Matt was kicked off of Facebook for no reason in March, got the social networking site to admit its error and reinstate him after a few weeks in April, then got the boot again and has been floating around in outer darkness ever since. His tale of despair:
As of today, May 13th, I’m banned from Facebook and have been for almost two months now. Here’s the kicker: by Facebook’s own admission, I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. I don’t know what’s going on here or why it’s going on — all I know is that I need your help in resolving this matter.
Gather ’round, friends, and let me tell you a tale of Facebook woe:
March 25th: It was late. I was poking around Facebook, just killing a little time before bed. I hit F5 at one point to refresh my News Feed, and out of the blue, Facebook asked me to login again. When I tried to do so, I received the following message: “Your account has been disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.” So, one minute, everything was hunky-dory, and the next, I was banned for reasons unknown — no warning, no explanation, nothing. Fantastic.
Puzzled, I immediately read through the aforementioned FAQ and their ToS, hoping to narrow down just what it is I could’ve possibly done to trigger such action, but nothing stood out. It was all pretty standard fare — don’t harass our users, don’t spam, don’t post pornography, and so forth — none of which seemed to apply to me. One point of interest: “Accounts can either be disabled for repeat offenses or for one, particularly egregious violation.” Certainly, nothing I’ve ever done on Facebook could reasonably be classified as an egregious enough violation to warrant the instant, permanent ban with which I’d just been slapped. No, something wasn’t right here.
Fortunately, at the end of the FAQ, they offer a solution: “If none of the above are applicable, and you think your account was mistakenly disabled, please contact us here.” So I did. On the night of March 25th, I sent a letter to disabled@facebook.com outlining everything I mentioned above — I was disabled for reasons unknown to me, I’ve never been warned in the past or done anything that would reasonably come even *close* to constituting a “particularly egregious violation”, and I’m just your average, everyday user who can’t for the life of him figure out why he was targeted.
April 13th: Almost three weeks later, I *still* hadn’t heard back from anyone. Frustrated, I decided to poke around their site to see if I could find an alternate means of contact that might expedite the process. As luck would have it, my search yielded a “My Account Has Been Compromised” form. Could someone have broken into my account and done something of some sort to get me banned? With a password so strong, it didn’t seem likely, but then again, what other explanation was there? “What the hell?”, I figured. I filled out the form, sent it off, and continued playing the waiting game.
April 14th: Less than 24 hours later, I received the following response to my form submission:
Hi Matt,
Your account was disabled in error. We have reactivated it and you should be able to access it again. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Please let me know if you have any further questions or issues.
Thanks for contacting Facebook,
Anthony
User OperationsSUCCESS! Not one to take chances, though, I spent an hour or so skimming my account from top to bottom in search of any content that could possibly be construed as a violation of their ToS, but found no such material. Shrugging my shoulders, I carried on as usual, hoping this ordeal was finally behind me once and for all.
April 21st: But it wasn’t. I arrived home on the 21st, loaded up Facebook, and was once again greeted by the login page and the “account disabled” message. Say whaaaaaaaaaat? At an almost complete loss for words, I immediately fired off a brief follow-up to Anthony informing him that I was banned again and asking that he investigate the matter further. To date, no response.
April 30th: It occurred to me that, depending on how Facebook’s support system works, my previous ticket might’ve been closed and, therefore, my letter to Anthony may never have reached its destination. Just in case, I fired another letter off to disabled@facebook.com. To date, no response. [Curiously, when I first wrote back in March, I received an immediate auto-response to the effect of "thanks for your letter, you'll be hearing from us soon". I received no such auto-response this time around. Are subsequent appeal requests being filtered?]
May 7th: Decided to give the “account compromised” form another shot. To date — you guessed it — no response.
May 13th: Having reached my wits’ end and run out of other options, I turned to the Consumerist for help. But, uh, you knew that, didn’t you?
Long story short, at this point, I’ve been banned from Facebook for 42 of the past 49 days for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. In a day and age where having your Facebook access revoked is tantamount to having your social life revoked, this has gone from simple misunderstanding to completely and totally unacceptable. And yet, despite being, by Facebook’s own admission, not in the wrong here, I remain banned almost two months later, and I seem to have no further recourse outside of continuing to sit about, waiting on a response that I doubt will ever come. It’s as if they’re done talking to me, there’s nothing I can say or do to change that, and that’s all there is to it. I feel like I’m on the playground in elementary school all over again. Or at the bar on a Friday night, for that matter.
Keeping in mind, then, that, with the excess of friends, pictures, and other general content I have in my account, simply creating a new one and moving on is out of the question (particularly since, if I’m getting picked off by some malfunctioning auto-ban script, in all likelihood, they’ll just ban me again after I spend the hours upon hours it’ll take to put together a reasonably close approximation of my former profile), what’s my next move, Consumerist?
Nearly han three months without being tempted to take someone’s “How Well Do You Know Me?” quiz or being spammed by his stalker acquaintance’s latest Mafia Wars exploits? We don’t know whether to pity Matt or envy him.
What would you do under such circumstances, Consumerists? Go back to Friendster? Start talking to people in real life once again?
(Photo: www.betaart.com)
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Did OP happen to pick on any computer geeks in high school? Maybe they work at facebook now.
@MikeF74: That would have to be one hardcore grudge right there…
doo wop, shooby doo doo wop, doo wah doo waaahhhhhHhHhh blue days, black niIIiights, doo wah do waahahhhhh
I blame Mafia Wars
In a day and age where having your Facebook access revoked is tantamount to having your social life revoked…
Too easy…way too easy. Just imagine I entered a snarky, insightful and hilarious comment here.
@Canino: I imagined, and laughed heartily.
@Canino: I think we should organize a candlelight vigil.
Facebook is going to destroy itself at this rate. I play Mafia Wars and a few other apps and use Facebook to connect with friends, but it is frustrating when FB sends warnings whenever it thinks you are doing something wrong. This kind of over-moderation is going to drive people away. I have friends who have various FB features disabled as a slap on thw wrist. Add too many friends in a day, you get a warning, post too many comments, the feature is disabled, and so on.
Then there are the poor people like the OP who get their account disabled for no reason. It seems near impossible to reach a human being at FB when there is a problem.
@Heather Russell:
No it’s not. It’s just getting rid of the stupid people. If you get your account disabled because of mafia wars, you’re too stupid to live much less be on facebook. How hard is it to simply not spam-add people or spam-comments on add sites? Do 20 a day and no one gives a rat’s ass. 200 a day and you run into the pink box and get your stupid butt tossed. Frankly, I’m pretty happy about the blocks because god knows no one needs any more spammers on the site.
@henwy: I don’t spam my MW exploits on my wall and add friends slowly and still got the pink box for adding 22 people in a day. I just don’t get why you get in trouble for social networking since that is the purpose of the site. If someone annoys me, I just hide them from my feed or in a really bad case delete them as a friend, it is pretty simple.
@Heather Russell:
Did you not read or something? 22>20. Stick to 20 and you shouldn’t have any problems. If you want to do more and risk a ban, then go ahead but stop whining about it.
@henwy:
Oh and for all the other people who have been banned from mafia wars ‘for no reason’, go through this checklist. If you answer yes to any of this, it’s a good start to figuring out why you were banned
Ever sent out more than 20 friend requests a day (especially multiple days in a row)?
Ever made the exact same comment (add me! add me!) repeatedly for any comment board?
Ever posted any other person’s mafia link on your status trying to get your friends to attack them?
Ever exploited any bug (the multiple skill help bug, the free godfather point bug, etc)?
Bonus points if you did exploit the bug and then claimed that it wasn’t your fault because it was their code that was broken.
@Heather Russell: I had no idea any of that was going on. Maybe Facebook is just trying to save them from themselves
by, you know, encouraging them to go outside…
@Heather Russell: While Facebook is subject to an annoying big brother method of moderation, the alternative is something like LinkedIn where they don’t bother moderating at all. If 3 people report your account you get disabled, no questions and no appeals. I know people who have had to change the name they registered with because some people had grudges against them.
@OP, you probably have friends reporting your posts as inappropriate – either to be asses or because something there legitimately is. are you being annoying in any way – posting more than a dozen times a day, promoting a product, taking 50 quizzes a day?
I envy him. I want to get off the “grid” but it is too late.
@jstonemo: Just quit cold-turkey. That’s what I did, and I’ve never regretted it.
@Tzepish: I think he’s talking about getting “off the grid” not quitting. Everyone knows you can’t get off the grid. Your stuff is out there forever. The deed’s done now. Once you’re on the grid, you can never turn back. It’s like losing your virginity.
You should file a chargeback, get all your money back… oh, wait.
@takes_so_little: I am reminded of:
“How quickly the world owes owes him something knew existed only ten seconds ago.”
@TaterTom: Grr… my link didn’t show. I’ll try again:
@Canino: People like that should be required to write 2 pages comparing their lives to a darfur war orphan stricken with HIV before being allowed to write.
@William Brinkman: I don’t think Darfur’s war orphans have much of a social life, so I can see how this is similar.
@squinko: Hahaha. So bad.
@squinko: That’s funny and horrid at the same time. That’s worth a heart click.
@William Brinkman: I’d agree with you if he said tantamount to torture or something similar, but since he said tantamount only to “having your social life revoked”, I think that’s a perfectly reasonable thing for him to say.
@William Brinkman: Is that really necessary?
Matt has proven that people without Facebook accounts actually can and do exist on this planet. It is a lesson for us all.
@TheWraithL98: Facebook has already admitted it’s an error. Someone screwed up, and now they’re compounding the error. Seems pretty straightforward.
@Ezra Ekman: Straightforward analysis. Where’s the fix?
@Skaperen: My post wasn’t intended to diminish the problem; just to point out that, according to Facebook, the description that TheWraithL98 gave didn’t sound likely.
The solution depends on where the OP is located. If I found myself in this position, I’d probably drive about 45 minutes south on 101 and walk into the headquarters in Palo Alto… but I’m in San Francisco, so that may or may not be feasible for the OP. If not, I’d try calling them. If I still didn’t get anywhere, the standard EECB is a good start.
I’m certain that he will eventually be able to reach someone, especially given that they’ve already admitted it isn’t his fault. But when he does, I’d recommend that he clarifies the second part of the problem (the fact that it’s recurring, and that he had quite a bit of trouble reaching someone the second time), and therefore ask for a direct contact that he can use if the problem happens a third time. There’s clearly precedent to support this need.
Maybe the guy has a last name that sounds “offensive”, and the FaceBook bots flagged his account? LOL.
@LatherRinseRepeat: That’s it. Sorry, Matt Slapzbiches, the Polish are once again the butt of someone’s joke.
Maybe Matt should read this article.
But, it’s just Facebook – not anything critical.
@Makrel: I beg to differ. In this day and age, employers regularly Google their prospective employees. Both having and keeping a clean online profile is a must, for several reasons:
First, there has been story after story after story of people losing their jobs because of what they’ve posted on Facebook or other online profiles. It should be painfully obvious to everyone that what you post is NOT going to remain private, regardless of whether or not it has a “friends-only” status. Friends sometimes re-post things, and sometimes a friend of a friend can get wind of something and then mention it to a co-worker, who mentions it to your boss, and there goes your job. If you’re going to post a photo or write a post, consider how it would affect you if you left that same post up on your monitor at work. If it wouldn’t be positive, don’t post it.
Second, when a potential employer Googles you (and they will), they may wonder why you don’t seem to have many results. That may signify to them that you’re a technophobe, or perhaps simply not very industrious. Neither quality is seen as positive in a prospective employee. Strike one. Perhaps they will ignore this, then ask you in an interview. What will you say? “I don’t like to waste time online” sounds great, until you realize that it sounds like an excuse. Then they wonder why you’re not willing to spend the time it takes to network, which is considered essential in today’s business world. Strike two. Speaking of which:
Third, there is NO BETTER WAY to find a new job, client or business partner than networking. Searching job postings and firing off resumes is all fine and good, but the BEST way to get your foot in the door is to know someone on the other side of it. For example, merely changing my status on LinkedIn to reflect that a 3-month contract was going to be ending in a month resulted in four different recruiters sending me job descriptions and asking me if I would be interested. If you don’t know this already, your employers do, and may also wonder why you haven’t figured it out. Strike three… and you’re out of the running for that position.
So, yeah: Facebook is kind of critical.
@Ezra Ekman: So, yeah: Facebook is kind of critical.
Meh. No it isn’t.
@Ezra Ekman: While a clean online profile is important, I don’t think it’s neccessary that it be extensive. Certainly not for a majority of fields.
If you have publications, clippings, or a portfolio, it’s much better to send them directly to your potential employer (or set up your own online archive, and send the link) rather than rely on whatever pops up in Google.
@Ezra Ekman:
First: That’s a matter of posting on a public space, not the inability to post.
Second: References, portfolios, resumes, anecdotes, and even html links are all things you can send directly as a soft copy or bring as a hard copy to interviews. Take the initiative, don’t rely on the employer to. Also, personal webspace is free in many forms; persistent webspace is incredibly cheap.
Third: Facebook is not necessary for networking. Simply call the people you know. Have the people you know call the people they know. Active networking always works, passive networking is unreliable.
“What’s that Lassie? An automated computer system has twice failed, stranding a hapless intarwebs user in an abandoned mine with only his job, car, computer, fast food, and Real Live Friends¬Æ? Oh noes! I’ll call Al Gore right away!!”
Long story short…
Too Late
Not that this isn’t an amusing story, but is lack of Facebook access what we’re describing as an “ordeal” these days?
Wow, our grandparents must be proud.
@Cupajo: Thanks, your helpful suggestion is sure to get the problem solved.
@nytmare: Well, I didn’t make a suggestion, but if you really want one that will, in fact, “get the problem solved” here’s one:
Get over it! Go outside! It’s just Facebook!
This brings up a related point — why isn’t there any way to back up the contents of your facebook profile? People these days spend hundreds of hours creating a profile on facebook…your list of friends, links, photos, etc.
THis is valuable data, at least based on the amount of time it took to create and the effort taken to maintain it…but there is no way to back it up.
Facebook ought to provide a way that users can “download” their profile in some standard xml format, as a backup.
This is a larger problem then just facebook — most “cloud” services suffer the same issue (backed up your gmail account lately?) but this may become a real consumer issue.
@kshusker: It just takes a little due dilligence on the user side to make sure everything is backed up. I have very little information online that has any relative value that isn’t backed up somewhere else.
I use IMAP to access my gmail, and my computer does an incremental backup of all my email accounts every night at midnight (IMAPsize). Facebook photos are on my computer (and all my photos are backed up every 3 months to an external drive), links and bookmarks are synced between 3 of my computers (Xmarks), and most of my important documents and work are hosted at the university where they are backed up nightly.
@kshusker: The reason Facebook won’t let you download your profile is because when you allow users to export information from your servers, you lose the ability to control them. Suddenly, someone can put together a new service – a better facebook, and offer to build in support for your downloaded facebook profile. Then facebook will lose customers.
If you know that your whole social life exists around one site, and it won’t be easy to transfer that life off the site, then you’re not likely to leave.
Ths scks, bt srry dn’t knw why ths s n Th Cnsmrst.
@FoxHoundADAM: Seconded. I mean, it would be different if this were a service the OP actually paid for (like adultfriendfinder.com).
@FoxHoundADAM: Are you talking about your comment?
You do know you don’t have to read every story Consumerist posts, right?
@Alexander Saites: You don’t have to read into the sarcasm in anyone’s post, right?
It’s subtle.
@FoxHoundADAM: Why is anything on the Internet? Why are we even here? What if we’re not really here? Oh man, what if we’re all someone’s dream and they’re about to wake up?
@squinko: Aaugh! I ate my pillow!
@squinko: Quick-find the blue pill! FIND THE BLUE PILL!!
“My” Facebook account went suddenly and inexplicably un-accessible about 6 months ago. Despite very many emails to Facebook (pretty much every imaginable address) I’ve received no attention from them at all.
So, I’m no longer on Facebook. Actually, it’s a relief.
(I put “my” in quotation marks because obviously it wasn’t mine enough for me to keep it, control it, or re-access it, and by now it isn’t ‘mine’ in any sense at all.)
change your IP and use a different name.
Note to editor: Article title says “Re-Basns Guy.” I think that should have been “Re-Basns Guy.”
@PsiCop: Woops. That’s what I get for pasting twice!
I have a friend on FB who is very prolific, and FB suddenly banned her from commenting on anyone else’s posts. She can post to her own wall as much as she likes, and she can comment on her own posts. But she can’t post to anyone else’s wall, or leave comments for them. She’s also the most inoffensive person I can imagine, so we can’t figure out what the deal is.
@Snakeophelia:
I’m going to wager that someone found her too prolific so they complained.
I just got posting privileges to walls and comments back after a 13 day suspension.
My internet went down for about 10 seconds while I was trying to make a comment, and I made the mistake of hitting the comment button 10-15 times not realizing the problem was on my end. Obviously the comment got through because my internet came back up halfway through, and the I got the warning that my rights were disabled for a few hours or a few days.
13 days later I got posting rights back and I never recieved an email from a CSR with an explanation as to why or what happened.
Facebook rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars, and they can’t afford any CSR’s? I sent off a lot of emails to a bunch of addresses for an explanation of what happened and I never received a response.
So, I’ve come out of this experience jaded against Facebook.
@Alpine75: There’s a real world out there – populated with real people who really talk and interact and do stuff. You might wanna try it…..
@KenComputerGuy: …says the guy typing away from behind a keyboard. Hello pot, meet kettle.
@Alpine75:
I don’t quite think they’re “raking in hundreds of millions of dollars”. The “property” may be worth that much, i.e., that’s what someone would buy facebook for, but all those are predicated on future earnings.
Oh, and I thought this was going to be something important.
So, out of curiosity, how come this took another month to hit the consumerist after he sent it in? Not a criticism, I actually am interested in why it takes x time for some things and y for others
@coren: First guess would be slow news day
@coren: Our workflow is not scientifically designed. Also, it’s reverse chronological. Sometimes we put something aside, then when there’s an interesting update to the situation it comes to our attention again, and we write about it.
I think the problem is probably that you (Facebook account owner) reported the account as compromised. They set the account back up for you — whereupon your “compromised” report probably came in and was processed. So they shut it down again. And since you were the last person to contact them about the account, they probably assume that YOU are the person who compromised it….
Best of luck getting it fixed, but I’m not optimistic.
Did anyone else notice it apparently took Consumerist a month to post this story?
I just signed up for Facebook because my sister and brother are on it and they both encouraged me to do so. I might not even keep it. My coworker tried to look for me and couldn’t find me because apparently, I’ve hidden myself. Still trying to figure it out.
I’m no technophobe; I just don’t really have anyone I want to find. Or to find me. Except maybe some college people.
THOSE IDIOTS!!! THEY’LL BLOW MY COVAH!!!
The lack of an auto-reply email probably doesn’t mean your request was filtered out. Outlook out of office assistant will send an auto-reply once per email address rather than once per email…probably something similar.
Can’t really offer advice on getting back on, but if you ever get reinstated CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD. Just because you didn’t see any offensive material after you rejoined doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Considering how incapable Facebook’s help desk has been in resolving your issue, we probably can’t trust the “your account was closed in error” story either.
I suppose one possibility is that they restored your access after the initial ban and then deactivated the account in response to your “my account has been compromised” email. Normally when an account is compromised it gets deactivated.
Well I don’t play any of the stupid games or responding to the things such as “how well do you know me” but every single one of my friends is a true friend. They are people I knew when I was younger and it is cool to reconnect with them but I will not add someone who was not a true to life friend that I shared common intrest with. I also don’t give out a lot of personal information. Facebook can be a great tool but a lot of people abuse it.
A database glitch caused my account to become inaccessible, and no amount of e-mails sent to anyone over the course of a month were even replied to. I have unspent Gift money in the account, too — that I loaded from a credit card! I don’t know what to do, but this is probably the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced.
Ahhh bureaucracy.
This is how their odd logic went:
Something triggered the ban, he sends in the email, it sits on the back burner, he sends in the form, email is finally read (may have jumped the line b/c of the form), someone reads the form he sent in, thinks he’s abusing the system / sending spam and blocks him from the server.
Looks like he’s going to have to call their customer service number (if they have one) or climb up the ladder until someone clues in to his plight.
Your social life revolves around Facebook? Yikes.
Kicked off of Facebook? Ok… so what’s the problem? Only those with less than 2 brain cells to rub together are Facebook fans. I mean come one folks! Facebook?
Who the hell cares?
Here’s my rant:
Hey everyone as most of you know, I am one of those people who had their accounts de-activated as Facebook calls it!! I was a hard target level 164 and most would bow to me. I had over 1300 mafia members.
Honestly, I almost quit Facebook altogether after this happened. I cannot even explain the loss I felt, because I had collected some friends I haven’t seen or heard from in many years. NOW I can’t even get to them or remember their info to re-add them. I can only hope we find one another again. Not to mention I had pictures of my kids, family and friends. I have them backed up, but FB was the place to share them with everyone.
CONTRARY to what most of you heard and what some people say, THERE IS NO REAL WARNINGS!!! In my case I had been Pinked Slipped by FB two times in 2 months, with the most recent being a week before I was de-activated!
After being Pink Slipped for the second time. I stopped adding friends to grow my mafia. I had laid low for a whole week and in the middle of playing Mafia Wars I was kicked to a FB log in screen. I couldn’t get back in and got some information which was VERY vague and was told my account was de-activated!
I have followed protocol in contacting both email addresses they provide with NO RESPONSE, now going on the second week! A copy of my email to them is below. I am very upset and disappointed with FB, because like a few others, I spent a couple of dollars on some GF points and now FB has blocked my access to a program, I feel I have paid to play. I mean $10 isn’t much, but hey, it’s my money and I should be able to play for what I pay or have another way to access MY MW without going thru FB.
A lot of people kind of “Laugh” at us who have had are accounts de-activated and say we deserved it, because we were warned! Hey, I know a lot of people on here who have been Pink Slipped 6-7 times and are still here?? I think I was doing good by taking a week break?
This has happened to literally thousands of FB users and most have NO clue WHY they were de-activated. There seems to be so many issues as to why FB just hits a little button and sends someone to never never land! And the worst is they don’t feel they need to provide an answer to us.
Appealing to them is a mixed bag of results, replies and ignorance. About 30% of the thousands of people who they do this too get some kind of response and about 17% get their accounts back.
I know this is a FREE service, but come on FB, your little antics like this is eventually going to turn people away from FB. I am only here because my girlfriend begged me and I had such a great group of people that I have befriended at [***].
Creating a Facebook account is not just dumb in the extreme, it’s a serious threat to your right to privacy, both now and in the future.
I steadfastly refuse to have anything to do with Facebook, and that hasn’t made my life any less enjoyable – quite the contrary, in fact; I sleep a lot better knowing I don’t have to worry about the possible consequences.
I got my account disabled and did everything I could think of to get it back. I eventually got it back, but I’m still not sure what tactic brought about my return (if any). I’ve written more about my adventures in my Blog
It appears to me that many of the reasons that people are being banned are in violation of Facebooks own policies. They have replaced the terms of use with the document on Rights and Responsibilities and the Governance Principles.
FaceBook appears to me to be completely ignoring these. According to these terms, your account can only be disabled for violation of terms in that agreement and that the agreement is the entirety of the agreement between the parties. Notice that the FAQ they point you too is not part of the agreement nor are the items they claims to be banning accounts for allowable under the current terms of service.
It also establishes that you cannot be penalized for using the services a lot. Guess what, many of the items on your list are not mentioned in the Rights and Responsibilities and therefore you cannot, in theory, be disabled for them.
To make matters worse, FaceBook has as one of its foundational principles the idea of Transparency in its processes. I think that we can all agree that they have failed in the extreme on this principle.
People seem to be accepting that their actions are in violation of the FaceBook principles when they do not appear to be. I would think that this would be an issue that FaceBook would be sensitive to considering their reason Terms fight. Apparently, they have not learned their lesson.
For those of you that are trying to run a business on FaceBook this does not seems to be a sustainable business model if you cannot trust that you or your principle clients will be around to transact business.