A Rochester barber is calling for his customers' support after a Facebook page falsely claimed a staff member had tested positive for coronavirus.

Cuneyt Kaya runs the three Kaya Barber shops across Medway and says the lie has caused a fall in trade.

Yesterday, the page – 'Kaya Barbers Gillingham High Street' – claimed: "One of our staff have tested positive for corona virus and is now self isolating. We will close until further notice."

But this is completely false with Cuneyt saying none of his staff have tested positive for the virus and the shop is open as usual.

He said: "This morning I opened my business to find no customers waiting, normally I have a long queue on Fridays.

"It was because last night the fake account posted about one of our staff members having coronavirus.

"This account has been around for two years now and we haven't had any help or support from the police or Facebook themselves.

"I've contacted the fake page and they said I'd have to pay £17.99 a month to keep the page down. Of course, I didn't pay as I knew it would be a scam but I don't know what else to do."

Cuneyt says the page had been previously disabled before but was soon active again.

He added: "My customers, friends and family have been really supportive, they've all reported the page as being fake and committing a cyber crime.

"The fake account has posted things like 'happy September 11th', we just want our customers to know the page isn't us."

It has more than 600 followers and Cuneyt is asking people to report it.

The real Kaya Barber Facebook page is Kaya Barbers 3 Rochester.

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