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Ask HN: How can a non-techie mom regain access to her FB account?
I’m a mom of two young daughters and I have used my Facebook account mostly for work, and to communicate with my family, some of whom are now deceased. I have never pushed or broken Facebook’s rules or uploaded obscene images.
On Monday my account was suspended because someone broke into my account and uploaded prohibited images and then also used my associated bank card to make a fraudulent purchase of £200.
I had 2FA enabled so I have no idea how someone managed to access my account. I am not a techie.
My bank has refunded the £200.
Facebook won’t even tell me what I am supposed to have done nor will they unsuspend my account.
The most I have got is that 27 of my posts go against the community standards on nudity or sexual activity - which is nonsense because I am just a mom using FB to connect with family and friends. I am not a porn star and I don’t upload such images.
I am so upset because I have so many memories on the account with my Grandma and Grandad (both deceased), photos and videos of my two young daughters growing up, as well as many others.
I sent my ID to FB and have not heard anything more. I feel scared that I have sent my ID to someone that has somehow hacked my account, used my bank card, and now knows more about me than before.
I feel violated because of this and now Facebook won’t even listen to me.
I am sure that a human at Facebook would be able to look and see that I didn’t do this. If they checked the IP addresses used if they just used common sense to see what has happened.
Please, I am desperate, does anyone have any advice on what I can do next?
- schappim 5y agoA loophole folks have found to get "human support" from Facebook/Meta is to purchase an Oculus Quest. [1] I hope this helps! [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609603/facebook-account-hacked-access-oculus-quest https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609603/facebook-account-...
- cube00 5y agoIf you only do the bear minimum such as opening the box to get the support phone number you may even be able to get the account unlocked without taking any of the seals off or opening the packaging too much so you'd be able to resell it as near new and get most of your money back.
- Karellen 5y ago* bare minimum
- netizen-936824 5y agoIf they only need a phone number, isn't this number post somewhere on the internet by another person who bought an oculus?
- cube00 5y agoI'm not sure they do, they might also ask for a serial number. I'm assuming you can't get too far in the setup process without a working Facebook account so you shouldn't need to go too far into the setup to access that support.
- joshxyz 5y agoCrazy how we're gaming the system just to find humans in the system, haha.
- xtiansimon 5y agoLife hack
- Flankk 5y agoHow did you first find out that your account was suspended? Did you provide your bank card to Facebook to verify your account? What are the verbatim messages you have received from Facebook?
- lsjfd 5y agoI opened FB and it said my account was suspended for violating community guidelines, and was given the option to "Disagree". I disagreed and was prompted to upload a photo of my ID, which I did. That was all on Mon 13th Dec. Since then whenever I log into my FB account, it says: "...you disagreed with the decision ON 13 DECEMBER 2021 It usually takes us just over a day to review your information. Your account is not visible to people on Facebook and you can't use it." And whenever I log out of my FB account, it says: "This account will be disabled in X days Are you sure that you want to log out? You only have X days left to request a review. After that, your account will be permanently disabled." Even though I've already disagreed with the decision and asked for a review. There's no other option for me to choose another review.
- bencollier49 5y agoDid you discover the £200 purchase separately? (I'm speculating that the deliberate upload of prohibited material was to get you locked out of your account so you couldn't reverse the purchase from inside FB).
- MerelyMortal 5y agoInteresting, could the purchase have been made through Facebook marketplace?
- Flankk 5y agoThe reason I ask is because Facebook phishing attacks are common. I am confused how an attacker was able to steal money from you when you have two-factor authentication enabled. In any case, if your account ends up being disabled there will be a link to download your information. Good luck.
- cube00 5y agoIf you do get back in don't forget to go to Settings > Your Facebook Data and get a copy of all your data out in case this happens again. While you're at it look at your other services such as your Google account and save your data out of them using their "Takeout" service as well. Facebook is not the only service that locks accounts with no appeal, human contact or legitimate reasons.
- ekianjo 5y agoI hope you find help here. I am also interested to know how a non techie Mom fou d HN in the first place :-)
- signal11 5y agoI was wondering that too, but the problem does resonate with me, because something similar happened to me as well and I’m reasonably technical :) My Facebook account was protected with 2FA and wasn’t compromised — no shady posts etc. In fact I don’t use Facebook much at all, only logging in occasionally because a local sports group uses it to coordinate. It was, however, flagged and access denied. The way out was to provide government-issued ID to Facebook to get it unlocked. I suspect it was reported as “not a real person” for some reason. I did spend some time wondering if it was even worthwhile keeping my Facebook account — even after they unlocked the account I’m not sure. Anyway - it’s just a cautionary tale, don’t get too attached to anything on a site you don’t control.
- bencollier49 5y agoHow long did it take them to process your ID and give you access back?
- signal11 5y agoAccess was restored when I checked the next day.
- shaan7 5y agoYeah sometimes I dread the day gmail blocks access for some reason and I never hear back. Pretty much everything is connected to one's primary email address.
- iforgotpassword 5y agoThat's my personal nightmare. There's way too much stuff still connected to my Gmail account.
- elias94 5y ago
- dan-robertson 5y agoWhat the fuck kind of a comment is this?
- burning_hamster 5y agoFrom the HN guidelines: > Be kind. Don't be snarky.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mobilio 5y agoProbably your computer have an backdoor. So hackers steals your cookies to avoid 2FA and upload them on some other computer (different IP). It's not your fault! 2FA just doesn't works as most users expect. Few months ago this was discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28745097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28745097 Try to explain that was hacked account.
- beardyw 5y agoThis makes me so angry. Nobody imposes a duty to care on Facebook (and others), so they don't. Using an online service is like walking on ice, but most people think it is solid ground. I hope you get some resolution.
- Nextgrid 5y agoSince you used pounds as the currency I will assume you are in the UK, if so the GDPR applies and you might be in luck in terms of recovering your data. If you see an option to download your data on the "account suspended" page, use it, or try to access the feature directly: https://www.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 https://www.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 That should at least give you an export of all the media uploaded by the account. If you can't, it might be worth getting in touch with the ICO or a pro-privacy non-profit such as Open Rights Group (https://www.openrightsgroup.org https://www.openrightsgroup.org) or NOYB (https://noyb.eu/en https://noyb.eu/en) and ask for advice on how to do a subject access request to manually get your data back, and on top of that why not request a manual review of your account suspension (the GDPR mandates that a data subject has the right to request a review of any automated decision).
- Radim 5y agoSeconded on NOYB. These guys are amazing! They punch way above their weight in protecting citizens and suing bad actors [0] (actual lawyers) Did you know NOYB stands for "none-of-your-business"? [0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/22/facebooks-lead-eu-privacy-supervisor-hit-with-corruption-complaint https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/22/facebooks-lead-eu-privacy-...
- wizzwizz4 5y agoIn my experience, Facebook ignores GDPR requires coming from the UK… not that you can really submit one if your account is suspended. The more reports the ICO gets, the bigger the chance that they'll do something about it.
- schleck8 5y agoIf you have a desktop device, you should check whether there is a browser hijacker or a different form of malware, that would not be surprising. On Windows you can use one of the following On Demand Scanners. They are all free and don't change anything about your system configuratiom (portable) - HitmanPro https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/hitmanpro https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/hitmanpro - Kaspersky VRT https://www.kaspersky.de/downloads/thank-you/free-virus-removal-tool https://www.kaspersky.de/downloads/thank-you/free-virus-remo... - Norton PowerEraser https://support.norton.com/sp/static/external/tools/npe.html https://support.norton.com/sp/static/external/tools/npe.html - ADWCleaner https://malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner/ https://malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner/ - Emsisoft Emergency Kit (this one will prompt you to pick a folder which it copies the files to, nothing is installed) https://www.emsisoft.com/en/home/emergencykit/ https://www.emsisoft.com/en/home/emergencykit/
- mkdirp 5y agoUnfortunately I do not have an answer for you, but I do have some suggestions for you. > I had 2FA enabled so I have no idea how someone managed to access my account. I am not a techie. What kind of 2FA had you set up? If it's text messaging, this is trivial to bypass, however, if it was TOTP using an authenticator method then this seems suspicious. Please double check your email isn't compromised. My guess is they may have reset the 2FA method either via text messages or via email. Also follow the advise in the other comments regarding backdoors and/or extensions/addons that hijack your browser. > I sent my ID to FB and have not heard anything more. I feel scared that I have sent my ID to someone that has somehow hacked my account, used my bank card, and now knows more about me than before. Some years ago when I had to do this, it was a manual process, and so it took a few days, which may be the reason why you haven't heard anything back. Double check where you sent your ID. For example, if you sent it by email, check who you sent it to, if you uploaded it on a website, check that the website you uploaded it to is indeed facebook.com etc (also, check that it isn't an iframe by right-clicking on the see if there is any options about frames or iframes). Having said that, the process could have changed and it may be that it is automated now. Lastly, and this may be far fetched, but try emailing Mark Zuckerberg's office at zuck@fb.com and zuckerberg@fb.com (send it to both addresses). These CEO emails often get directed to a team that can deal with things. Though, I'm not sure if this is the same with Facebook considering you're not a customer. I wish you the best and hope you regain access. If/when you do regain access, I suggest you download a copy of your information[0]. This way you won't lose all those precious memories in the future if you happen to lose access again. [0] https://www.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 https://www.facebook.com/help/212802592074644
- NhanH 5y agoSince this thread is hot, I'd like to add a similar request as well: My mom has her FB account suspended 2 years ago for unknown reason, in fact we never really got a "suspended account" status. We just couldn't login, 2FA doesn't work (SMS message never came), then her account profile disappeared and become "Facebook user". We started the process of unblocking the account by uploading Government ID, but after we uploaded the photos (her photos, passport's photo, her with passport etc... ), FB just stopped responding to us altogether. The account has something close to 10 years of photo, without any backup, so any help would really really be appreciated. My email is human@nhanho.me Edit: At the time, someone was trying to impersonating her. We found a new account copying her profile pictures and "About" section that was created on the same day. Somehow the impostor was also able to logged her out of her account and turned it into a weird state where you can't login.
- NhanH 5y agoFun tidbit: in an attempt to remove 2FA so that we can login, I signed up a new account and associated her phone number with the new account in hope of removing it from the previous account. The method did infact remove the number, then we got a 2FA form on her account with a grand total of ZERO choice (an empty selection list on the popup). Note that her facebook profile was disabled to me before I try this, so I don't think this was the reason for the suspension. And another thing that I still couldn't explain to this day: on the day of her losing access to the account, she received a garbage SMS which looks like Chinese, but it wasn't -- I asked a Chinese speaker, they said it read garbage. After copying it and changing encoding (from/to UTF-8/UTF-16 something, I can't remember the detail), turned out it was a 2FA sms text from FB. I have no idea how her phone turned it into garbage text.
- koenbok 5y agoWhen I was at fb they had an internal email address called oops where you could forward issues like these. So maybe you can ask a friendly employee if that's still the case, and if they can help.
- jquast 5y agoWhy not you? How could she know someone at Facebook? Why would you think this is helpful advice? You surely behave like an ex-FB employee
- romanhn 5y agoNo need to be rude. From what I recall, the Oops system originally allowed any employee to request action on behalf of anyone, but they changed the policy not too long ago that you can only request help for people you know personally and are vouching for. The team behind it simply does not have the resources to help everyone, which yes, absolutely sucks for people impacted (I'm in a similar boat with a longtime Google account).
- MrDunham 5y agoSo… this will be a useless answer for most and incredibly helpful for a few. The best solution is to know, or befriend, someone who works at Facebook (you’re in the right forum to meet people). The short: FB has an internal team dedicated to helping friends of employees fix account issues and they work very quickly. I know, and have personally used, this service a few times and it’s super useful. (Sadly I don’t work for the company so I’m not helpful here.) So if you know a FB/Meta employee, contact them about the “oops” team. If you don’t know anyone, there’s a chance someone here could help (it is extra work for them and they’re putting their reputation on the line so think about how you can show/prove you’re a good actor.) I’m going to guess that this isn’t helpful to your situation right now but perhaps you can use this info to find someone who can help. Good luck!
- adamrezich 5y agoa friend of mine is a security guard at Facebook and I asked her if she knew how to unlock my years-ago hacked account and she told me tons of people ask her the same thing and that there's nothing that can be done about it. perhaps it's different if it's a developer instead?
- bdavisx 5y agoA physical security guard (as opposed to someone in Facebook security)? I wouldn't expect a security guard to know much besides physical security protocols. They wouldn't be privy to anything around user accounts.
- adamrezich 5y agoyes, but I thought she'd know someone who'd know someone or something like that. I was just slightly amused that I wasn't the first person to ask.
- mysterydip 5y agoTo me the most interesting part about this is the fact they know their platform causes enough issues without sufficient means of remedy as to need a dedicated team for their own people. If they had to eat their own dogfood instead, things would get fixed.
- sirius87 5y agoJust a hunch, but did you have Facebook installed on an Android device? There's a nasty malware going around infecting older versions of Android (that don't receive security updates). It takes over your Facebook account, posts malicious links and spam to all your friends. Phone is sluggish as hell, but works. Check if any of your friends have received malicious messages and links from your Facebook account. The malware even manages to disable Google Play Protect. It's detected by Malwarebytes, but it returns after a restart.
- lsjfd 5y agoNo, not installed on an Android device.
- sirius87 5y agoAny random apps promising "vouchers" or "coupon codes" installed on your phone? Do you have an Android device? https://blog.zimperium.com/flytrap-android-malware-compromises-thousands-of-facebook-accounts/ https://blog.zimperium.com/flytrap-android-malware-compromis... EDIT: I hope you get your account back. Maybe if you're able to pinpoint that some malware took over your account, facebook support would be more sympathetic? I sure hope they have some process in place for accounts that fall prey to these malicious apps.
- lsjfd 5y agoI don't have an Android device at all.
- pluc 5y agoSince when is this a Facebook support line? This account was created 6 days ago with the specific intention of getting Facebook support.
- andybak 5y agoAssuming questions like this don't swamp everything else my reply is: a) It's sometimes justs nice to help people b) This question will probably prompt some interesting discussions about topics that are core to HN.
- pluc 5y agoI'm not disagreeing, but trying to turn this forum into a support line is a little selfish. Complete with the "aww but I'm a mommy" and "I talk to dead people" and oh hey maybe one of you hacker types might work at Facebook per chance? please. You know who doesn't get help from HN for Facebook problems? EVERYONE ELSE
- criddell 5y agoYou sound kind of bitter. Just because we can't help everybody doesn't mean we shouldn't help anybody. This person posted, it gained traction which means the community here is interested.
- pluc 5y agoThink about what this place would be if more people would use it like OP does. Why help OP and not <random person who posted for help but never got answers>? Why not help everyone who asks for help? This isn't Stack Overflow.
- andybak 5y agoCan I hear the distant sound of Marley's Ghost rattling his chains? Merry Xmas. :-)
- 5y ago
- deepstack 5y agoMy condolences. Hope you get the account back. After that, please do not use facebook as custodian for you photos, post and data. Please remember FB is NOT be trusted with anything.
- JKCalhoun 5y agoAgree. It's like life's experiences are trying to send a message: if the service can't be relied upon, you should not make it such a critical piece of your lifestyle. (Sorry to be that cynic.)
- xyst 5y agoyet another reason to move off of Facebook entirely; and to have a backup of everything.
- tenebrisalietum 5y agoI'm just going to say it. There isn't a lot you can do. Not to be harsh but Facebook doesn't care that you're a mom, have two or ten daughters, what you've used it for, etc. This is a well known issue with tech giants, and because they give away their services for free in exchange for advertisements, you don't have a lot of recourse when trying to get other parties to help you on this. > I am so upset because I have so many memories on the account with my Grandma and Grandad (both deceased), photos and videos of my two young daughters growing up, as well as many others. Very big mistake. Facebook is not a government or public-owned entity, they are a private company. This doesn't help you get anything back, but in the future NEVER have the only copy of anything important on a single service. You should have a computer or USB drive (you can get them for iPhones) and store your important photos and pictures on it. At the very least make sure your important photos, pictures, etc. are on another non-Facebook service like Google Drive. There's a lot of talk about what Facebook should do and other sympathizing/emotionalizing on this thread, but none of that is going to make Facebook do anything different. - Factory reset your home router and update the password on it to a secure one. Get your ISP or a tech-savvy friend to help you with this. - Work with someone tech-savvy to save the data on your home PC if you use one and reinstall the operating system. If your PC had any malware spying on you this will take care of it. - It wouldn't be too bad to treat this like an identity theft situation. Update every password to every account you use - email, banks, etc. It's a good time to go through any online services you use and disable/delete accounts you don't use. - Prepare for the possibility you may not get access to this account again. If someone else you know has access to your profile you should be able to download pictures and videos from that account from a computer. - If work requires you to have a Facebook account, the only thing you can really do is try to make another one. Do this from a work computer if you can. - If you primarily used Facebook to talk with family, try to get everyone on an alternate platform, such as Whatsapp or Telegram. I would also start collecting more direct methods of contact such as phone numbers and email addresses and make sure your phone contacts are up to date. Facebook can't take these away from you.
- edoceo 5y ago> alternate platform, such as Whatsapp Doesn't FB/Meta own WhatsApp?
- pawelwentpawel 5y agoHey everyone, just piggybacking on this thread with an Instagram problem - maybe someone has a suggestion or a similar issue. My account has been deactivated suddenly and I lost a lot of information that I had on Instagram - private messages, pictures and people that I followed. I've been trying to recover it for months. I suspect that Facebook most probably is still keeping this data, I just can't get access to it. While this has been a wonderfully liberating event, I'd like to get access to my data. Does anyone know where to request data (I'm in Europe so GDPR) even if the account is deactivated and I cannot login? If the only way to do this is to know someone at Facebook it's a bit silly.
- josh_fyi 5y agoA relative's account was hijacked. Her name was replaced with another name, but the photos and friends list etc remained. I reported it, and FB deleted it. She created a new FB account. The moral of the story is to backup Facebook, and never rely on it for anything that you don't mind using.
- RegBarclay 5y agoThis happened to my daughter. I got a notification that she'd changed her profile picture and it was changed to text that looked Arabic to me. Between the time I said something to my wife about it and my wife pulling up Facebook on her phone, the account was locked and disappeared. HERE'S THE SOLUTION: Purchase an Oculus device. Do not open it. It's a Facebook product and requires a Facebook account to use it. Oculus tech support has humans and inside channels to resurrect Facebook accounts that have been left in limbo by the dumb Facebook automated support. Once you get your account back, return the Oculus device for a refund. You have to act fairly quickly because the suspended Facebook accounts are permanently deleted and become completely unrecoverable after around 30 days.
- edoceo 5y agoThis is most concrete example of "if it's stupid but works, it's not stupid"
- vmception 5y agoits stupid you have to take the circuitous route at all, which is what people mean by saying its stupid
- jcmontx 5y agoThis is genius. It even feels kinda hacky.
- RegBarclay 5y agoI'm no genius. Just good search engine skills. Geek dad jumped in an started looking for answers and found reports where others had done this.
- arbitrage 5y agoThanks, Dad!
- Nextgrid 5y ago
- kerneloftruth 5y agoSincerely: regard it as a blessing, and embrace being free of Facebook. There are indeed alternatives to communicating with others.
- bijant 5y agoFirst to get this out of the way: I fully sympathize and hope some hn user with privileges at facebook can escalate this to the appropriate people to quickly get it resolved. This isn’t the first post of this kind. What is new however is, that non-techies are signing up for hn accounts to get things resolved. I don’t blame CrzyLngPwd for advising her to post here, I probably would be giving the same advice if a relative was involved. People working at FAANG‘s don’t log in to hn to fix their companies processes by performing ad-hoc tech support and they shouldn’t have to. We should all (whether FAANG or not) lobby management within our organizations to ensure that proper appeals processes are in place. It is in the interest of the employees as well as the company. Because while it was fine to have no appeals available when „The Internet“ was a fun hobby for a select few, it is decidedly not fine, when millions of livelihoods depend on the whims of automated appeals processes. You can bet your RSUs that governments will step-in sooner or later and institute tedious (and perhaps inappropriate) procedures set in (regulatory) stone, if the industry doesn’t manage to self regulate in an effective way. You don’t know when it’s coming, maybe the golf buddy of an influential Senator gets banned on Facebook without any recourse or the Wife of a Member of the European Parliament loses access to her Google Account and we might see this issue regulated out of existence. I‘d much rather the industry takes initiative now and solves this Problem on it‘s own. It costs some money but it’s not Rocket Science | Brain Surgery.
- alberto-m 5y agoIn Germany any website is required to have a contact e-mail with a human at the other side. I used to see this as an example of German overregulation, but I changed my mind when I could use it to recover my account at a big social network. In any other nation I would have lost my account for good.
- ecf 5y ago> I am not a techie What’s a techie?