Facebook is driving me freakin' nuts

[Magus]

Now, this may be old news, because it's been a few weeks since I tried to log on to Facebook, but it's driving me nuts. Now they want me to give them my phone number so they can send me an automated message verify that I only have one account on Facebook? Are they kidding me? For one thing, I probably have two, since I think I made one a long, long time ago, and then made a new one, but frankly it didn't even have my real name attached to it or my current email, and I never use it, so...yeah.

Also, they assume I have a mobile phone and number. I don't have a mobile phone number. I have a pay-as-you-go phone I use for the few emergency calls I make or the few job-related calls I make but since it charges me half a minute just to check or send text messages, I'm not going to make the mistake of giving Facebook the number since I'm sure they will probably, even if they only sent me "important" things, end up costing me lots of money.

I'm also assuming that this thing isn't going to work with with my land line if it's via a text message, nor would I ever want to give Facebook my land line phone number even if it was an actual automated recording to my house.

Does anybody know of a way around this, such as through email or some other method? Why is Facebook being so idiotic recently? I've heard complaint after complaint over the past year about their invasions of privacy, but didn't see much to worry about personally because I have very little on there for people to see in the first place, and keep it set to the strictest privacy settings, and only use it to look at one or two of my relatives' accounts. But now they're even getting to me with their inanity.

EDIT: Well, going through the Yahoo! Answers page (which is rife with complaints that Facebook isn't returning any emails or requests), I figured out how to send a question to their Privacy Policy department about how to get around this/why they are collecting people's cell phone numbers. Unfortunately, people have complained it has taken weeks to get a response, if they get one at all, so we'll see how it works out.

Here is to seeing my brother's Thanksgiving photos in January!

[Bells]

Honest question... why people like Facebook? I mean, aside from sending "twitter like" messages to a couple of friends, posting photos and using THOUSANDS of useless apps.... what's it for?

Of all the Social Networks ever, Orkut is the only one i got around to actually stick with it.

[synkr0nized]

...I've never given Facebook a telephone number of any kind. ??????


I got into FB because my account was in the process of being created by coworkers who were angry at me for refusing to join it. I figured if there was going to be an account out there for me, I may as well be the one in charge of it. Since then, it's been an easy way to see what folks have done in a day, if they made any updates. I don't use it for any of the apps/surveys/"games", but I guess that's a big draw to it for others.

I see Facebook as sort of Twitter without being as limited and egotistical, but that might not be true any more, what with there being so many similarities in how folks are using either.


I see LinkedIn as the better network for academic/professional aims, but I still haven't created my profile there...

[bluestarultor]

Yeah, you might want to check your apps. If any of them have control over your account, chances are something is trying to data-mine you.

Frankly, having any app on that thing is a pretty dumb idea, to be blunt. The games are all designed to addict you into a slavering shell, all of them collect information about you, and some of them constantly spam your friends' pages with annoying, well, spam. I'd suggest just wiping the lot of them and cutting your losses if you were gullible enough to spend real money on them.

[McTahr]

It's nice for organizational purposes. If I want to get a few friends together for a social get-together I don't have to shoot texts to a bunch of contacts and hope I don't forget someone.

And if I want to talk to friends who aren't big into instant messenger services like MSN or AIM without having to spam text on a phone keyboard, it's nice as well.

I have every single facebook game ever blocked from my shit, and I hide stupid people, and I haven't given it a lick of even vaguely important information, nor have I ever needed to or been asked to.

Like I can see not having a use for it, but the people who consider it the herald of sinful computing and morons really have no grounds as generally every complaint they make has no basis in reality.

[Fifthfiend]

Thread achievement: Convince Fifth to sign up for a myspace whatever it was we were talking about.

THE LAST PERSON HAS JOINED

INITIATE: PHASE THREE

[Tev]

Thread achievement: Convince Fifth to sign up for a myspace whatever it was we were talking about.

THE LAST PERSON HAS JOINED

INITIATE: PHASE THREE
I'm still not on Facebook.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Facebook is really useful if you travel a lot/have friends in stupid countries.

[Hanuman]

It's nice for organizational purposes.
It's good for people who have people to see, things to go to and connections to network.

[Magus]

I barely use Facebook, I don't use games and stuff, either, though I think I tried out two back when I started (they were pretty horrible so I didn't bother after that). According to what I can find on the internet, I think it's a new requirement imposed to try and get rid of people having multiple accounts. I don't really have anything on there myself, I just use it to look at literally two people's pages.

This is what it says when I log in:

1.
Step 1
Restore Account

Choose a verification method

To continue, we need you to provide your phone number. This quick security check helps keep Facebook a community of real people who connect and share using their real identities.

*
Receive a text message
*
Receive an automated phone call

When I click on "Why am I seeing this?" it says:

Why do I need to confirm my identity by providing my phone number?
This is a security measure that helps make sure that you’re a real per...
This is a security measure that helps make sure that you’re a real person with just one Facebook account.

To confirm your identity, all you need to do is to follow the on-site instructions to add your mobile phone number. As soon as we confirm who you are, you’ll be able to access your Facebook account again. We won’t contact you by phone without your permission.

Please note that If you have more than one Facebook account, this is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and your extra accounts will be disabled. When you choose which account you want to keep, please verify your identity using that account.

The thing is, why is there only one method of doing this? I don't have a cellphone.

EDIT:

Oh my dear God.

Please look at the way you verify it otherwise:

Confirm Your Identity - Gaming Accounts
Please provide the following information to help confirm that you're using your real name and have only one account.
Full name:
On your account
Date of birth:
Your login email address:
Upload an image of your government-issued photo ID:
You can upload a scanned image or a digital photo (.jpg, .jpeg, .tiff, .pdf, or .doc). Please black out sensitive personal information, such as your Social Security Number.
Please only submit this information once. We will email you as soon as we're able to verify your information.

See the part I put in Bold? I'll repeat what they want:

Upload an image of your government-issued photo ID:
You can upload a scanned image or a digital photo (.jpg, .jpeg, .tiff, .pdf, or .doc). Please black out sensitive personal information, such as your Social Security Number.

I'm pretty sure UPLOADING A SCANNED IMAGE OF MY DRIVER'S LICENSE TO THE INTERNET IS A LOT TO ASK, FACEBOOK.

So it's basically give them your phone number or REALLY compromise your privacy/security.

[Fifthfiend]

I'm still not on Facebook.

THE LAST PERSON WHO COUNTS HAS JOINED

[Magus]

Okay, here is a news story (http://ocunwired.ocregister.com/2010/11/16/facebook-deactivated-let-us-know/) on this "bug" that is causing them to demand people's photo ids:

UPDATE: This issue is sparking a provocative discussion so I’ve pulled that part off the bottom of this post and put it together with more information on another page to continue the discussion there. Should Facebook care more about its users?

An apparent Facebook bug in the system that detects fake accounts disables the account of otherwise normal users and demands that user provide a photo I.D. to reactivate the account.

That sounds like a tall order to get access back to your Facebook account.

My Facebook account was shut down a couple of weeks back after linking to information about Firesheep, but it didn’t get this bad.

Facebook’s statement:

Earlier today, we discovered a bug in a system designed to detect and disable likely fake accounts. The bug, which was live for a short period of time, caused a very small percentage of Facebook accounts to be mistakenly disabled. Upon discovering the bug, we immediately worked to resolve it. It’s now been fixed, and we’re in the process of reactivating and notifying the people who were affected.

When we detect that an account may be fake, we ask the owner to verify hisor her identity. In very rare cases where no other form of verification is possible, we may ask the account owner to verify by providing a valid ID. This bug caused people to be mistakenly asked to verify through this method. We’re automatically reactivating their accounts and notifying them of what happened.

Now, I have no idea if I am "mistakenly" being asked to verify my account or not. It seems like I am, since I'm not a bot (OR AM I?). Unfortunately, they haven't "fixed" mine. Hopefully they'll get back to me via email.

[bluestarultor]

So you're trying to re-activate? Have you been off the account for that long, or did you manually disable it?

At any rate, I'd just call in and hassle them personally on your land line.

Make sure you squeeze it out of them that they'll do it before you tell them you did anything "wrong," of course. No need admitting to anything you don't need to.

Basically, no, not everyone has a cell phone. Tell them that you don't and you need an alternate way of getting your account back. If they say they can't help you, hassle a manager and go up the line. Someone will help you eventually. No system in the world with programmers who didn't learn their stuff from bubble gum wrappers has only one means of doing something. At the very least, an admin can do it manually.

[Magus]

I haven't used in a week or two (probably since the November 16th bug thing occurred), but that's about it.

It would be difficult for me to admit to something I never did.

Also I have no idea what their phone number is, it's pretty difficult to figure out what their support email is as well, I think I got ahold of it but I might communicating with some other email address for all I know. I got a reply but it was automated, so I replied again (as the email asked me to do). Hopefully they can figure out something other than my using my photo ID.

Maybe I'll just go ahead and give them my landline number. I think it's ridiculous but I've given my landline number to say, Amazon. It's a far sight better than giving them a scanned Photo ID (despite their claims they will erase it immediately after verifying my identity).

I just don't see why Facebook thinks it is exempt from basically every privacy concern of pretty much every other website. No other website would ever ask anybody for a scanned photo of their driver's license.

EDIT: Also I think this may have been caused by the fact that back when I started the account this past summer, I think I listed my birthday as 1908 or something wacky like that, didn't know it was going to cause SECURITY LOCKDOWN PROCEDURES. That's seriously the only thing I can think of outside of this being caused by the bug I talked about in the other post (which is also pretty likely).

[pochercoaster]

Magus, it's likely that having two accounts caused the bug to pick up on your profile. Once I accidentally made myself two accounts and had to e-mail tech support to regain access to my profile. This was a few years ago, however, and they were very prompt replying to me.

Good luck with getting your account back!

[Hanuman]

I barely use Facebook, I don't use games and stuff, either, though I think I tried out two back when I started (they were pretty horrible so I didn't bother after that). According to what I can find on the internet, I think it's a new requirement imposed to try and get rid of people having multiple accounts. I don't really have anything on there myself, I just use it to look at literally two people's pages.

This is what it says when I log in:


When I click on "Why am I seeing this?" it says:



The thing is, why is there only one method of doing this? I don't have a cellphone.

EDIT:

Oh my dear God.

Please look at the way you verify it otherwise:



See the part I put in Bold? I'll repeat what they want:



I'm pretty sure UPLOADING A SCANNED IMAGE OF MY DRIVER'S LICENSE TO THE INTERNET IS A LOT TO ASK, FACEBOOK.

So it's basically give them your phone number or REALLY compromise your privacy/security.
Holy shit, yeah that's just freaking skynet.
If I didn't know how good facebook's legal team was I'd swear that was illegal to ask.

[Tev]

Holy shit, yeah that's just freaking skynet.
If I didn't know how good facebook's legal team was I'd swear that was illegal to ask.I request and make coppies of peoples' state and government issued IDs on a daily basis as part of my job. Granted I'm just selling people cable and such and don't work for a website, but this stuff does happen. Honestly, I'd just add it to the rather long list of reasons not to ever have a Facebook account.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Last time I had to do a facebook security thing (usually when I log in from a keeeeeeeeerrrrrrrraaaazy country) I just got shown photos of people on my friends list and had to identify them in a multiple choice quiz.
Tell facebook you live in a different country- problem solved.

[Magus]

Magus, it's likely that having two accounts caused the bug to pick up on your profile. Once I accidentally made myself two accounts and had to e-mail tech support to regain access to my profile. This was a few years ago, however, and they were very prompt replying to me.

Good luck with getting your account back!

Yeah but that other account was made a long time ago and I didn't use my real name or anything. In fact I think I made it on a public computer at a library, so they wouldn't even have my ISP number or anything like that.

I can see their concern if they could actually trace it to me but basically I only used it once and it has no connection to me or any of my email accounts. In fact I can't remember the password because I made one up on the fly (I wanted to see what all this Facebook stuff was without committing myself to it, since at the time it was basically said that if you put anything on Facebook somehow your employer would twist it in whatever way they could to have an excuse to fire you).

Really I think it is just that they are being ridiculous, but maybe they have super spies that can figure out that whatever dumb account name i had was mine (I think it was seriously like Zeus909098 or something, like I said I did it at the library).

EDIT:

@Tev: Crap Tev why the cable company need my ID? That's just crazy. Are they afraid I'm going to send my bill to someone else? All the other guy'd have to do is not pay it. I'd have to have his credit card number and HOPE he doesn't check his bank statement to catch me. But still, at least here there is money involved, see. Facebook doesn't cost anybody any money any where so who cares if somebody has two accounts? And if I hijack an account, the person I hijacked should complain about it. In this case, I'm me, and I never complained so...

@Smarty: I don't have any friends, though, just two. It'd be a really easy multiple choice quiz, I think.

ANOTHER EDIT:

Never mind, I looked through their thingamajig there and it says they cannot contact you without your permission other than this one call so I just decided to go ahead and do it. Like I've said, I've given Amazon for example my phone number.

I think it is more that they should have asked for it when I registered an account back when, instead of doing it like this. Then I would have known what I was in for.

In any case the phone number thing is certainly superior to giving them your photo ID. They gotta be crazy.

Really I'm not sure how the phone number even stops someone from making a fake account. You could just put in your number. Do they check the phone book? There's no registry of cell phone numbers. I could say I'm John Q. Public and put in a cellphone number and they wouldn't be able to tell I'm not him.

At best this would stop bots. Perhaps they should say that on their thing instead of saying it's to "determine I am who I say I am".

[Tev]

@Tev: Crap Tev why the cable company need my ID? That's just crazy. Are they afraid I'm going to send my bill to someone else? All the other guy'd have to do is not pay it. I'd have to have his credit card number and HOPE he doesn't check his bank statement to catch me. But still, at least here there is money involved, see. Facebook doesn't cost anybody any money any where so who cares if somebody has two accounts? And if I hijack an account, the person I hijacked should complain about it. In this case, I'm me, and I never complained so....Actually we're more worried about making sure that deadbeat losers don't try to setup cable service using their children's names and social security numbers to get past the credit checks and hide their previous bad debts with us. Note that doing this also destroys their child's credit rating before they are even old enough to walk, let alone try to use it to buy something of their own some day. So yeah, it's more a precautionary thing.

[synkr0nized]

I feel dumb. I didn't pick up initially that you meant your account wasn't accessible and thought you were just playing around with your options or accessing it from a different computer ['cause you often have to enter a name for the device/location you are connecting from if it's different than the IP you normally are at].

I have a friend whose account got deactivated. She was on the phone with Facebook and pestering them with emails daily until they turned her back on. For a while we could all see her status updates but nothing else once she got them to admit they turned the account off unnecessarily (but still claimed she might not be who she said she was), as if she like half existed.

I don't know what caused them to deactivate her, though; if I recall, she was complaining about a bug in FB itself.

[walkertexasdruid]

The only really good thing about facebook for me is that it is the best way to talk to my sister who lives in a different country with her husband and kids. I also get to see how the rest of my family is doing, as well as my friends from college. It can be annoying though.