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Ask HN: Facebook Account Disabled

2 points by OafTobark ↗ HN
Not sure if anyone has the answer but I had a bunch of emails from Facebook today asking whether or not I requested my password to be reseted. Of course I didn't.

Just to be sure, I decided to add my mobile number to my account to add two-step verification. As soon as I added my number and verified the PIN they texted, my account was disabled and they requested I upload a government ID to prove who I was and requested that I do a social verification with a bunch of random photos to verify my friends.

I'm confident I got 100% of the tagged photos right but it keeps going in an infinite loop even though I finish tagging everything correctly (5/5 each time). Eventually it said I exhausted all my verification, essentially getting me nowhere.

I took a picture and uploaded my ID but I'm curious how long this process actually takes and why my account would be flagged by adding my number (a number I previously had on my Facebook account before).

Anyone who works at Facebook or dealt with this knows? As of right now my entire account is disabled and even a friend looking me up can't access my page or anything. This also means I can't access messenger or anything else utilizing my FB login.

3 comments

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orionblastar
Facebook does this to people sometimes. They usually think you have a fictitious name or used someone else's identity.

Chances are that someone hacked your account as well if you had a password reset that you didn't make.

Trying to verify your friends is hard because some of them don't use their face in their profile pictures but use some other picture instead. Also some people add users that they don't know for the games and sharing gifts each day.

https://www.facebook.com/help/185747581553788

Reasons for disabling an account:

Continued prohibited behavior after receiving a warning or multiple warnings from Facebook

Unsolicited contact with others for the purpose of harassment, advertising, promoting, dating or other inappropriate conduct

Use of a fake name

Impersonation of a person or entity, or other misrepresentation of identity

Posting content that doesn't follow the Facebook Terms

Facebook doesn't even give you a warning sometimes. Chances are someone reported you for some violation.

OafTobark
I would agree if any of those applies but I almost never post anything. I post maybe a dozen times in a year on my FB, and everyone on my friends list should know who I am rather than report me (my feed shouldn't be public).

That said, whoever tried to reset my password didn't succeed as far as I know. My name is quite common so I doubt it comes off as a fake name. My account is old, so I can't imagine the reason being flagged for misrepresentation or impersonation, especially since I don't even proactively post stuff.

I use FB mainly to connect to chat on messenger, follow up on my news feed, and connect to some accounts that uses FB login. Nothing in recent memory other than adding my phone for two step verification could have possibly trigger this but could be something I am over looking.

At this point I just want to know how long this is going to continue. Thanks for the heads up though.

orionblastar
I can't say how long it will continue or if they will restore your account.

Facebook has no tech support phone number. So you can't call them and ask.

I have a real name that is shared with 300+ men in the USA. Have firstnamelastname at gmail.com and they give that address to people who write me instead. They forget the letters and numbers. They even try to reset my password and sign me up to different services. I use a different email for Facebook. If you have an email like that, possibly one of them claimed it was their email and Facebook account and tried a password reset and then filed a claim the account was hacked.