Monday, January 16, 2012

Being Held Hostage to Facebook! How to Protect Yourself!

Facebook has been making use of their site nearly impossible for several months now, so I finally signed two official petitions and filed a consumer complaint against Facebook (FB) yesterday, Jan. 15, 2012. Today when I logged in to FB, it was to find that FB has LOCKED ME OUT of my FB account using bogus falsified malware reasons. My computer has anti-virus/malware/etc programs running continuously, but to be on the safe side I ran them twice this morning, with ZERO infections of ANY kind found. Obviously FB has invented a false reason to lock me out of my account as a reaction to my legitimate complaints against FB yesterday. Now, with this screen capture of today's escalation on FB's part, I have proof that FB is targeting its users & victimizing them illegally.


Several days ago I chose an option to download my FB account, but on trying to access it to do the download (since they send you a link instead of doing the actual download when one requests it), they are blocking me from downloading my own FB account now--using same blocked message as above image shows. Otherwise I was ready to give up, download my account & delete it from FB because it has become more effort to use FB than it is worth, and these days I spend nearly all my time on Google Plus, where these issues are NOT a problem, and if access to G+ execs is needed, they are accessible! FB has never been able to claim accessibility for any kind of problem resolution, which was the primary complaint yesterday. Obviously that FB issue was nothing compared to being locked out of one's FB account for Facebook's falsified reasons. Now my complaint has escalated into the legal arena, for FB can NOT justify its actions and several of us who signed the petition & filed complaints yesterday are getting the EXACT SAME lock out of FB & supposed malware "reason". Speaking of malware, that seems to be FB personified, since there are more phishers, hackers & scammers on FB itself, it seems absurd for FB to try & use an excuse of malware to block any account.

A few facts to know about FB, that I'd posted in a blog a couple months ago, in full, so will only skim a few here:

* For individual FB users, there is a limit TOTAL of friends, likes, interests & AD CLICKS of 5000! AD clicks count in your total limit, yet FB advertisers are paying for potential ad clicks they can not get because users are penalized for clicking like on any ad!
* Go into your likes (if you are not on timeline--see below for that issue--you can still access likes) & edit out ALL AD clicks to restore some freedom to your FB profile likes again (when you are blocked from adding new likes because you reached the limit).
* Do NOT switch to Timeline--one can NOT switch back! Your likes are no longer accessible to edit from timeline view either, so once you reach that limit, you are permanently blocked from adding any new likes or friends or clicking any advertisement likes!
* In Timeline view, any friend can add to your timeline without your explicit permission, as well as add derogatory content, spam, photos, etc. Also, in order to delete old or private content you no longer want included, one must delete each item individually, so if you've been on FB a year or more, or like me, been extremely active on FB, this can take WEEKS to delete all old or any public items one no longer wants displayed on one's FB profile.
* There is NO human support available, nor any way of contacting FB directly about any problem or issue experienced using FB, nor are any reported issues in the forums ever overseen by any one from FB to correct the issues people are reporting there. For this very reason, the only option was to create a petition to try & garner FB attention to the ongoing, continuous problems that are NOT being addressed by FB at all. One's best bet is to start a group on the issue or shared problem, or create a petition, or hire an attorney if one has the money & time to go that route, or has suffered serious losses & harm from FB actions.


I will update this post with any resolution or other FB action regarding these issues. Meanwhile below are some links that may help for filing complaints, finding forms, signing petitions and contacting FB.

First, this is just one of the petitions I signed yesterday; feel free to sign it yourself as well.
http://www.change.org/petitions/facebook-stop-blocking-people-for-adding-friends-that-are-not-friends

Their so-called Help area has these options for blocked accounts:
http://www.facebook.com/help/blockedordisabled

Facebook Consumer Complaints:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/dating_services/facebook.html

Facebook Directory of Contact Forms:
http://www.marismith.com/how-contact-facebook-directory-of-forms/

General Complaints article & resources:
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/business/2011/sep/11/tdmony01-consumer-reports-new-ways-to-complain-ar-1298215/

Anyone interested in G+, sign up here: https://plus.google.com

1-16-2012
Gina Jordan


UPDATE 1-17-2012: Day Two of FB Lock Out same excuse screen capture:

1 comment:

  1. Please share this to FB, I'm unable to with either account, both have now been blocked because I tried accessing FB from different account, and this time the pop-up block message did NOT give me access to the screen capture tool on my browser to capture the proof. Sigh...glad I got the 1st one at least.

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