'It's disturbing': Women's boxing coach hit by online hackers sends warning to other small businesses in Northampton

A boxing coach from Northampton has warned other small businesses in the town about the threats of online hackers.

Colin Toal, who runs the Womens' Boxing at Far Cotton Amateur Boxing Club, had his business' Facebook and Instagram hacked in August.

The hackers sent “particularly nasty” messages to people who followed his pages, according to Colin.

The boxing coach said: "I started in January 2015 and the business has been going strong ever since. I've had a Facebook page right from the start. I had around 1,000 followers on Instagram and 1,400 likes on Facebook. It wasn't massive or anything like that but people could use our Facebook to contact us.

"The point I want to get across is: these hacks are nasty. My hack was particularly nasty. I don't know exactly what it was and I don't want to go into detail about it, but I've Googled it and this type of hack happens around the world.

"It's really disturbing people can get hacked like this. My business was punished and I didn't do anything wrong.

"I had 60 five star reviews on Facebook, which have all gone. That upsets me. Built up over eight years. You don't own anything on Facebook, they own everything. It's all signed over to them in the small print. If you do have a problem, it's gone. I think it's just a bit hard-hitting really."

Colin tried to contact Facebook's customer service team but found himself going round in circles unable to resolve the issue.

He said: "The problem I've got is Facebook is not there to help. I've tried to contact Facebook but you can't get anything. It's a nightmare. You can't talk to anyone. You just get sent round in circles.”

Going forward, Colin wanted to share advice and tips to others in the town to keep themselves protected against online hackers.

He said: "The only thing you can do is, which I was advised to do, make sure all your passwords are different.

"Also report the crimes. Report it to actionfraud.police.uk, they're very good, they jump on it straight away.

"We just plod through life trusting things. If you're going to put your whole business into Facebook, it's a mistake. You've got to make sure you have got other platforms. It's affected me personally, I'm upset about what happened."

One silver lining from the hack is Colin has actually seen an increase in business since the hack.

"I have since been inundated with calls, texts since Facebook closed. It's actually done me a favour. I've been getting more business from it. I'm just riding the waves at the minute wondering what's going on," he said.