Removal of a Facebook page of unknown provenance...
October 9, 2013 6:01 PM   Subscribe

How do I remove or find the administrator of a Facebook page for a client's business, when they don't know which of their ex-employees set it up and no-one responds to in-page messages?

A client has an outdated Facebook page for their company. They can post to this page via a Hootsuite account that was given access ages ago. They can't change the logo or main picture or do anything else with the account. Trying to change any other Facebook settings in Hootsuite brings up an 'authenticate your Facebook login' window, for which we have no login.

They have no idea who set the page up, or who any admins are.

They have used the in-page 'Message' button and sent a message to whoever is the admin: "Hello, if you receive this message please email us!" but have had no response.

They have contacted all likely page-setter-uppers but have no positive replies.

They want either to wrestle control back of this page, or to delete it and set up a new one. They only have a dozen followers so whichever is easier is good for them.

Facebook's reporting mechanism is an absolute rat's nest and I have no idea how to negotiate it. There's a 'report imposter' option, but only for people:

https://www.facebook.com/help/www/174210519303259

I can report the pages as spam, but I imagine that will just get lost in the noise of Facebook - do they have spam-report thresholds before an auto-suspend or a human looks at a page?

Any help really appreciated!
posted by anonymous to Computers & Internet (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Facebook has a page called Claiming a Page for Your Business that may help.
posted by mikeh at 6:07 PM on October 9, 2013 [3 favorites]


With only a dozen followers I'd just start over with a completely fresh page. Publicize it, drive traffic to it, gain lots of followers,etc and your customers will easily realize which page is the right one. Since they can still post to this page, they can also repeatedly post messages directing people to the correct page.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:13 PM on October 9, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yep, what mikeh pulled up is what you need. We looked into doing this for my last job (students had set up a super unflattering page, we needed to get it removed) but the amount of paperwork was too much for us so I can't say how well it worked.

Once you prove your business, you'll still have to create a new page (the old page in theory gets merged into the new one--but again I haven't done this myself so no guarantees) so your client might as well get started with a new page and work on the Facebook process in the meantime.
posted by librarylis at 6:22 PM on October 9, 2013


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