the FCC, it said that it’s okay to say lemon.
Adam Levin:
Lemon?
Beau Friedlander:
On air, or you said you know what, you do know what, right? In both hands,
Adam Levin:
Oh yes. Take lemons in both hands or limes as the case may be. Take your piece of fruit in both hands.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah. And it does. This episode really is about some piece of-
Adam Levin:
Bananas?
Beau Friedlander:
Who did a number.
Adam Levin:
Welcome to What The Hack, a show about hackers, scammers and the people they go after. I’m Adam, cyber shrink next door.
Beau Friedlander:
I’m Beau, and I’ve listened to the shrink next door.
Travis Taylor:
And I’m Travis, cyber mental patient.
Adam Levin:
And today we talked to a teacher whose hacked Facebook account taught her a new lesson.
Adam Levin:
So hi, Michelle. How are you?
Michelle Waters:
I’m fine. How about you?
Adam Levin:
I’m good. Your story is just fascinating, just fascinating and tragic in many ways. And you’re working your way through it. And you’re in the process of becoming, as they say, victim to victor.
Michelle Waters:
Yes.
Adam Levin:
Let’s start with, where are you from?
Michelle Waters:
I am, well, goodness, that’s a good question. I grew up in Oklahoma. I live here in Oklahoma now, but when I’m in the classroom and my students ask that question, I tell them that I have actually entered the United States, but I’ve never left. And then I’ve watched the little wheels turn in their head and come to find out, somebody will usually figure out, wait a second. You weren’t born here? And I say, “No, I was born in Japan because my dad was in the Air Force, and we were stationed over there for two years. And I was born nine weeks before we left.”
Adam Levin:
Talk a little bit about the world that you live in.
Michelle Waters:
I am a teacher and a writer and I love doing both things and I love blending those two things together and throwing some art in there as well. And so I tell my students and people who ask, like you guys for example, I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was seven and then I forgot for 30 years. And so I ended up becoming a writer instead, and I did that for a while. I was a newspaper reporter working at some local papers here in the Oklahoma City area. And then I had kids and realized that the two to 10 shift and covering tornadoes and shootings and all other weird things, didn’t work with having children at home. And so I left that career and after about a year, started a web design and hosting company. Basically taught myself how to write HTML code and CSS and how to tell that into a server and use Unix code to make the changes I need to on files and did that for about almost 10 years.
Michelle Waters:
And then both kids were in school. And I decided it was time to give back to my community. And I’d noticed that I had clients who were really good at communicating with their market and were very successful as a result. And then people who just didn’t really know what they were doing or why they were doing it or how to communicate it, and so they weren’t very successful. And I thought maybe if I could get a hold of people a little earlier and help them be better writers and better communicators and help them to see what they had to offer the world and how to get themselves plugged into society, then they could be more successful. And so I became a high school and middle school English teacher for about 10 years.
Michelle Waters:
And I’ve recently stepped out to pursue my doctorate in instructional leadership and academic curriculum with a concentration in English education. It only took me a couple years to be able to spit that out like that. But I’ve got kids now that are also starting their own companies. There’s a couple of former students are running a landscaping company, and I’ve been helping them get that set up and their website and what have you. And I’ve got some people selling some wax melts and candles and some other students selling other things. I think they saw what I was doing with my website. While I was teaching, I also started selling lesson plans and professional development online on my own site. And so I’m just basically, I love being an entrepreneur as well. So I guess I should throw that in there. So a teacher, writer, and entrepreneur, that’s me and that’s my world, and I’m just trying to make it a better place and help people be who they’re supposed to be.
Beau Friedlander:
It sounds fascinating. So you were basically a self-made coder. Travis is sitting here looking pretty jealous. I can do that stuff.
Adam Levin:
I can’t, I can’t.
Michelle Waters:
Hey, I spent two hours once back in 2001, trying to post a picture online and there was HTML code and BB code for the forum that I was on and I couldn’t figure them out. And I was just so mad at myself. I’m like, I’ve got to figure this out and learn how to do this because I feel like an idiot right now. And so that inspired me to teach myself.
Beau Friedlander:
Take a look at Adam right now. Now he’s actually 28 years old, but he’s been having trouble for the past five years, figuring it out.
Adam Levin:
But what I finally figured out, at least with Beau, Travis and me, is that I just do 1-800-Travis and all of my technical difficulties go away.
Beau Friedlander:
But Adam, if you treat Michelle well today, you could do 1-800-Michelle as well.
Adam Levin:
I like this.
Travis Taylor:
Maybe we could split the shift.
Michelle Waters:
And I’ll send an invoice.
Adam Levin:
Not a problem.
Travis Taylor:
Help you out. Just have us on speed dial.
Michelle Waters:
Goodness.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah. So what did you do with that site?
Michelle Waters:
So right now, I have two websites, the same market in terms of they’re all teachers or that’s who I’m targeting. And that’s my Rethink ELA website. And so I have a podcast there, I write blog posts, and I have lesson plans. And now I’m working on professional development that I’m offering to teachers in that market.
Adam Levin:
Are you a teacher in a school or your website is the school?
Michelle Waters:
I was a teacher in a school until last semester, which is a whole other story. But my website is just for the English teachers who are in classes and who have middle and high school kids that they’re trying to reach. The other website is RethinkYourLifestyle.com. And it’s for teachers who realize, okay, I can’t deal with teaching anymore or in the classroom anymore. And I need to do something else and I want to start my own business.
Adam Levin:
How many teachers are you communicating with right now?
Michelle Waters:
Right now, my mailing list at Rethink ELA has 18,500 and some odd teachers on it.
Travis Taylor:
Oh wow.
Michelle Waters:
And growing daily.
Travis Taylor:
One question I have is for people who are trying to rethink their lifestyle, what proportion of them are the middle school teachers? Just because that’s what I’ve always heard as the most difficult age to teach.
Michelle Waters:
That is the most difficult age as somebody who’s taught both. Oh, my word, it is because they have so much energy and they need you so much. And there’s only one of me and I just keep getting older and they keep getting younger.
Adam Levin:
Was it a big transition for you to move from the classroom to actually the web? Because you weren’t getting that immediate reaction anymore?
Beau Friedlander:
But also Adam, it’s striking that how Michelle, I was really interested in how you were engaging the students. That’s a real skill set to have kids who are absolutely out of their minds with hormones, with energy, that’s Mel. Anyway, the time they feel that’s being stolen from them and to get them to engage. That’s no joke.
Michelle Waters:
As a job where I was just teaching, I had this kid in my class who kept arguing with me about what we were doing and why we were doing it, which I liked because that forces me to justify what I’m doing. And if I can’t justify it, I should be doing something else. So I would explain to him, this is why we’re doing this. And then I asked him to help me with another kid I was having trouble with, and he did. And I realized, wow, this kid is a leader. And he was also quarterback on our football team until he broke his leg.
Michelle Waters:
So, let’s see in 2018 and this will be part of the rest of my story, but in 2018, my house burned down and he messaged me and said that he had decided, asked if I needed anything. I didn’t, and he told me that he had decided that he was going to major in English in college. And that I was one of the teachers who helped inspire him to be an English teacher because I’d made English class fun. I’m like, wow. And then I cried. And then it was okay. And I was very happy.
Michelle Waters:
But even better than that, when I left that particular school and I actually left that school at the end of last year, I was concerned about my kids. Who’s going to take care of my kids? That school called him and hired him. So my student took that job and I’m like, hallelujah, my kids are going to be taken care of. He is like a local legend in that community. And he’s a great leader. I know he cares about the kids. And so I know that they’re being taken care of.
Beau Friedlander:
And so I guess what I want to know is that skillset is really something. And when you stopped being in a classroom, did you use it for anything? It’s quite a gift to have, and it seems like it would need to go somewhere.
Michelle Waters:
Well, what I’m doing right now is I’m also the Oklahoma Writing Project graduate assistant, which means I help that organization, we’re teachers, we’re teaching teachers. And so I’m taking what I know and helping other teachers do the same thing. Also on my website, I’m putting together professional development to share my story with teachers. And this is how you can engage students so take a look at the students you have in front of them, figure out what they’re about, what their interests are and then find stories that are related to that.
Michelle Waters:
And then also from the writing angle, help them share their stories, because everybody’s got a story, help them tell that story, help them write that personal narrative or that poem. And so through Rethink ELA, I’m working on helping teachers, younger teachers who have more energy than I do, and more years left in them, helping them to do the same things that I’ve done and take that same journey.
Adam Levin:
My sense talking to you is I don’t know how anybody could have more energy than you have. So I’m very impressed.
Adam Levin:
The things that you went through and the lessons you learned are so very, very important to share with young people.
Michelle Waters:
Yeah.
Adam Levin:
Why don’t we start at the beginning, what happened?
Michelle Waters:
April 9th, I had gone to with my kids, my grown children, they’re 19 and 22 now, but I’d gone to the car wash with them and we’d washed my car and we had just pulled into the driveway and I put the car in park, picked up my phone, noticed that there was something from Facebook or just went to Facebook. And as I logged in or went to the app, actually, I was taken to a screen saying that somebody had tried to log into my account from Los Angeles and it had that button, if this was you, click yes. If this was not you, click this other button. And so I clicked to the other button saying that this was not me. And as I was resetting my password, my screen suddenly switched to one saying that I’d violated Facebook’s community standards and that I could request overview of the decision, which I did.
Michelle Waters:
And then it kept telling me over the days that followed that it would usually take it over a little over a day for them to review my information. And then it was just a mess from there. And I started doing research and trying to figure out what exactly had happened and what I could do about it. I sent emails to every Facebook email address I could find including their PayPal at Facebook, something or other, and which that was bad enough. And why that was bad is because I lost connections with people that I’ve known since high school. I had 700 and some odd friends and since then I have set up another account and have started rebuilding, and only have like 200 some of them back.
Michelle Waters:
One of the people, or two people that I know of for sure have actually passed away, including my sister. And so I can’t get that connection with her account back because she’s gone. And Facebook will tell you, oh, eight years ago today you posted this, that’s gone. Those memories or the reminders of those memories are gone. And when they would also send a notification saying it’s somebody’s birthday, or this is a connection that you’ve had with this person, here’s your friend anniversary, all of that has gone. A bunch of Facebook groups that I was a member of, I was immediately kicked out of them. And then also the Facebook groups and pages that I had, I lost a lot of those too.
Michelle Waters:
So now fortunately for me, in terms of my business, I run my businesses, they’re both segments of my business on my own websites. So if you are an entrepreneur, make sure that you are building your business on your own website. I build mine on a self hosted WordPress, and I hosted myself too. But if I were hosting with somebody else and I needed to move it, I could download my website and move it elsewhere. And I keep back ups of my website.
Travis Taylor:
Right. Because otherwise with a social media network, you’re providing Meta with content that should rightly be yours.
Michelle Waters:
Exactly. Exactly. So build your content on your own website and then just push it out to your people there and bring them back to your website and build your list there. That way, if you do lose that connection, then you can still reach out to people through the email list.
Adam Levin:
When you were notified by Facebook that you’d violated community guidelines, did they show you or tell you what the problem was?
Michelle Waters:
It just said something about…
Beau Friedlander:
You still have the message?
Michelle Waters:
I didn’t take a screenshot at the time because I didn’t realize what had happened.
Beau Friedlander:
So you get this warning. You’ve never seen this warning before. No screenshot, but generally they tell you, because you said this or that about COVID or January 6th or I don’t know, somebody’s mother, whatever it was you did. Maybe it was hate speech or maybe you’re harassing somebody or maybe you posted something that was wrong or patently illegal. So nothing like that, they gave you no indication of what the issue was?
Michelle Waters:
So the first notification I got was that somebody had tried to log into my account from Los Angeles. I was sitting in Oklahoma. And I really need to say that as somebody who’s in education, it’s very important to me that people know that I did not do whatever it is that the hacker did.
Beau Friedlander:
Got you. No, we get it. We totally understand. And this happens all the time, and Facebook is actually really hit or miss when it comes to telling you that there’s, especially this, that there’s a login from a location other than the one they know you to be in, and they could easily do that. I mean, really? Without breaking a sweat. But you did get a notification and that is great.
Michelle Waters:
And then I got a second notification as I was trying to reset my password saying that I had violated community standards and that I could request a review, which I did and uploaded a photo of my driver’s license to show I was really me. And then after that, whenever I’d opened the Messenger app, it would tell me that images or videos of child sexual abuse had been posted.
Travis Taylor:
Oh wow.
Beau Friedlander:
So now let’s stop for a moment. Now, when you submitted your driver’s license, your authentication,
Michelle Waters:
You were authenticating yourself to Facebook, were you communicating with them through the Facebook app on your phone? Yes.
Beau Friedlander:
Okay. That sounds relatively safe. Travis?
Travis Taylor:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Michelle Waters:
What I thought too. If I was in the app, then I should be okay. I thought.
Beau Friedlander:
And you were responding to something that looked like a Facebook communication and you’re savvy enough to know if maybe something’s awry there, if it perhaps isn’t actually from Facebook. You know what those signs look like.
Michelle Waters:
Yeah.
Travis Taylor:
Sometimes there are groups on Facebook that will contact you saying that they’re with Facebook terms and services or what have you and saying that you’ve submitted something in violation of that. And so they’ll reach out to people, they’ll change their name to something like Facebook Community Standards. And then they’ll say it.
Michelle Waters:
It wasn’t anything like that. I was locked out of my account and as soon as I went to Facebook.com in a browser or my app, it would immediately take me to that screen saying you violated the standards. You’re locked out.
Travis Taylor:
Oh yeah, no, yeah, totally makes sense. Just wanted to make sure that anyone’s listening, that they also know that’s a scam out there on the platform as well.
Beau Friedlander:
Well. Yeah. Next thing you know, so you’re there and you’ve been notified that you’ve posted something absolutely outrageous and illegal. Okay. And you’ve been told about that, you’ve protested it. All that in the meanwhile, does anything else happen? Nobody’s approached you for ransom. Nobody has said, “Well, I did this.”
Michelle Waters:
No, but what I did notice, and I know I had gone to the bookstore and this was after trying to get logged back in and what have you, and it was sometime later, I think it was probably in May, by the time this started happening. I received a notice from my bank saying that Facebook had charged my credit card, my debit card for a hundred some odd dollars and wait a second. I don’t even have access to my Facebook account. I’m not spending money on Facebook. And the reason why my credit card was attached to my Facebook is because I’d run some ads for my business, through my Rethink ELA Facebook page, and for some of my units and what have you. And so I contacted my bank and told them what was going on and ended up going down there. And they helped me file a dispute. And we took care of that. And I got that money back. Oh. And we canceled my credit card or that debit card. And I immediately got a new one.
Michelle Waters:
So the next weekend, I noticed another charge try to go through, but it was denied. And then followed up moments later was a charge through my PayPal account. So I had my PayPal account attached as well. And so they took 300 and some odd dollars through my PayPal account. And so I filed a dispute through PayPal, and I think I said something about it wasn’t me, or I don’t remember which, and I’d have to go back and look through my communications. I don’t remember which dispute reason I chose, but it was denied. So I called PayPal and somebody actually answered the phone. And this whole time I’ve been trying to get ahold of Facebook, and I cannot get a human being there at all.
Michelle Waters:
But I call Facebook, somebody gets on the phone with me and says, “Okay.” Listens to my story, says, “This is the kind of thing happens. Here’s what we need to do.” And that person refiled the dispute for me as goods not received. And so what happened is that would force Facebook to submit evidence that goods had been received in this case, the advertisement that the hacker purchased through my account. And so Facebook, apparently I called back later to find out what was going on with that, and apparently Facebook had submitted a response. So they had responded to PayPal, not to me, but the response wasn’t evidence that the advertising had been received, and so PayPal approved my dispute and I got my money back.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, that’s good that you got your money back.
Adam Levin:
So you might have a theory as to who’s behind all of it?
Michelle Waters:
Well, I do have a theory based on what I learned later. I had another profile on Facebook for under a pen name because I’m an aspiring novelist. And so I took that over and got back into some of my groups and my main page because I had either that profile set up as an admin, or I had friends that I had set up as admin who let me back in. So I went to my Rethink ELA Facebook page and discovered that somebody had taken over administrator of it and changed the setting to where it could only be seen in one particular country.
Michelle Waters:
And then they had put some advertisements that, I don’t know whether they were advertising, because I don’t understand that language, but they had put some advertisements on the page. And then there were bunches of people replying to the advertisements out of that country. So my theory, and I could be totally wrong about this, is my theory is that they hacked my profile and then took over my page and made themselves administrators of it, then violated my terms of service so that I didn’t have access to my profile anymore. And then started selling stuff on my page.
Travis Taylor:
Do you know where this profile that took over your account was located?
Michelle Waters:
Yes. I just am leery of naming the country because I know people sometimes will judge an entire country by the actions of a few people. And I don’t want to set that up.
Travis Taylor:
The reason I ask is because there are some regions and some languages that people on Facebook, they are looking to run any number of scams or hacks, they’ll gravitate towards because Facebook does not have as many content moderators who speak that language. There have been a lot of things coming from Burma and some other countries in that region because everyone there has a Facebook account, so it’s a widespread, but not that many people are employed by Facebook to keep an eye on what’s being posted in that language.
Beau Friedlander:
It’s also when, well, sometimes you can get swarms of new followers on Meta’s other company, Instagram, and they often come from that part of the world. That’s not uncommon. And these are people who are getting a quarter of a penny per click or something. Super uncool.
Travis Taylor:
One other question I have is it sounds like you had that Facebook account for quite a while. Was it connected to any other accounts of yours? Like old email addresses or anything?
Michelle Waters:
Oh, that was part of the problem. I had connected as my recovery email address, an email that I received through my alma mater, the school that I graduated from with my bachelor’s, and they had offered email addresses to us 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and then stopped offering that service. And I had completely forgotten about it at that point. And so I had no longer had access to that email. And so Facebook at the very end, kept saying that they would send me a code to that particular email address in order to get my account back. But I couldn’t access that email address. And so as far as I can tell, that account has been deleted, disappeared, is no longer available.
Beau Friedlander:
This is where cyber hygiene is actually an impediment. Now had Michelle just used 000000 or Travis thinks he’s Lando from Star Wars for her password, she’d be in [inaudible 00:26:46]. No, but I bet she had good password hygiene.
Adam Levin:
It also brings to mind the concept, but good cyber hygiene also requires thinking about all of the former accounts that you have and just trying to go through them and delete them.
Beau Friedlander:
So you don’t have ghost accounts. That’s true.
Adam Levin:
Because they can’t come back and haunt you if they’re really dead and gone.
Travis Taylor:
Yes. Pretty sure there’s more than a few Friendster and MySpace accounts still floating out there that we’d all rather forget about.
Beau Friedlander:
So Michelle, did you lose a lot of money from this process of your debit card being attached to your account and compromised?
Michelle Waters:
It was less than $500 that they attempted to take, but PayPal and my bank got that back for me. The disputes worked.
Beau Friedlander:
And did you get to see the ads they ran, or did you not get to see the ads?
Michelle Waters:
I did see one ad and I actually did take a screenshot of that. Because at that point I was like, I’m going to record this and this was my page. It still is. And this is the person who took over as admin and then let in several other people or put a couple other people in as admin.
Travis Taylor:
And that phone number does show up for a Facebook profile just called Abes or Abis, and it just says fictional character and that’s it.
Beau Friedlander:
Oh they sound like criminals.
Adam Levin:
Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do.
Beau Friedlander:
All right.
Travis Taylor:
But it looks like they sell shoes and pillows from what I’m seeing.
Beau Friedlander:
So they really did just steal Michelle’s account to sell stuff.
Travis Taylor:
Right. Looks like it.
Michelle Waters:
Yeah. Let me show you one more screenshot, if that’s all right.
Beau Friedlander:
Yes, please.
Travis Taylor:
Those are not very comfortable looking pillows.
Beau Friedlander:
It looks like an alligator. I don’t know, it’s scales.
Adam Levin:
No, they are decorative pillows.
Beau Friedlander:
What are they decorating?
Adam Levin:
They’re decorating your couch. That is modern design couch of some sort.
Beau Friedlander:
Okay. So there’s all these different comments.
Travis Taylor:
One of the other things to keep in mind too, is that if they build $500 for advertising, that might get you a lot further in other parts of the world than it would if you’re just advertising in the US.
Beau Friedlander:
Could have been as simple as that, they wanted to advertise their stuff with someone else’s money. Michelle is nodding. Okay, fine. Let’s say that’s what happened. Let’s say the hackers were just looking to get someone else to foot the bill to advertise their crocodile pillows for an oligarchs Lego mansion that are a hybrid of ugly and really ugly.
Travis Taylor:
Yeah, if you’re listening to this, I can’t imagine what your mental image is, but these pillows are worse.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah, no, they’re super ugly, man. It looks like a mistake.
Beau Friedlander:
Let’s just say that’s what happened. The emotional fallout from this is intense. You lost all of those updates. All of the stuff that Facebook gives you. I do enjoy seeing here you are in 2000, I joined in 2004. So here you are in 2008 with your kids. And I’m not otherwise going to find that picture on that day and say, “Oh yeah.” That’s the roughest one for me.
Michelle Waters:
All your connections with the people severed as well. I lost so many connections with colleagues and people that both at my schools and at where I go to school and people I went to high school with, college the first time around, people I met during my master’s program ,and people that I hadn’t even met yet, but I’m learning from them online because I’m working on getting started on my dissertation, and I’m trying to figure out a a different qualitative research and art based or narrative based. And I’d made some connections and some groups with people who have paved that or blazed that trail for me, and that was all gone.
Adam Levin:
Well. Yeah. Especially because Facebook for a lot of us is the only way we keep in touch with certain people. We don’t even have their phone numbers. And legacy pages. This is really hard.
Michelle Waters:
Yeah.
Beau Friedlander:
That’s the roughest one for me, Adam. It’s the legacy page because once they turn to legacy after person passes, the only person that can be on that page are the people who were friends at the time of death. So yeah, that’s super hard. And actually in my case, I will say that this has happened to me. Not quite, but in a way with a family member who got hacked and the page went away, and it does feel like your stomach lurches because you just lost a ton of stuff, memories, photographs. What to Facebook is just data, but to you it’s memories.
Michelle Waters:
Yeah. And that’s what you said about Facebook, we’re data. I feel like that really is what we are. We are just data or even worse, we’re the product. And then whoever has the most money, who’s buying our eyeballs, they’re the actual customer. And that’s why I can’t get ahold of anybody because I’m just a widget who fell off.
Adam Levin:
One of the things that I’ve noticed as we’ve been following your progress on this is that you didn’t take this lying down. You basically went to war and most importantly, you said I’m resilient. I’m tough. And now I’m going to share this experience with a lot of people. So you’ve written a number of articles and you’ve done a number of postings where you have access, where you talk about this is what happened to me and this is what I’ve learned and this is what you need to do. Can you share some of that with us?
Michelle Waters:
Yes, I can. Don’t connect your Facebook with your Instagram. If you have a debit card in your Facebook account, delete that and use a credit card instead if you really want to do advertising on Facebook so protect yourself that way. If you do get hacked and you know that you have a card or PayPal connected to your Facebook, immediately cancel that card and cancel that PayPal billing agreement immediately, just to be on the safe side.
Michelle Waters:
And if you are a small business, make sure that you are building your business on your own website. Don’t build your business on a Facebook page or on a Facebook group. Make sure that what you do build there leads back, always leads back to your website and your mailing list.
Beau Friedlander:
Let’s say that together, everybody. I love it. I can’t believe she just said that. It’s like she’s singing our song, Adam. If you’re going to build something, don’t build it on someone else’s platform.
Adam Levin:
Absolutely.
Beau Friedlander:
Almost like the cloud. You’re storing your information on someone else’s computer. Well, no, I reject that. No, I don’t reject that, but I do actually. Anyway, yeah. I use the cloud, whatever. I do. So do you, Travis. But I still think the more that you can do on your own platform, the better off you are. The less platform reliant you are, that really matters. But even then, let’s just say you’re using WordPress for your site, you’re still in some way, not really even in a pretty obvious way. You’re still platform reliant. Hey WordPress, we’re on you.
Adam Levin:
There you go.
Beau Friedlander:
Literally. So we’re on your side. Just be nice. Anyway.
Adam Levin:
Well, Michelle, listen, this has been quite an experience for us. You’re a remarkable person. We appreciate your sharing your story today. So look, if our listeners are interested in any of your work, where can they find out? Where can they get more information about you?
Michelle Waters:
Well, if they are English teachers who are wanting to rethink their classroom practice, they can find me at RethinkELA.com. And if they are either at teacher transitioning into an entrepreneurial side gig or career, or once somebody wants to be a home business owner, I particularly like working with work at home moms, then they can go to RethinkYourLifestyle.com. And I have several resources there to help people get started on their entrepreneurial journey or grow their websites or scale them.
Adam Levin:
Travis and I will be visiting the Rethink Your Lifestyle website in the next 24 hours or so. So we appreciate that.
Beau Friedlander:
And if you are on Facebook, you can still find Michelle’s Rethink ELA on the site. It’s not the Rethink ELA that’s selling pillows, if you want to call them pillows. It’s the real one.
Michelle Waters:
Yes, it is the real one.
Adam Levin:
Anyway. Thank you. Thank you very much. This was great.
Michelle Waters:
Thank you for letting me share my story again. I appreciate that
Beau Friedlander:
Adam, for me, Facebook is not something that I am not on. I don’t really care one way or another. I go sometimes, I don’t really care one way or another, but I have gotten really used to the little memory lane stuff that they send, and it never occurred to me that were it to go away or were Facebook to say like, well we want 20 bucks a year for that, for that specific thing that you like Beau, I would actually have an emotional struggle with that because I would still want to see all that stuff that dates back to 2004, but I wouldn’t want to pay for it. And if someone just made it disappear, it would totally mess with me.
Adam Levin:
20 bucks would be a small price to pay for maintaining memories for over a decade.
Beau Friedlander:
Oh a hundred percent. But the mobster approach to it, like we heard in this episode, Michelle was emotionally terrorized by the loss of this account. And rightly so, it’s not fair. The whole situation isn’t fair. Once I tried to download all those pictures, Adam, and there’s no doing it. Because I was a heavy user in 2004, 2005.
Adam Levin:
How do you mean that?
Beau Friedlander:
I mean that if Facebook were a drug, I would be in rehab.
Adam Levin:
The takeaway with all this is that when you have these mega companies, Meta being mega and the other ones, they really don’t care about you. They care about you as a product. They care about you as a data set, provided this data set generates the money, but they have no desire to spend any money on you. And certainly the protections they provide for you are substandard in many cases. And there’s no recourse with a lot of them or the recourse you get. I had a friend whose wife always said, “Buddy, by the time you finally do something, you might as well not have done it because I’m so angry at you.” Well, this is what happens with a lot of these companies. It takes forever for them to do something if they do something. In most cases, they don’t do anything, and you’re frustrated. It has takes an emotional toll. In some cases, a financial toll. In some cases, an emotional and financial toll. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.
Beau Friedlander:
Thanks everyone for listening. And if you like the episode, please give us five stars and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. What The Hack with Adam Levin is a production of Loud Tree Media.
Adam Levin:
It’s produced by Andrew Steven.
Travis Taylor:
You can find us online at LoudTreeMedia.com and on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Adam K. Levin.
