FARGO — On Saturday morning, July 13, Steven “Spider” Johnk received a message through Facebook from an old friend asking for his phone number.

By Saturday evening, Johnk had no access to his Facebook account and an unknown user was selling nonexistent items under his name on his Facebook page.

“It’s a real joke,” he said.

The scam started when a user posing as his friend sent him two messages with a code. Johnk responded to the messages thinking it was his friend but started to speculate something was wrong when he received a third message from them asking for money.

He denied the request for money and went about his day with a hunch that something was wrong. Later, he received an email from Facebook informing him his username and password had been changed.

The email included an option for him to claim the account change was not his doing, but the link expired before he clicked it.

Johnk speculated the user was able to change the username and password for his account, gaining access to post the false advertisements on his page.

One of the false advertisements features Johnk selling items from his father’s house as he moves him into a nursing home.

Johnk’s father passed away when he was 23; none of the items are his.

Screenshot via Facebook

Another item listed on his page was a 2012 Honda Accord with an asking price of $1,500 and a request for a $500 deposit.

One of Johnk’s Facebook friends sent the $500 deposit. Luckily, she was able to inform her bank of the incident, canceling the charge.

Screenshot via Facebook

“It looked like I was selling it,” Johnk said.

The user controlling Johnk’s profile limited the comment section so no one was able to comment that the sale listings were fake.

Johnk took action to regain his account by completing a report for hacked accounts but had a frustrating experience with Facebook’s support offerings.

“I found out quick that there was no support line for Facebook,” he said.

He created a new Facebook page to warn others of his hacked account.

“I just started posting big announcements online that my account was hacked,” he said.

Facebook took action in deleting an account, but instead of deleting the hacked account, Facebook deleted his new account intended to inform people of the hacked one.

“Now, I have no way of warning my friends that this might happen to them,” Johnk said.

Johnk has over 2,500 friends on Facebook. He also uses the site to promote his art.

He has worked as an artist drawing and painting and in advertising as a creative director. He also is known for his political cartoons.

“When you’re an artist, you learn to do a lot of things,” he said. “It’s like a never-ending education.”

Contributed / Steven Johnk

Through Facebook, Johnk was able to sell around 600 copies of his political cartoon book. As an artist, he often relies on the social media platform to promote his line of work.

“The loss of it, I don’t know how to replace that,” he said.

Johnk also uses Facebook to stay connected with several family members and friends both locally and nationwide.

He said the situation places his Facebook friends in a vulnerable position for their account to be taken over.

He recalled around 20 people reaching out to him saying his account was asking them to send them their personal phone numbers. He speculates that his account is setting the same trap that caught him.

“I have no way of warning my friends that this is going to happen,” he said. “The best thing you can do is unfriend me on that site.”

If he cannot gain access to his account, he loses his ability to connect virtually with the friends he has accumulated since he opened his account in 2006. This made him debate whether he should create a new account because of his age.

“A lot of things seem to fade after 76 years,” he said.

Johnk asks his friends on Facebook to unfriend and report the account to avoid the scam happening to them.

Makayla Anderson is an intern reporter at Forum Communications. She was born and raised in Bismarck, ND and on a farm 20 miles east of Bismarck. Makayla currently attends Concordia College, majoring in English writing with minors in business and journalism. She plans on graduating in spring of 2025. When she is not reporting, she enjoys reading, playing basketball and painting.