Facebook security lockout
April 9, 2017 7:19 PM   Subscribe

Last Tuesday facebook asked me to confirm my phone number by texting a security code, then they asked me for a photo to verify my identity (which I sent), all though the website, not email. Since then, whenever I try to log in I see: Thanks for sending your photo. We'll email you within 72 hours if it meets our requirements. Right now, your account has been disabled as a security precaution. It's been well over 72 hours and I haven't heard a peep out of them. How do I restore access to my account?

I've had the account since mid-February. It's my real name, contact info etc. I've got a handful of friends and have been posting family pictures. It's the most innocuous stuff I can imagine. I've searched through the help site and found a form to appeal having the account disabled, but apparently it doesn't apply here ( say's my account isn't disabled). I guess the security lock out is a different thing. I've checked my spam folder and see nothing. I'm still getting update notifications via email when friends change their pages, but when I log in it just shows me the text quoted above. I've tried clearing cookies, cache, using a different computer. I tried resetting my password via phone code, which worked, but even with the new password I still get the lockout message.

I can't find any avenue for further support and the help pages seem like a dead end. Do I just wait indefinitely?
posted by roue to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)
 
It's unlikely to help, but have you tried tweeting @facebook? Remember, Facebook doesn't care about you--they care about your value as an advertising income generator. You're more likely to land on their radar if you're talking about it in a public forum like twitter.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:31 PM on April 10, 2017


Years ago, my account got hacked by a Nigerian spammer and I lost access to it. I too expected something within 72 hours or the like. I think I hit about a week and just about ready to give it up for good when I got a reply and got back in. So all may not be lost yet.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 12:53 PM on April 10, 2017


It's an old question, but there might be something useful here
posted by dogmom at 4:46 PM on April 10, 2017


Response by poster: They ended up disabling my account with no explanation. At least that mean I could start the appeal process. I did that last week. Still to email or response. I expect they'll go another week of radio silence and tell it's their decision is final without offering any reason and that'll be that.
posted by roue at 5:10 AM on April 17, 2017


Response by poster: And then a month later it popped back into existence with no explanation or notification. Nothing like complete opacity to inspire confidence in a service, but I guess with a billion users they don't care so much.
posted by roue at 9:44 AM on May 10, 2017


Response by poster: And then about a week later they locked me out again with no explanation.
posted by roue at 3:40 PM on May 14, 2017


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