My Facebook account got hacked. I know, I was stupid to click on the link,
but it’s happened. Now, how do I get my account back? Every time, I try to sign
into my account, Facebook says I have to do this and submit that because my
account is suspended due to suspected fraud. They even request of my government
supplied ID which I do. But then, it’s just silence. A week later, I start the
whole process again. Is there no way to contact a Facebook rep behind that iron
curtain?
In this excerpt from
Answercast #55, I look at the difficulties in contacting support at
Facebook or any free online service.
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Is there a way to contact Facebook?
Ultimately, no.
Once again, like many other services, Facebook is a free service and as a
result, they have almost no direct customer support. In fact, they have
no direct customer support. There is nobody to talk to. There is
nobody to send email to. There is nobody to complain to.
Now, there are various and sundry contact pages with information, but you’ve
already found those. You are doing the steps that they are telling you to do.
The fact that nothing happens is… well, frustrating and common.
Recovering a Facebook account
Ultimately, from what I’ve seen, getting a Facebook account that’s been
hacked back is nigh on impossible.
My recommendation, my strong recommendation, is in fact that you move on.
Create yourself a new account. Re-upload your pictures or whatever.
I hope you’ve been backing up everything that you had placed in your old
Facebook account, because, of course, if it was only in your Facebook account,
it was only in one place and therefore, not backed up.
Start over
But my recommendation is essentially not a very pleasant one. That is,
simply to give up, or at least, only try the recovery efforts in the background
as you have time. But to move forward, create yourself a new account and learn
from the lessons that this hack taught you.
Next from Answercast 55 – Is
there a backup solution that will keep files I delete forever?
“They even request of my government supplied ID which I do.”
This sounds very suspicious. I wonder if he is not still infected.
I agree. I doubt he’s going to the real facebook.com
Why would Facebook need your government ID? What are they going to do with it? And which government? Do you think that Facebook can actually access the social security register of every country in the world so they can verify that you are you? There are privacy laws that prevent companies from doing that, at least in Canada.
A Google search turned up the following useful information, none of which include using a government ID number. One interesting option is using trusted friends to get you back into your account.
Oops, forgot the URL: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/recover-facebook-account-longer-log
@James,
That page is kindof a lot to read. Here’s the link directly to the page on Facebook about how to let friends help you recover your page:
http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=228169557197326
There is a video on youtube with instructions on how to get a “fake” telephone number and answering service. It actually a free service, you ‘pay’ by listening to advertisements before they play back your messages. So when facebook asks you to put in your mobile telephone number in order to ‘verify’ your account, you can get one of these ‘fake’ numbers and ask for the ‘code’ to be left on a voice message. It worked just fine for me when I was forced to ‘verify’.