As if Facebook didn’t have enough to worry about, now it may have a growing customer service problem on its hands. Facebook members whose accounts have been disabled—some with good reason, some not—are increasingly frustrated with the company’s opaqueness when it comes to trying to figure out what they did wrong. They find that their accounts have been turned off and access to the site and all their data is denied, sometimes without so much as a warning. Facebook’s customer service reps, who can only be reached via e-mail and are understandably overstretched, are apparently not very responsive.
Since Facebook isn’t doing the best job talking to its customers, they are increasingly talking to each other. Distraught (former) customers are flocking elsewhere on the Web to gripe communally. One site for consumers to commiserate together called Satisfaction has seen a lot of discussion lately about Facebook’s account-disabling policies. Thor Muller, CEO of Satisfaction (you gotta love that title), tells us in an e-mail:
Satisfaction has been receiving a steady and significant stream of users whose accounts have been disabled without warning or explanation. Some of them may deserve it for mischief of one sort or another. Many others appear to be innocent victims of FB’s unknown and unaccountable flagging systems. In all cases FB maintains a presumption of guilt, and provides users virtually no means to appeal or get information about the presumed offense. The distrust fueled by Beacon is being mirrored in this policy that indicates a flagrant disregard by Facebook towards its users.
Users that are algorithmically flagged are given the runaround when trying to get even basic information about their situation. The lucky ones get their accounts back after a disconcerting and unknown period–but many never do. Considering that Facebook encourages people to revolve their lives around their accounts (it’s an email replacement! the only social graph you’ll ever need!) it is an incredibly traumatic event for each and every one of these people. People are freaking out because they can’t even login to download–let alone delete–the years of data they’ve accumulated.
I met with Facebook staff about this whole issue several weeks ago, and they gave me a line about how their systems were being stretched by the increased volume and they were making changes. But if anything the problem has increased in intensity since then.
There are many reasons why Facebook might disable your account, including not using your real name, posting offensive content, scraping the site, joining too many groups, sending too many messages, “poking” too many people, or sending the same message too many times. Many of these policies are aimed at spammers. Facebook does need to keep a lid on social spam or else it could drive people away. But it sounds like Facebook is erring on the aggressive side of enforcing its policies. Even Guy Kawasaki once had his account temporarily disabled for being too enthusiastic in his evangelism. (Some people just can’t help themselves).
After the break are excerpts from disabled Facebookees who feel wrongly accused, including a graduate student, a middle-aged man in Australia, and an overly-chatty woman. As far as I know, they all deserve Facebook banishment. Nevertheless, it is never good when angry customers start airing their complaints in public.
The lonely grad student studying abroad in Korea:
I was permanently banned from the site yesterday for adding friends in the area that I have relocated to in Seoul, South Korea. I am a graduate student at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea and do business consulting with major firms in Korea and actually an advocate for facebook but I have really been ill-treated by them. . . . It is just mind boggling that I have brought hundreds of people to facebook only to be banned. I am not soliciting or harassing anyone. But I have been banned for adding friends to my profile.
The Spam-Fighting Housewife Who Used the Enemies’ Tactics:
I was disabled sometime last night (Friday). I have emailed 3 times to disabled@facebook.com and once to appeals@facebook.com. My profile is gone. I checked my hubby’s profile and I’m no longer there. Does that mean that my account was deleted? I didn’t even get a warning.
I know what I did to get me disabled….I am very active on my networks’ wall…which is constantly being invaded by spammers…so we decided to take action and email the spammers the Terms of Use. I’m pretty sure that the spammers reported us for spamming (when I say “we”, it was a friend of mine and myself emailing the spammers and his profile is gone now too). I have stuff on my profile that I can never get back. Pictures and video of my kids that I was stupid enough not to back up. I’m so upset right now…as I was a little addicted to FB.
sad I’m sad
Still Waiting For A Response:
At least you guys are getting some sort of response. I’ve been waiting since Tuesday for some sort or response or action. Still nothing at all from Facebook. I’ve sent an email to each of those address. I haven’t even received an automated message, nothing at all. I haven’t even gotten a warning or anything from Facebook either. Just randomly I was disabled. I am very disappointed in all this, this is far from professional. I mean at least let me know you’ve gotten my emails.
The Clueless Australian Dad:
The same thing happened to me over the weekend. I hadn’t recieved any warning about anything on Facebook ever, very rarely posted messages, was only a member of one group, used my full real name, email and birthdate, had a photo of myself with my son in my profile and haven’t to my knowledge offended anybody on FB in any way, shape or form. Then on Sunday morning (Australian time) I try to log in and get the message that I’ve been ‘disabled by an administrator’. I feel like I’ve been pronounced guilty without even being told the charge. I honestly don’t get it.
The distraught chatterbox (stop poking me!):
Hi all, my FB account has been disabled on Saturday, I got warnings to slow down with the messages, but I WASN’T SPAMMING, JUST REPLYING TO MY FRENDS, and it was never THE SAME MESSAGE!
Then suddenly without warning I just found it impossible to log in, my friend sent me sms asking “What happened to your Facebook account, u deleted it?” I got so nervous as now I’m away from home and on Facebook i was keeping in touch with my friends back homeNow they don’t even know what happened to me, did i delete them, just disappeared or ???
Anyway I’ve sent email to disabled@facebook.com and this morning I got reply:
“Hi Margherita,Your account has been disabled for misuse of the site. It is a violation of Facebook´s Terms of Use to harass users on the site, whether through unsolicited messages, friend requests, pokes or other features. We will not be able to reactivate your account for any reason. This decision is final.
Thanks for your understanding,
Bella
Customer Support Representative
Facebook”
so I wrote them again explaining everything, asking for my account back and promising I will slow down and not send as many msgs and what happens??? I get exactly the same answer, like the email was just generated, like no one even read what I had to say about it!!!!!
Now i sent another email on info@facebook.com and appeals@facebook.com…
What else can I do? Did I really do something so wrong to be disabled??
The Angry Nudist and His Guitar-Playing Friend:
Ok.. I am now officially MAD at facebook.
They replied to the email sent to appeals@facebook.com
here:Hi Peymon, After reviewing your situation, we have determined that you violated our Terms of Use. Please note that nudity, drug use, or other graphic content is not allowed on the site. Additionally, we do not allow users to send threatening, sexually explicit, or harassing messages. Unsolicited messages will also not be tolerated. We will not be able to reactivate your account for any reason. This decision is final.
Thanks for your understanding,
Bella
Customer Support Representative“Thanks for your understanding” GRRRR no i dont understand you. ahhhhh HOW DID THEY COMEUP WITH NUDITY??? DRUG USE? GRAPHIC CONTENT?? I HARDLY EVER EVEN USED MY FACEBOOK! I HARDLY EVER MESSAGED PEOPLE!
sad I’m confused#
Greggot the same exact e-mail as peymon above. as a working musician who uses facebook to network, I honestly don’t know what to do. I was in the middle of booking a gig for january and it seems i am royally hosed. it’s one thing if i was a high school kid with a myspace page, but this is affecting my ability to make a living. i am not happy.
Finally, there is this poor college kid whose social life is now ruined. Help out Teeem:
I love facebook
I want my FACEBOOK LIFE Back. This is rediculous. I have been banned from commenting and posting on walls. I have done nothing wrong. I LOVE FACEBOOK. I am lonely, suffering from depression, and a husband who is laid off from work, trying to reconnect with long time family and friends. This relieves my stress, and helps my depression. Please help.
Laurie A Harper Downing
Danville, IL
how dumb, account disabled for not using your real name which not many people do and joining too many groups, isn’t the whole point of facebook to socialize. this is really bad for facebook and continues to add to the negative publicty basket they have. especially not even warning users before they disable their account.
boring.
Facebook is an overhyped company. Give it a rest. They need to grow up and “poke” some maturity.
“Nevertheless, it is never good when angry customers start airing their complaints in public.” You got it wrong Eric. It is *always* good.
The interesting thing about this is that it reminds people that their social networking account is (drum roll) NOT THEIRS. You see the same thing on LinkedIn, and I’m sure every social network has some kind of list of things you can do wrong that will get you disciplined (kicked off, or denied access to certain parts of the site).
People that rely on social network sites to do business, promote services, offerings, find employees, etc. are there for a certain reason, and it usually has dollar signs attached (in other words, for example, I’m not there to hook up and date, I’m there to support my business efforts).
Any violation of their ToS can get me kicked out. I think too many don’t realize that. Is it fair? Not necessarily … you say “opaqueness” (great term for describing this situation) but still, it’s their ball, they can take it home with them whenever they want.
I would hope that as these sites mature the policies are more inline with how they should be but I don’t see any evidence of that (referring to LinkedIn’s “5 IDK’s and you’re out!” rule).
Makes you walk a little more cautiously, if you want to play.
Jason Alba
CEO – JibberJobber.com
Author – I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???
Co-author – I’m on Facebook — Now What??? (coming Q1 ‘08)
If you are frustrated with Facebook yuo should try this siteww.moli.com. It rocks.
Interesting stuff. Sad that people are so attached to their accounts though.
It’s not a matter of attachment. It’s a matter of being blindsided with having your account disabled for unspecified reasons. This happened to me and quite honestly if I had any warning whatsoever I would have gotten the actual contact information of everyone I had been in touch with from my childhood. A lot of my friends are not on myspace because it is less private. Trust me, if it had happened to you, it would have upset you too.
I agree, it’s not so much attachement, but there are a number of good friends who I would have lost contact otherwise if it weren’t for Facebook. I started college so it’s been a good way to keep up with friends across the country or even half the world away. In addition, I have very valuable pictures on my profile (vacations, graduation, prom, etc.) and I wouldn’t like to lose all that. My account was disabled today, and I have no idea why.
My experience with Facebook is complete lack of communication when they disable your account without warning. This is damaging in more ways than just an inconvenience – especially to those (like myself) that put trust in the Facebook platform as a business networking tool.
As an independent business owner myself I respectfully request a meeting with the owner to address this issue on behalf of myself & the many loyal Facebook users that are in the same boat I am
below is episode 2 / day 6 of this Facebook disabled account saga:
http://tinyurl.com/q4roc6
I met with Facebook staff about this whole issue several weeks ago, and they gave me a line about how their systems were being stretched by the increased volume and they were making changes.
OK, so to deal with the increased volume and stretched systems, obviously the first step was to release Beacon?
I’ve had my account disabled three times. Twice, without warning; however, on the third time, a warning came up saying, “If you continue to…something something” and then they disabled anyway.
The thing is that fb has a GREAT anti-spam system; however, they don’t just flag it – they shut down your entire account. In each case, mine came back online in 2-3 days “after review” and with a slap on the hand.
Someone above does make a great point, though –> facebook is perhaps the only site on the net right now that is tied to a users true identity (and can’t be replicated with another identity). So once you’re gone from there, it’s pretty hard to get back into the Harvard 2008 group, for instance.
Who did you contact? What did you do? I have the same problem.
i was creating one group every day for the month of may. At around te 15th I got a warning message and a really detailed explanation of my potential violation.
Its the same with Google – break the guidelines and your site drops out of the Index.
Is this nail in the coffin # 2? As a reminder # 1 was Beacon.
Again, let me remind you. If you are shut off from Facebook and they are completely unresponsive who the hell is going spend days upon days trying to get their account reinstated? Answer: Kids with no buying power between the ages of 18 to 22. The loyalty factor in this age group is ZERO. In other words what’s the flavor of the month.
Here’s the Facebook Charter:
1) Please join one of the worlds biggest Social Networks
2) Now, that you’ve joined we are going to condition you to see the world as we see it. Yes, that is correct. We are going to blast you with lots of noise aka advertising and keep you in line by shutting off accounts that we feel threaten our livelihood.
Facebook will fall out of favor! They are a closed network with a police mentality.
I keep checking TechCrunch for the breaking news that the kid Zuckerberg has been replaced at the CEO helm. It’s coming!!!! There’s to much to lose for the investors that put in the $300M.
Facebook also has another problem – yesterday or last night all app invites were some how deleted and they don’t think they can recover them. It hasn’t effected my application much but others have been hit hard.
Facebook is making a lot of mistakes lately , therefore i don’t write anything about it anymore “how great it is”
Is anyone else absolutely SICK of hearing about Facebook?!?! I think as bloggers we should agree to not talk about them for just one week… TC, you can consider it a welcome holiday gift to all of us!!!!
You people are all insane. I’ll just say that. Facebook isn’t going away. They are in the media so much because there’s not anyone else doing things as novel and edge-pushing as they are. It’s the companies that aren’t in the news for mistakes that the ones that have nails in their coffins.
I had my account deleted rightfully, after creating a fake celebrity profile for (academic research reasons) and then blogging about the experience.
The problem?
My real account was disabled, and the fake one survived.
Took about a week of emailing back and forth with a FB support representative, including sending them a scan of an official form of identification, before FB acknowledged my existence and my account was enabled again.
(the fake account is still out there, with a gazillion friends, but a new fake name)
hi Shari can you please help in to this…what is this scan of an official form of identification ???….
my facebook accound is also disabled and im freak alot
i sent mail to disabled@facebook.com
but nothing:(:(:(:( im from grecce and my english they dont help me enough…thanks!
Can someone please build a backup app for facebook? I know fb doesn’t let you query users’ phone numbers and email addresses, but if a friend signed up for FBackup (hypothetical), I’d gladly ship mine over to them if the app maker guaranteed security, thus completing my facebook address book. That being said, I have ui flows if somebody wants to act on this.
holla,
shane112@gmail.com
It seems to me that Facebook takes itself way too seriously.
@17 Dan B
Aside from facebook hitting critical mass please enlighten us to how they are different from Myspace, Hi5…….
DanB@17: You’re right, they aren’t going away. Have you checked out Friendster lately? They’re still around, too!
Hey Michael there is fresh meat for you.
A popular tech newspaper is now claiming how networking sites like Facebook can ruin your career.
http://www.tech...com/archives/83
Just as long as they don’t mess wth my “Big Foot” group……
Prince Purple…in truth, if you’re asking that, you’ll never get it, but the main point is that it boils down to this:
a) People for the most part use true and accurate identity data on facebook.
b) Building up a central identity on facebook takes time, and once it’s created, it can’t be easily done again (not so on other networks)
c) Facebook is building out the 2nd Internet, starting with users (whereas the 1st internet started out with content).
d
I have had similar experiences with their ad support. I was attempting to pay them money, and my ad was refused for capitalizing too many words. Not all caps, but just the first letter as I had a lot a proper names. That in itself was understandable, but the fact that I had to send two follow up emails to find out the reason the ad was disapproved was discouraging. The average response time for each email was over 24 hours.
I’m getting pretty tired of hearing all the whining and crying about accounts getting deleted. To put any confusion to rest, Facebook accounts that have the following characteristics are being deleted, or have the potential to be deleted:
- If you are using your Facebook account for spam in any way
- If you are engaging in sexually explicit communication on Facebook
- If you opt out of Beacon
- If you use Google
- If you are friends with Robert Scoble or anyone at ReadWriteWeb
- If you profile picture isn’t hot
http://www.fakezuck.com
Facebook is fine.
Im on MOLI to, they dont disable accounts like Facebook – try it out
Apparently not, Moli just disables the whole site from its users -so thoughtful, you think moli users???
Multi-Milliomaire, Christos Cotsakos,of Mainstream Holdings, SUCKS BIG TIME !!! His parent company over moli.com gained users to social networks with features designed for small- to medium-size businesses , entrepreneurs, as well as mainstream users concerned about the security of their information. It WAS a one stop do it all site.
It has a strong financial and transactional underpinning, including e-commerce capabilities. The company thinks this will appeal to SMBs looking for a better Web presence and online revenue opportunities. Users, without warning, can NOW no longer access their accounts -Thanks Jenn !
“We were able to build out as a global company from day one, not for a quick ROI but to build a sustainable brand,” Cotsakos told InternetNews.com. but how strong is it when it can not even KEEP it’s doors open to users _most will likely become x-users for a costly breach of trust.
“It’s a lifestyle management tool,” Judy Balint, president and chief operating officer of moli.com told InternetNews.com. and Cotsakos, himself, had once said, “There are all kinds of lifestyle issues as you grow out of the existing social networks and want to have a more professional presence and monetize what you do.” Yet, it isn’t professionally happening at all, is it, Cotsakos???
IDC analyst Rachel Happe told InternetNews.com she was impressed by a lot of Moli’s strategy but was concerned the company might be trying to do too much out the gate. Apparently so, since the gates are closed and appear to be so permanently without apology.
And now Yahoo has posted that Geocities are closing its gates too! Only goes to prove if you want a page to remain an active domain, Create your own Sites rather than joining other’s sites!
Right now I have the pleasure of being able to access and use both forms, but I take no “join-in my site” too seriously for reasons such as these.
If you visit website posted here, you will see some sites I have joined & I would not count on any eggs hatching from any of the baskets for they are merely entertainment for me. Yet, if I were to gamble one a site, other than EBAY, it would be YouTube due to promotional advantage.
It’s funny how they have no problem asking for your hotmail or yahoo password so that can send facebook “invites” to all your friends on mass, but send too many messages and without warning your kicked off.
Maybe I don’t “get” facebook, but what information of value would you have on there that you would need to retrieve anyway? You upload pictures, where are those? Did you delete them after you uploaded them to facebook? You add your friends, can you not remember their names? I suppose that I would lose some contact information but that is easy enough to find outside of any social network that I wouldn’t worry about it. I do agree that facebook and other social networks should make profile exporting a standard feature, but aside from a few comments on a wall, what are you really loosing?
Like I said, I guess I just don’t “get” it.
The fact that they disable accounts at all is a good indicator that they’re running out of innovative solutions to every day problems.
I mean, really, how ancient is the technique of banning someone from a social service?
There are plenty of other alternatives based around temporarily disabling privileges.
Someone sending too many messages?
Disable their ability to send messages for the next X hours / days, and tell them why you did it, and when the ban will be *automatically* lifted.
They can still log in, check their messages, and do everything else they’d normally do except send messages.
There. Easy. Problem *SOLVED*.
But no, everyone’s gotta do it the hard way…
I liked your comment very much.
the same thing happened to me !
I wish u worked for them
niko
my answers to these people are:
Bebo, MySpace, Multiply, … the list goes on …
There are so many alternatives out there.
Yeap, my visionary is correct.
Google and Facebook wars is going to happen next year. They about to trigger Mega Internet WorldWar I. Facebook is beginning to banned these guys too. http://www.goog...rate/execs.html
Google motto is “Don’t be evil”. Google wants to banned Facebook Links too. http://www.goog...earch&hl=en
I wonder how Marissa Mayer feel about Facebook Foe, and “Alexender the Great” Effect. If Google need to overkill facebook’s religion. Google should create its own operating system.
Can you at least write an Web 3.0 Operating system and connect Bell Lab’s Plan 9?
Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin. They are my favorite idols. Not Because of technology or creation monster. They took business very seriously. They hire people and create economy.
Some day, I want to meet them podium and introduce my product. I want to show them what I can do. My visionary, flowing blood, and DNA says Jerry Yang hates me.
Learn to write English properly, not like Tarzan. Zuckerberg has made no profit yet
Satisfaction CEO (and my co-founder) Thor just posted some additional thoughts about the issue on our blog:
http://blog.get...parency-stupid/
I want to be friendly Adult and trying to avoid conflict of interest. How do you get an enemy to stop hating you?
What do you do?
Do you continue built a great product and tell him to shut up?
or
Don’t look at his eyes…
It never ceases to amuse me that people would rather spam their blog in the comment section than use the miracle of trackbacks.
Thanks for bringing attention to this issue….
You should also look at http://www.wordpress.com. Similar to facebook issue noted above, wordpress deletes accounts and content without notice, and does not respond to enquiries.
These childish like actions by these do-gooders is nothing more than arrogance.
Just can’t satisfy everybody!
sheesh
I’m starting to think I should remove “FaceCrunch” from my feeds list. Everyday, visit TechCrunch for your ever so boring Facebook news… who cares!
1. Buy a domain name
2. Buy a hosting account
3. Download freeware social network script
4. Start your own social network for you and your friends
5. Never get booted, deleted, banned, etc.
Yeah… once I created a funny south park character with a machine gun and a cigar and put it as my facebook profile pic. The next day the picture had automatically been removed and my previous picture showed up as my profile pic. I found it weird.
I deleted my facebook account two weeks ago myself… I don’t have the kind of time to keep it up – and seeing these other problems (similar to one I once had with Myspace about a year ago) I’m glad now that I didn’t invest any time and effort into it.
Good Riddance!
Isn’t what they’re doing the same as the purges in Stalinist Russia, where people were turned into “non-persons” and their images were airbrushed out of official photos?
maybe they hired jonathan abrams as head of customer service?
People never read terms of service, and when there is an issue, they act upset and frustrated as if a bad man took their favorite toy away. It’s not their site, Facebook can do whatever the heck they want, and I totally support it. I don’t know what’s more pathetic – living your life around a website or bitching about lost access all over the web. Get a life off the web for starters.
like any business, if you’re not completely devoted to the customer, you’re toast.
If they are banning innocent people from Facebook then there must be a logical explanation.
I believe it’s identity theft.
A very common occurrence these days.
With all those personal details exposed on the facebook web site, it would not be difficult for someone to monkey with your account and get you banned.
A disgruntled former (or existing) employee of Facebook may have access to the usernames and passwords list.
There are animals out there that get their jollies by spoiling it for everyone else. e.g. grafitti scribblers, virus writers, property vandals, spammers.
This must be just another example.
Facebook should take a long hard look at their security set-up and make sure they are banning only when it’s proven to be the account holder’s fault.
Interestingly facebook email address for disabled account is also not accepting mails and bouncing back email sent to this address with the following error
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem
Date: Dec 9, 2007 11:09 AM
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
To: 8290766@gmail.com
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
disabled@facebook.com.
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 550 No such domain at this
location (disabled@facebook.com.)
—– Original message —–
Received: by 10.82.148.7 with SMTP id v7mr5080981bud.1197180570124;
Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:09:30 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.82.139.13 with HTTP; Sat, 8 Dec 2007 22:09:30 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 11:09:30 +0500
From: “Mohammad Hassan Qureshi”
To: disabled@facebook.com.
Subject: Please activate my account
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
I am surprised using facebook more often other then orkut or anyother
social networking website and you guys just disabled my account…why?
first you blocked me by adding friends, poke, and now disabled me
completely… please activate it asap.
thanks
hassan
To Facebook User Operations,
I am writing to express my concern about Facebook disabling the account of Marcus ‘Token’ Gordon (black_messiah@o2.co.uk) for no reason. Facebook is supposed to be a social site and it defeats the purpose of the service when the accounts of popular and active users are randomly disabled, thus cutting them off from their network of contacts and destroying irrevocably what they have spent months and/or years building up here: photo albums, notes, groups, personal updates via facebook mobile and all the information of a personal nature stored in the mailbox, etc.
Please give Marcus his account back asap as he has done nothing wrong and a great number of people miss him.
Please see also the Facebook group to reinstate Marcus’ account