AN eco-conscious salvage boss says his beloved business has taken a significant hit and its history wiped after hackers hijacked his social media page.

Karl Dixon, from Clacton, is the manager of A&D Reclaim, in Sladbury’s Lane, which he founded ten years ago in a bid to improve sustainability on a local level.

During that time, the reclamation yard, which repurposes discarded items otherwise destined for the dump, has gone from strength-to-strength.

Often described as an Aladdin’s Cave, the passionate collector’s packed unit harbours, and recycles, everything from old furniture to smashed sinks.

Mr Dixon says a lot of his custom comes from the A&D Reclaim Facebook page, on which he can advertise newly refurbished items when they are ready for a new home.

The page, however, which had close to 2,000 followers, has now been hacked, subsequently resulting in it being banned by those running the digital platform.

“We couldn’t access the page and then the name was changed to a mattress company and someone was trying to sell bedding to our customers,” said Mr Dixon.

“We reported it to Facebook, but then they just took the page down completely, and they have shut us down.

“Our whole history has been wiped, all of our photos and our customers have all been deleted – it has slaughtered us.

“We have now traced the hacker back to Cambodia and it turns out they have done this many times before, even accessing people’s accounts and stealing money.”

Since the attack, and following Facebook’s decision to completely remove the page, Mr Dixon says the company has lost more than 75 per cent of its usual custom.

He has tried, endlessly, to get hold of Facebook to ask them to reinstate their page, but, so far, he has had no luck, and his business is suffering as a result.

“We don’t know what to do because we have lost so much income within this past week, and it is crippling us,” he added.

“We have lost everything, and it is absolutely horrific because we have tried everything in order to get a response from Facebook, but we can’t get through at all.

“It is frightening because I didn’t realise how much we rely on the online side of things, but now we are having to try and build all that back up again.”

Facebook has since described the case as a complex one, but said it is currently investigating the issue.