Suspended from Facebook, what options?

[98elise]

My elderly mother uses Facebook to keep in touch with her grandchildren, and has a Portal for video calls with us and her other kids.

About a week ago she got a message that her account was locked because they may have been hacked. She managed to get logged back in, but yesterday her account was suspended for " not following community standards"

She has done nothing (she hardly posts) and Facebook won't tell her what was wrong. All she can do is click on a link to say she disagrees, and they will review it.

I started a chat session with them from her tablet and they basically say the same thing. They won't tell her what's wrong, and they may ban her permenantly from Facebook.

Has anyone else been through this and what are your options for finding out what the problem is?

She really doesn't need this stress at the moment as she's battling a serious illness.


Edited to add...

If a mod sees this can you edit the title to suspended. She hasn't been banned yet.

Edited by 98elise on Tuesday 2nd May 20:54

[the-norseman]

Start a new account with a different email, turns on 2FA and set it all up for her again, obviously she will need to add family members again.

[Scrump]

Title amended.
I had similar with my Facebook account last year. I never posted and only used it to follow links from the PH Facebook thread.

Every time I was suspended I asked for my account to be reviewed and access was reinstated. I now post on a few Facebook groups and the repeated suspensions have stopped.

[dundarach]

the-norseman said:

Start a new account with a different email, turns on 2FA and set it all up for her again, obviously she will need to add family members again.

This seems like a really quick and simple thing to do, this is the way to go.

[otolith]

dundarach said:

the-norseman said:

Start a new account with a different email, turns on 2FA and set it all up for her again, obviously she will need to add family members again.

This seems like a really quick and simple thing to do, this is the way to go.

This is problematic, though, in that creating a cloned account and trying to connect to friends is a common scam tactic, so if Facebook are driving people to do this they are making life easier for fraudsters.

[98elise]

Scrump said:

Title amended.
I had similar with my Facebook account last year. I never posted and only used it to follow links from the PH Facebook thread.

Every time I was suspended I asked for my account to be reviewed and access was reinstated. I now post on a few Facebook groups and the repeated suspensions have stopped.

Thanks for amending it. The problem is this seems to be rules violation suspension which has a guilty until proven innocent vibe. Its basically saying we won't tell you what you did, we may ban you, and there is no appeal.

[98elise]

the-norseman said:

Start a new account with a different email, turns on 2FA and set it all up for her again, obviously she will need to add family members again.

That's an option, but obviously complicates things with having a second email account.

Will they not spot that the Portal and tablet are being used on a suspiciously similar profile?

[dundarach]

98elise said:

the-norseman said:

Start a new account with a different email, turns on 2FA and set it all up for her again, obviously she will need to add family members again.

That's an option, but obviously complicates things with having a second email account.

Will they not spot that the Portal and tablet are being used on a suspiciously similar profile?

Use your photo to create the new profile or https://www.unrealperson.com/
Use her car reg @gmail.com for the email.
Change photo to photo of dog/cat/house/car

Has to be worth a try and quicker.

[OutInTheShed]

the-norseman said:

Start a new account with a different email, turns on 2FA and set it all up for her again, obviously she will need to add family members again.

If you rely on something, always keep a spare one!

[z4RRSchris]

happened to me, someone hacked my account and used it to set up loads of adds in thai, they then post child porn which automatically gets your account banned but the adds keep running. So you have a banned account, have no idea why, and cant stop the adds.

only way to get it back was via someone i knew at Meta. there is a staff route if they can vouch for you.

[98elise]

z4RRSchris said:

happened to me, someone hacked my account and used it to set up loads of adds in thai, they then post child porn which automatically gets your account banned but the adds keep running. So you have a banned account, have no idea why, and cant stop the adds.

only way to get it back was via someone i knew at Meta. there is a staff route if they can vouch for you.

I believe it's something similar because they initially emailed her about a potential.hack, then suspended her account. The only thing she posted recently was a congratulations message for someones wedding anniversary.

Hopefully they will see sense and enable her account.

[Terminator X]

Open another account? I left Facebook due to all the bots handing out suspended accounts due to words being used that were not allowed albeit not published anywhere as not allowed. Not missed it in the slightest

TX.

[otolith]

98elise said:

I believe it's something similar because they initially emailed her about a potential.hack, then suspended her account. The only thing she posted recently was a congratulations message for someones wedding anniversary.

Hopefully they will see sense and enable her account.

Possible that it was used to post banned content, which has now been deleted. Can she see her support inbox?

[98elise]

otolith said:

98elise said:

I believe it's something similar because they initially emailed her about a potential.hack, then suspended her account. The only thing she posted recently was a congratulations message for someones wedding anniversary.

Hopefully they will see sense and enable her account.

Possible that it was used to post banned content, which has now been deleted. Can she see her support inbox?

Yes a gather from some reading up the hackers set up some scam adds, then get the account frozen by posting banned content. The adds apparently stay live.

Fortunately they reactivated her accounts morning, and I went over, changed her password set up 2FA on it. I'm not a Facebook user I didn't do the initial account set up.

[oldskoolgent]

Portal also supports WhatsApp connections.
We use this to speak to my folks who do not have FaceBook

[98elise]

oldskoolgent said:

Portal also supports WhatsApp connections.
We use this to speak to my folks who do not have FaceBook

Good to know if it happens again. Hopefully with 2FA is far less likely.