Owners of Bah Humbug Christmas Trees Bourne says losing Facebook business page has had ‘catastrophic effect’

A frustrated owner of a seasonal tree-cutting company has described the ‘catastrophic effect’ since the firm’s Facebook page disappeared.

Harriet Hall, who runs Bah Humbug Christmas Trees in Bourne, has now lost 400 followers and relies on social media for customer bookings and advertising during the festive season.

The Black Bull pubs in Kirton and Ruskington also had their pages removed unexpectedly - with Meta, the company which owns Facebook citing copyright infringement as the reason.

In early October Mrs Hall, who lives in Thurlby, went to open her business page on Facebook but was unable to log in as the page had disappeared.

She said: “I think it can be quite catastrophic for a seasonal business especially if I hadn't been able to start a new page.

“The message said that somebody else had been trying to post on to the page which ‘went against guidelines’.

“It is really annoying - we can’t recover messages or content - I can’t follow up on previous orders or check deliveries so I am worried people will go elsewhere.”

Mrs Hall’s nephew is a ‘computer whiz’ but reached a dead end trying to restore the page and she was advised to contact a professional company but instead created a new page.

They are building up their followers again with 88 users now following on their current page.

She said: “I had given up trying to search for it as it was impossible to find.

“I couldn’t leave it any longer as this is our main way of advertising.

“It will possibly affect us financially depending on how we build up followers and how many share the page.”

Mrs Hall has run the family business for three years and now is the time when families start to choose and collect a real Christmas tree.

She added: “It is frustrating as I have paid for campaigns last year to up our followers.

“I had a message to say my Instagram had been hacked but there was no problem with that.

“It is important to have a page to show our opening hours and delivery times.”

The business is open from the last weekend in November up until Christmas.

Visit Bah Humbug Christmas Trees on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567545218190 for further details.

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