Tralee Gym Owner Promises Legal Action After Fake Account Claimed His Business Was Closing

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Niall Hobbert of BTS Fitness in Manor Park.

A TRALEE businessman was angered and disgusted with an attempt by a person to blacken his name last night, by using a fake Facebook account with photos of his family and claims that his business was closing.

Niall Hobbert, who owns BTS Fitness at Manor Park, was contacted by friends and members of his gym last night to tell him to look at the business’ Facebook page.

A person under the name ‘Niall Hobbart’, claimed to be the business owner and posted a message saying he was closing down the gym. He said all the staff had been fired and was trying to get new memberships so he could “rob” people’s money before he left. (see post below)

The post left by a person purporting to be Niall Hobbert.

The person used Niall’s own Facebook profile photo and also posted personal photos of his family, which especially angered the businessman.

“It was a scathing, slanderous and defamatory attack on my character and the business, spreading rumours that I am trying to rob people and that I’m closing down next week, of which there is no truth whatsoever,” Niall told TraleeToday.ie on Tuesday morning.

Continued below…

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“People can attack me, but when you put pictures of my family up on social media, I have a serious problem with that. I reported it to Facebook and they took it down, but a huge number of people would have seen it because we have over 9,000 Likes for the BTS Fitness page. I reported it to the gardaí and they are now investigating it. Hopefully they will track down the IP address and I will be prosecuting them,” he said.

“Thankfully the clients we have here are loyal and trustworthy people – it’s like a family here and they sent me screenshots soon after it was posted. It’s sad that other people have to resort to doing this type of thing,” he said.

Niall said he doesn’t know who is behind it but is hoping the gardaí will track them down and he aims to take it further.

“Who’s to say that won’t happen to another business in town. We mind our own business here, just trying to provide a healthy service to people. I don’t want to see anyone else go through what we went through last night, with family being brought into it. I think it’s relevant to bring it to people’s attention that there’s people in town doing this,” he added.