Chorley businesswoman calls for more Facebook controls as hackers post live beheading on her page

Video report by Granada Reports journalist Claire Hannah

A businesswoman whose Facebook account was hacked and thousands of pounds stolen says the social media giant needs to do more for the security of its customers.

Suzy Orr, from Chorley, had child pornography and a live beheading posted on her account after hackers took control, before they then stole savings from her bank account.

Suzy, who runs a Lancashire-based women's business network, has been on Facebook since 2005 and says she uses her personal account to mostly post photos of days out, and pictures of her dog.

But one evening her husband spotted some distressing images had been posted on her page, when Suzy was not even on the site.

Suzy said "He showed me his phone, and I said that looks like porn, he said 'it's worse than that - it is child pornography.

"A live beheading was also posted on my site, which is incredibly disturbing and upsetting.

"The images were only online for around ten minutes, and I was getting notifications from people telling me about them.

"Then, my account was locked by Facebook and I've been unable to get in it for over a week."

Suzy's business account is linked to her personal Facebook page.

When she checked her account the day after the distressing images appeared, more than £2,000 had been taken out.

She suspects hackers posted the obscene content to lock her out of her account, so they could get in and take what they could from her bank.

Suzy says since she joined Facebook she has only ever made three payments of £20, and claims Facebook should have noticed something amiss.

She says Facebook's algorithms should also have noticed something was different when the live beheading and child pornography were posted onto her account as, in the 16 years she has been on the social media site, all she has ever posted are "family photos, photos of events and inspirational quotes".

Suzy remains locked out of her account after more than a week and says she has struggled to get a response from Facebook because there is no way of contacting them to tell them there is an issue.

She did manage to find an email address but had no response, despite sending more than 12 emails, some of them copying Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in.

Cyber expert Paul Vlissidis agrees this is an issue, but says the company is a victim of its own success.

He said: "They have so many, literally billions of users around the world that you are talking about a massive undertaking, so they are always going to struggle to tackle this problem.

"But with so many users they do need to come up with better solutions than they have at the moment".

Suzy is now urging people to check what their social media accounts are linked to, so they don't have money stolen, and also says backing up photographs needs to be a must so people do not lose their precious memories.

Meta have said in a statement: “We’re sorry to hear that Mrs Orr was targeted by hackers in this way. We have restored access to the account and have refunded the fraudulent payments.”

Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know

Since our report with Suzy Orr aired on ITV Granada Reports, her Facebook account has been restored and the £2300 taken from her business account has now been refunded