By
the time I got to know that my Facebook
account is hacked, I decided to reset my
password because this is the only thing every technical blog teaches you to
do. As soon as I opened my Facebook account, numerous promotional hit my face.
Shockingly, someone has used my credit card to pay and run the Facebook ads from
my account. I thought resetting the password will help, but I was wrong as the
scenario was much more serious than I imagined. I rush to contact Facebook
so that I can close all the ad accounts, but what happened next was even more
painful than the hack.
First
I tried to get rid of those spam ad-accounts on my own, but I was not able to
do so, even the Facebook support team denied by saying they
couldn’t delete them either, but was not
satisfied with their response, however, this hardly bothered them.
Facebook is not a novice in the market, it is one of the
foundation-stones of what we call social media nowadays. There are billions of users who rely upon FB
with their personal and financial details. But unfortunately, there are not
enough resources to deal with hacked or compromised accounts, all they can do
is to; reset their password. Nevertheless, no way is accessible to restore the
money or information they have lost after the hack. Facebook customer care is
not reliable in such cases and getting help from a live person over the phone
can only happen in your dreams.
No doubt, Facebook is expanding its territory in a graceful
manner, even though they are regularly hiring technical staff to improve the
services and range of features, but there is no effort that can be seen in the
field of customer service and that is highly disappointing.
Jillian
York, Director of International Director of International Freedom of
Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation recently said that “Generally
speaking, [Facebook’s customer service] is not very good,” So, it is evident not only
regular users by many big names of the market are pointing out the Facebook
customer service for not being expectedly remarkable. “If you know somebody at
the company or you know someone like me, who has access to people at the
company, it can be fairly easy,” she further added to her statement.
The next thing that Facebook need to be careful about is; scammer
disgust as Facebook. Scammers have created various helplines that act as a
Facebook support team and steal the information of users. The web is full of
such scams. Some of them are helpful and clearly state their third-party
status, but a large number of such helplines are looting the money of Facebook
users. This is all happening due to the poor accessibility to Facebook’s
technical support. You may remain stuck with the automated response for hours
and the frustration prompts you to find other helpful resources.
We all aware of the Facebook
help center, the only official web platform available to fetch help. Even,
the help center doesn’t offer you a direct way to reach a live person. Rather,
it keeps you tangled in the FAQs, chatbots, and forums – not real human Facebook
representative who can offer you personalized support is needed. And,
this is not expected from the world’s largest social media platform.
Here is a bitter truth that we all need to gulp; For Facebook,
we all are a product
to make money unless you are paid advertisers on Facebook. FB is more
compassionate with their advertiser as it wants to sell the stored information
for promotional activities. So, it is clear that FB is more interested in
making money from user’s information with targeted ads, instead of offering an
active support platform and ensuring customer satisfaction.
When it comes to customers, FB is not even properly supporting the advertiser if they stuck with a technical glitch and all that FB is focused upon to motivate advertisers to run more and more ads so that more money can be made. There are many cases in which advertiser has urged Fb to offer better support services. Recently, a FB advertiser stated his problem by saying that “I am using Facebook ads to promote his business in the local area, but recently my account was locked due to suspicious activity. He waited for the FB automated tool, to resolve the issue, but nothing helped. Then, he reached FB support via messenger through the account of his friend and then his account was unlocked. He tried to reach FB to understand the reason behind the lock but got no response. He stated that he was feeling trapped and lost in the world of FB.
Now, let’s see the statement made by Joseph Ridout, a spokesman with Consumer Action “Facebook is a company that’s infamous for its poor – and at times seemingly non-existent – customer service,” He added, “None of this [$5 billion] settlement appears to be dedicated toward improving that customer service or making the user interface more manageable for people who experience problems.” He also said “I wouldn’t say that they’re not capable of dealing with consumers’ privacy issues, I would say they’re more than capable of it, but they’re totally uninterested because it’s not a profitable activity,”
Coming back to my problem; I spent weeks in resolving the
matter, and every time I made an inquiry to FB, they responded in a dull
manner. I pleaded
them to delete the ad-accounts which were consistently sucking my money. After
a week or so, I had a word with an FB representative and he promised me to
delete all ad-account within a week. But nothing happened the entire week and even
after a week. I again contacted the FB support team, but a new representative
told me its fine to have those account because he couldn’t even understand that
I am a victim of hacking, he thought I am running the account intentionally. I
was so frustrated that I shouted on him and then he stated that no one can
delete the account as no one has the authority to do so. WOW!!!! I was so angry
that I wanted to sue them, but somehow I controlled my anger and cut the phone
line immediately.
I tried many other things but nothing helped. I got to know the
truth by the end that FB is lacking in the customer service and all it is
focused upon in making grants
from the stored information. FB is not even transparent and the internal system
is a mystery to a regular user. The victim of hacked accounts is not being
helped and thus they are depending upon third-party support which further plays
the scam-game with them.
York said that “I understand that they might be concerned about
being overloaded because they do these things so badly, but I think they really
need to invest in reasonable customer service. He said, “By choosing to keep
their systems free and how they exist right now, they’re making a statement
about how they don’t really have to help anyone.”
This was my experience with FB when my account got hacked, if
you had the same experience, raise your voice so that it can reach to Facebook
and FB improves its customer service that can actually help users and doesn’t
sprinkle salt on the burn.