The former manager of the Sooke Harbour House hotel and restaurant is suing Facebook for $50 million, saying the social-media company allowed an imposter page to remain on its network for several months.
Timothy Craig Durkin said he learned in mid-March that his identity was being being used on a page pretending to be his, without his knowledge or consent.
In a statement of civil claim filed in the Supreme Court of B.C., Durkin said he used Facebook’s form for non-users to report imposters and identity theft.
But when he clicked the submit button, he received a pop-up window saying: “Your request couldn’t be processed. There was a problem with this request. We are working on getting it fixed as soon as we can.”
Between April 1 and July 21, Durkin said, he made other unsuccessful attempts to submit a report to Facebook. The same pop-up window appeared.
On July 21, Durkin said, he sent a letter via courier to Facebook Canada describing the identity theft and requesting that the imposter page be removed. He said Facebook and Facebook Canada were reckless and negligent between March 15 and Aug. 20, when they knew or should have known that the page was an imposter, and in allowing an imposter to use it in his name.
As well as $50 million damages, Durkin wants to know the identity of the imposter.
Durkin did not describe the details of the Facebook posts.
Facebook Canada said Friday the page was removed on Thursday for violating its community standards policy. Pretending to be someone else is an explicit violation of Facebook policies, a company spokesman said.
“Imposter accounts affect real people and we remove these accounts when we discover them. We’ve invested heavily in strengthening our technology to keep them off Facebook and we work with law enforcement to prosecute scammers. That job is not finished and we are committed to sharing our progress.”
The company said it has made recent improvements to combat impersonation, including image-recognition technology, automation to detect scams, and improved reporting abilities.
Durkin, who could not be reached Friday, is fighting a 2017 deportation order from the Canada Border Services Agency after being indicted in the U.S. for alleged conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, which he has denied. A federal Immigration and Refugee Board admissibility hearing is set for Nov. 4. He is also in a legal battle with Frederique and Sinclair Philip over a share-purchase agreement relating to Sooke Harbour House.
Under the Philips, Sooke Harbour House earned an international reputation for the quality of its food. But it faced a foreclosure action and Durkin and a partner came to an investment agreement with the Philips.
Money problems arose and subsequent mortgages led to additional foreclosure actions.
In June, B.C. Supreme Court approved the sale of Sooke Harbour House to North Vancouver’s IAG Enterprises Ltd. for $5.6 million.
Alex Watson, chief operating officer of IAG, said the sale closed a month ago. IAG is not involved in the dispute among the former managers, he said.
“We just purchased the land and buildings and we are going to try and do our best to bring the hotel and the operations back.”
The hotel closed in March and remains shut. IAG is working with landscape architects and designers and is in discussions with a party to deliver a “great food and beverage element,” he said.
Watson expects October 2021 to be the earliest Sooke Harbour House will reopen. The aim is to restore its reputation for excellence, he said on the hotel’s Facebook page.
cjwilson@timescolonist.com
