Over the weekend I did a FB post about a bill in South Carolina that is trying to get passed that would enact the death penalty in the event of an abortion. The last line of the post, I declared I am not proud to be a citizen of this country because in 2023, this is still a reality for women.
The next day when I tried to access my FB account, I was notified it had “timed out” and needed to log back in. No problem.
Except I could not log in because my account was hacked. Coincidence? Perhaps. Shitty? 100% Not because I hold my FB account in high value, but because the process to gain access back is not at all logical. Like, not at all.
My email associated with my account was changed, my email account was accessed and notifications from FB were turned off. When clicking “secure my account” (aka lock it down) any further messages need to be sent to an email. Since my original email is no longer valid, I had to submit an alternate. HOWEVER, when sending a new verification code despite my flagging my account and selecting “i do not have access to these (2 new) emails now associated with this account” FB sends the access code to ALL THREE accounts. The 2 the hackers set up and my new one. So when I go to the new email, get the code, enter the code into FB, i’m refused because “too many attempts were made” … geee…. how can that be, FB? You are keeping the fake accounts that caused the whole problem in the loop and still managing to keep me out.
When pushing further into the process, they want MORE information “to prove your Identity”. The ID they couldn’t manage to keep secure in the first place. Even after supplying the information, the bad email addresses are STILL lumped in with the most recent given. Even more frustrating, eventually I got a message that entering a new email would result in “all previous emails and phone numbers” deleted.
Spoiler: The old accounts were not deleted. All communication is still including the fraudulent addresses.
There has to be a better way, people. I am not a software engineer, but I am an adult with common sense.
I have been considering leaving my account inactive for a little while now. This seems an incredibly complicated way to dump Facebook, but they don’t give any option not to do this.
Looks like if anyone wants to know what’s happening in my life and stay in touch, they need to go Jurassic Era and use an actual phone number and intentional effort.
If you need me, i’ll be on an island called ‘Reality w/out FB’. So far it’s kinda nice.
Sarcasmica 