Facebook

I have set up four additional Facebook accounts to sell through FaceBook Marketplace and each was shut down by Facebook without any explanation after I uploaded items and these items were approved by multiple groups. Facebook suddenly locked me out of one account and told me they must send a six digit verification number to my phone. They never sent any text messages to the phone number they were provided even though it was requested multiple times.

They then tell you have too many SMS request and prevent you from asking for another one for 24 hours. That is a lie as you can never ask for another code to be sent or use a different cell phone number. Since you can't get past the SMS stage of the process the account is no longer useable. Facebook does not respond email they send. This process also makes no sense as the telephone was already verified when the account was initially opened. This process also does nothing to verify the person's identity as the cell phone carrier is not going to share the personal details of the person who owns the phone with Facebook.

A different number was used for another Facebook account and a SMS was received. Upon entering the verification on their site I was told to upload a photo of myself with the following message: "Upload a photo of yourself. Upload a photo that clearly shows your face. Make sure the photo is well-lit and isn't blurry. Don't include other people in the shot. We use this photo to help us check that this account belongs to you. We'll delete the photo once we've done this, and it will never appear on your profile."

The account already has a photo. How exactly is Facebook going to verify my identity with a photo as they have no verified source to compare it to? Facebook's statement is a complete lie and I certainly don't believe anything else they say such as they are going to delete the photo once the so-called process is completed. Two other accounts they locked out they asked for a copy of a government i.d. with a photo. Under no circumstances will they be getting that since that can be used for identity theft. These accounts received messages in Facebook Messenger saying someone was interested in buying an item and they wanted me to text them my cell phone number to complete the deal.

These items had no customer views which is impossible as someone needed to view these items in order to send a message about them. These messages were ignored and frankly sound like Facebook masquerading as customers. If they wanted to verify my identity then use our telephone landline or our mailing address which we have had since 1974. Facebook is engaged in the theft of personal information.

With millions of people using FB, one would think they would have someone/some way to work through issues like this. I saw hundreds of complaints on the BBB site, many similar to mine. Facebook support is a joke – it does not exist. I would not even care, but I am missing out on photos and updates from family. Also, I have paid Oculus games bound to this account which I cannot access. Oculus support also takes me to FB, so useless again.

I understand that FB and IG are both social media platforms, so as expected I won’t even write a whole review about content. Content is what it is, if I don’t like it, I won’t view it. However, they now shove so many ads down our feeds that almost EVERYTHING is either an IG reel, suggested post, or ad. Forget about ever seeing your friends’ posts.

Now that I got that out of the way, here’s the real reason why I’m angry: I’ve been locked out my IG account for no reason for the past week. I went on the app for the first time in the morning to find that they asked me to verify my phone number. I entered my phone number and then sent me a code. I input the code then I got locked out my account. They told me to wait 24 hours then 24 hours passed and I got a new popup saying I somehow “violated their terms” which I didn’t. I wasn’t even ON the app or platform when they said I was guilty. I thought it was going to be easy 1-2-3 fix by just appealing with them using their form. Guess what? It’s not. I submitted the forms at least 10 times the past week, and submitted my picture to them 8+ times and my I.D. 3+ times. Each time, they never respond.

I went online and realize that this has been an on-going problem for weeks where people have had their accounts disabled either from nothing, “wrong birthday”, phone verification or impersonating. Clearly, “Meta” makes millions and billions of dollars but can’t even have at least ONE call center to handle these situations? Or they couldn’t program a bot that actually does its job properly. It seems easy for them to just ban people yet appealing is a whole other story even if you do exactly what they asked or even if it was a mistake on their end!

What makes this worse is that spammers and scammers are EVERYWHERE claiming they could “hack” and retrieve lost or stolen account for you. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS. Then there’s other extortionists who claim they know someone at IG who can reactivate your account but it’ll cost you thousands of dollars. IG can’t even tell that this is going on but now there’s a blackmarket business for people to PAY to get accounts reactivated. WHY IS THIS NOT NEWSWORTHY?! How do we know IG employees aren’t disabling accounts and then extorting customers to get these accounts back?

Overall, this is extremely stressful and frustrating because I run a business and my main viewers are on Instagram and some on Facebook. Even if you pay on the platform (running ads, etc), IG/FB/Meta still seem to have no incentive to help. This company has ZERO customer support, so if you’re locked out, tough luck! I cannot believe that there are no laws to push companies to have a certain level of customer service at least. I’m 100% sure if I was a politician or a celebrity, my account would be reinstated the next hour. Meta/FB/IG needs to be SUED. TERRIBLE!

My personal account linked to my bussiness account, that’s why I got that payment method from my business. I tried to contact to Facebook many ways as I can do, not working. I have to contact my bank to open the claim. The bank told me, the transaction was authorized by me, I Said No. They said will contact facebook for more information about the transaction. How can ? I think the customer services are robots or machine answer, not human. Also when I know my account hacked, Facebook ask me to take photo of DL for verified the account, but no one email or sent any notification for me. If anyone in here know how to contact to facebook by agent, please help. I just need to access to my Facebook to withdraw all my information and leave facebook forever.