Kekkilä realized his mistake in a couple of hours, but by then the game was already played

Kekkilä has told about the loss of his Facebook group on social media. Facebook / Kekkilä / Adobe Stock

We previously told how Kekkilä, known for its garden products, has lost its Facebook group of approximately 140,000 users.

Formerly known as Kekkilä’s garden and yard the well-known group ended up in the control of an outsider at the end of November, and Kekkilä has not gotten it back despite its efforts.

– We communicated with him for a while until it turned out that he demands compensation for handing the group back. According to him, he didn’t need any “candy money”, Kekkilä’s marketing manager Seela Sorvari tells Iltalehte.

Facebook’s community rules prohibit the trading of maintenance rights for groups, so Kekkilä refused to pay.

This is how the hijacking happened

The group under Kekkilä’s control was left without an administrator as a result of human error.

If a Facebook group does not have an administrator at all, Facebook can suggest to some users to become the administrator of that group. According to Sorvar, it took less than three hours to discover the mistake, but by then it was already too late.

– During this time, an outsider took control of the group. The taker has been a member of the group for a long time, but not an active member, and he had not published any publications in the group, says Sorvari.

Kekkilä bought the group in 2016

Kekkilä took over the group, which was originally founded in 2008, in 2016, when its original owner offered it to the company.

– The group had grown big by then and the maintenance had become laborious. A reasonable amount was paid for the group, says Sorvari.

In 2016, the sale of group maintenance rights was still allowed. the BBC according to which it was banned only a couple of years later.

Sorvari says that maintaining the group has been for Kekkila above all supporting garden enthusiasts. The number of members of the group grew under Kekkilä from more than 50,000 to more than 140,000 at its best.

– We do not think of using the group for marketing purposes, because commercial messages disappear in the news stream in an instant.

– For us, the group is in a way a window into ordinary people’s yards. We have seen from there what kind of problems people wrestle with and what things interest them.

Recently, Kekkilä’s name was added to the group’s name for reasons of transparency.

The story continues under embedding.

If the embed is not visible, check it out here.

Facebook is no help

Sorvari says that the company contacted Facebook’s support immediately after it became clear that the new administrator did not want to give the group management rights back for free.

– Unfortunately, these actions did not lead to anything, even though it is a huge group by Finnish standards, and it has clearly had our company’s name and logo, Sorvari regrets.

– We received an answer from Facebook support that they cannot help, because the support is responsible for the support of Facebook pages and business operations, and there is no separate group activity support available in Finland.

The incident was initially communicated within the group and on Kekkilä’s own social media channels. Since then, communication has been limited to the latter, because according to Sorvar, the group’s new administrator has removed Kekkila’s ability to comment.

– The biggest sadness here is the loss of a huge garden community, he states.

Lost his original Instagram account

Losing a large Facebook group is not Kekkila’s first setback with its social media accounts.

In 2020, the company said it had lost its original Instagram account.

– Kekkilä’s IG account has been hijacked and destroyed as a result of a clever scam, the company’s message from its new kekkilägarden account in December 2020.

– Go ahead, said grandma in the dirt, some team broke up.

If the embed is not visible, check it out here.