California animal rescue’s Facebook page hacked

TEHACHAPI, Calif. (NBC, KYMA/KECY) - Scams get more realistic by the day it seems. Now, hackers have shut down the Facebook page of a well known local animal rescue in Tehachapi, California, and dogs may die because of it.

Internet scams are everywhere these days. On every platform, in any way.

Zach Skow, founder of Marley's Mutts Dog Rescue in Tehachapi, realized too late he was victim of a scam and lost 15 years of work.

"They initially reached out by asking to do a live post, basically through a celebrity, 'Would you like to be on this podcast? It's going to help you reach more people. We're going to share your message, We're going to help you reach more folks so that you can save more dogs.' So when I heard 'reach more folks, save more dogs,' it's like, 'Oh yea, absolutely. Let's go for it.'"

Zack Skow, Founder Of Marley's Mutts Dog Rescue

Hope

What seemed like a great opportunity quickly turned into the loss of a Facebook page that took years to grow. Hackers quickly changed the name, password, and administrators of the page; hijacking the lifeline of thousands of dogs over the years.

"Starting over to try and re-engage [with] 750,000 followers is virtually impossible. I mean, this is something that we've built up since 2009. Every week that goes by that we can't access our Facebook page is a week that more dogs will pass away. More dogs that we can't help. Revenue that we can't raise."

Zack Skow, Founder Of Marley's Mutts Dog Rescue

No help has been available from Meta, parent company of Facebook, in the 10 days since the page was taken.

"We can't get anyone on the phone from Meta. We can't get customer service to respond to emails. There literally is no customer service option for us to engage with. We're just at a loss," Skow expressed.

Skow asks the community to personally tag Meta in Marley's Mutts posts. He hopes with enough messages, Meta brings his original page back.