My Facebook Fiasco

Elephantjournal.com

Earlier last month, I logged onto my Facebook account and was directed to a page that explained I wouldn't able to access my page until I downloaded a Government issued, picture ID.

HUH?!?!?!

I tried again several times, but it kept sending me to the same page. I even changed my password and jiggled the cable—my knowledge of computers is limited. After these failed (shockingly) to change the situation, I went into paranoia mode.

Had I been hacked? Had I been reported? Was someone pretending to be me and secretly posting bogus coupons?

I had no idea. There was nothing on my personal page or my Author page that would cause this to happen.

I must have been hacked!!!

My husband checked my account and all was well. No pictures of naked debauchery or extreme political slogans. And thank God, no links to Taylor Swift videos.

Still, I didn't like the idea of scanning my ID and just sending it away without more of an explanation—especially since my drivers licence looks like a kidnapped journalist being held for ransom.

No one I knew had ever had this issue, and when I searched on-line most of the comments were ranting 'down with Big Brother, I hate the governement'.

Hmm...there were no answers that would help me. The FAQ section of Facebook only said that because of security reasons they could not discuss my account until they could verify who I was.

Grrr...

After two weeks of not being able to post on my Author page, I finally caved. I took my drivers licence, covered up everything except my date of birth, scanned it, then uploaded (as instructed) by Facebook.

And then I waited. Would it take days? Weeks?

Holy cheese farts! Three hours later I received an e-mail from Gus, from Facebook.

Hi Bethany,

Thanks for verifying your identity.

After investigating this further, it looks like we suspended your account by mistake. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience. You should now be able to log in. If you have any issues getting back into your account, please let me know.

Thanks,

Gus
User Operations
Facebook

I sent Gus a reply thanking him and the Facebook team for such speedy service. Then I asked,

As an author who uses facebook to build my professional platform, this suspension was extremely frustrating. I'd like to know why my account was suspended. Is there anything I can do to prevent this mistake from happening again?

 
To which this was my reply,


Hi Bethany,

We review reports carefully in order to decide the appropriate course of action. If your profile is reported and doesn't violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, we will ignore the report. If we decide that something reported does violate our Standards, we may take action on your account.

Unfortunately, for technical and security reasons, we are unable to provide further details regarding this. We apologize for any inconvenience.

To learn more about our policies, review the Facebook Community Standards: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards.

Thanks,

Gus
User Operations
Facebook

I had in fact reviewed the Facebook Community Standards already when I was first trying to figure out why my account had been suspended...nothing applied to me.

I decided this was all the explanation I was going to get. My suspension wasn't due to an international identity theft ring, it was just a mistake.

How anticlimactic.

Hopefully this post will help someone else if they, like me, have done nothing to violate the "Community Standards" but find themselves faced with the quandary to send Government ID to Facebook.

In my case, my account was reinstated quickly. And as far as I know, no one is buying diamonds in Cuba under my name.
 

Although, I secretly wonder if Gus is doing an experiment to see how long it takes perfectly normal people to send away pieces of Government ID over the Internet.

Which category did I fall in Gus?