Zhenya Winter, from London, also had her account hacked, and discovered a friend of her sister had fallen foul of a scam post on her account selling non-existent tickets.

“I found out by my sister calling me up saying, ‘This lady is absolutely distraught,'” she said.

“Even though it’s not my fault, you feel guilty.”

Ms Winter, who works in the payments industry, said the post was so sophisticated that she suspects the hackers used artificial intelligence to replicate her writing style.

“Even some of my fellow experts in payments were potentially duped by it. But I managed to get to them just before they did the transaction.”

She tried to report the hack and contact Facebook multiple times, and asked friends to do the same, but was “furious” at the lack of response.

And when friends tried to comment on the posts to warn others, they were blocked by the hackers, meaning their replies did not appear.

“It’s hugely frustrating,” she said. “So even when I knew this was happening, I was absolutely defenceless to do anything apart from to communicate via WhatsApp or whatever to my mates.

“Apart from that, I’m absolutely powerless. I don’t particularly want to use Facebook ever again.

“I think they have a responsibility to take action quickly. It’s obviously a scam. They’ve had multiple complaints about it.”

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