A Cork business owner says she now has to start again, after her company's social media account was hacked.
Box of Kindness offers personalised luxurious gift boxes for all occasions.
Owner Charlene Corkery says she clicked on an e-mail link which looked legitimate.
"On Sunday, I got a very legitimate looking Instagram message, saying that I need to follow this link, because I'll be banned from my page because of copyright infringement.
"But basically for playing a song that I wasn't meant to."
Charlene says she feels "a little bit silly" but believed the e-mail to be real.
"I just filled in my e-mail that was connected to Box of Kindness - and on Monday I woke up and I'd messages... to say 'Box of Kindness seems to be gone'.
"A page - the hacker, King Sanchez - is still circulating around Facebook, which scares me a small bit because I have no control and Instagram aren't doing anything about it."
Picture by: Facebook/Box of KindnessCharlene says this gang hacked her account, took over the page and deleted all its content.
"I started this business just as a small concept during lockdown, and the amount of time I've put into this business and growing it successfully for it to be just whipped away within seconds is absolutely horrifying.
"I'm not a multinational company, I don't have half a million followers - but I just want to reiterate so much that anyone can be affected".
Charlene says ultimately a €10,000 ransom was made by the hackers to give her the page back. She says this was never going to be paid.
"I'm unsure what they think I sell in my boxes, but that's an awful lot of money."
"And I wouldn't be subjected to any blackmail ever - so essentially I'm starting from the very start".
