Any leads for dealing with Facebook lockout hell?
October 11, 2019 9:37 AM Subscribe
I'm caught in the Facebook Lockout paradox, with a software bug thrown in for good measure. PLEASE HELP ME OBI-WAN
So right before I went to sleep last night, I tried to log into Facebook on my iPad via the Safari browser, and was alerted that someone might have been trying to tamper with my account. I was asked for my mobile phone # to receive a six digit code. Being one of the few remaining humans without a mobile phone, I remembered that I have a little-used Google Voice account, and that it does indeed receive SMS texts. I plugged that number into FB, it accepted it, and asked me to supply a scan of a form of official ID. Not thrilled, but I took a picture of my drivers license, and uploaded it. I could see the picture displayed in the FB dialog, so I know it got there, but pressing the "continue" button simply reloads the same page with the uploaded preview of my license, which is totally clear and legible. I tried recreating the process in their dedicated mobile app, and on my desktop machine, exact same results - I can indeed see that it's got my ID scan, but I cannot progress beyond that point.
Upon doing an online search, I discovered that there's basically no way to actually reach anyone at Facebook without going through their page, but unless you're logged in, there's no way to contact their tech support, no external email address that I can send a query to. There is also no way to even get to a switchboard at their Menlo Park headquarters.
I'm deeply frustrated, and hoping that there might be - on a very off chance - a Mefite who is also a Facebook employee who could give me a clue how to proceed. Pretty please, I'll trade some cool Photoshop lessons for an answer.
So right before I went to sleep last night, I tried to log into Facebook on my iPad via the Safari browser, and was alerted that someone might have been trying to tamper with my account. I was asked for my mobile phone # to receive a six digit code. Being one of the few remaining humans without a mobile phone, I remembered that I have a little-used Google Voice account, and that it does indeed receive SMS texts. I plugged that number into FB, it accepted it, and asked me to supply a scan of a form of official ID. Not thrilled, but I took a picture of my drivers license, and uploaded it. I could see the picture displayed in the FB dialog, so I know it got there, but pressing the "continue" button simply reloads the same page with the uploaded preview of my license, which is totally clear and legible. I tried recreating the process in their dedicated mobile app, and on my desktop machine, exact same results - I can indeed see that it's got my ID scan, but I cannot progress beyond that point.
Upon doing an online search, I discovered that there's basically no way to actually reach anyone at Facebook without going through their page, but unless you're logged in, there's no way to contact their tech support, no external email address that I can send a query to. There is also no way to even get to a switchboard at their Menlo Park headquarters.
I'm deeply frustrated, and hoping that there might be - on a very off chance - a Mefite who is also a Facebook employee who could give me a clue how to proceed. Pretty please, I'll trade some cool Photoshop lessons for an answer.
Response by poster: spinifex23, I just tried uploading the picture of my license to that page, it let me complete the upload, but when I tried to send it, it's telling me my account is NOT disabled, which is just bizarre!
posted by dbiedny at 10:38 AM on October 11, 2019
posted by dbiedny at 10:38 AM on October 11, 2019
If you’re uploading it as a jpg, you could try uploading it as a png instead (example cite).
(Suggestion found in a few different results when I googled facebook stuck uploading id - seems to be a reasonably fruitful search string if that doesn’t work and you want to browse for other answers).
posted by penguin pie at 11:26 AM on October 11, 2019
(Suggestion found in a few different results when I googled facebook stuck uploading id - seems to be a reasonably fruitful search string if that doesn’t work and you want to browse for other answers).
posted by penguin pie at 11:26 AM on October 11, 2019
Ah just realised that’s for uploading an actual photo of yourself rather than official ID, but sounds like a similar glitch so might be worth a shot.
posted by penguin pie at 11:28 AM on October 11, 2019
posted by penguin pie at 11:28 AM on October 11, 2019
Response by poster: Penguin Pie - I had tried that earlier, getting the file size below a megabyte and uploading as a PNG, same result, not working.
posted by dbiedny at 12:04 PM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by dbiedny at 12:04 PM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by spinifex23 at 10:29 AM on October 11, 2019 [1 favorite]