Got new phone number and Facebook banned me? ⋆ Flowing Firm

The whole Facebook banned me – saga began with changing my old Finnish phone number to a new Thai number on Facebook. I didn’t want to pay to a Finnish phone operator around $8 per month for nothing. That’s why I canceled the old number. Facebook first accepted the modification without problems. But then, when we kept moving from country to another, the problems started.

Like you, the followers of FlowingFirm.com, very well know we traveled from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Da Nang, Vietnam on 8th of December 2016. What I didn’t take notice at that time was I couldn’t use the Thai prepaid number abroad. Of course, that should be obvious to take into account. There were just too many other important matters to think about.

Should I get a Vietnamese sim card in addition of Thai prepaid?

“This user account is not eligible for this process.”

When I tried to login into Facebook in Da Nang, Central Vietnam, they obviously wanted to confirm it is me who want to use their service. The only way you can confirm your account these days is to ask them to send a security code, drumroll, to your phone. In order to get that code, you must have a working telephone subscription. Okay, at this point you have noticed that I don’t have working sim card because my Thai prepaid plan doesn’t allow it to be used in other countries than Thailand.

Ok, I just go and get a Vietnamese prepaid sim card and voila – problem solved.

Not so easily! In order to change your number in Facebook, you first have to log in to your account. If you want to get into your account, you have to receive a security code. How am I able to do that? Hey, there’s a button under to login fields saying “This phase is difficult.” I just click that and explain my situation. There must be some easy way to do that. Furthermore, you can find only some general questions answered there.

Found a solution to Facebook banned me – question

You can ask Facebook to change your password if you forget it. When you click it, Facebook wants to know how to contact you. Instead of asking them to send you the link to change the password via phone, you can request to get it by email. Then after changing the password, you will choose that what of the previous methods to contact still apply in your case. In there you can add your new phone number. I added my wife’s Finnish phone number this time since we had access to it worldwide. Everything should be fine after that.

As a matter of fact, not in my case, though. Now when I tried to log in to Facebook with an email address and a new password, they wanted still to send a security code to my phone. But this time Facebook didn’t show any number to request the code to. Not my Thai prepaid number and most certainly, not the newly added wife’s Finnish number.

I was beginning to get clueless how this whole Facebook banned me – system works.

WTF?

Meanwhile, I had googled as well in order to get information how to contact Facebook in this kind of situation. I managed to find out that it’s next to impossible to get a human being to reply your messages. There is a form in Facebook Help pages where you can submit your request of getting back disabled Facebook page. It should take 3-5 business days to get a reply. Moreover, only reply I’m getting is that my case is closed. In addition, I will open the case again by asking why I cannot get the security code into my phone? No contact whatsoever after that.

Facebook banned me eventually for good

It’s been over a month now since I lost the Facebook account. I actually manage to do pretty well in personal point of view since browsing on Facebook doesn’t distract me anymore. Furthermore, it’s easier to focus on working and spend the time on the laptop more wisely. But if you take a look business point of view, the situation is more complex. I had four different fan pages to be taken care of which I cannot get access anymore. In addition, I was doing few ad marketing campaigns which are gone as well.

Of course, I will open a new Facebook account soon (if I don’t get access to old one) and try to figure out if it’s possible to get old fan pages back. While one of the reasons I wrote this blog post was if you have wondered why Flowing Firm’s Facebook – page went suddenly silent, the site most definitely isn’t going anywhere. The more important reason is that do not ever trust the big corporation too much. Don’t ever add the most confidential information of your life into Facebook or Google because in a split second it might be vanish, forever.

But hey, life continues without Facebook too and FlowingFirm.com will be back there more superior in the near future. So meanwhile, just stay tuned here at Flowing Firm – blog instead of Facebook!

You might find these sites useful when battling with the Facebook banned me – question:

UPDATED 31.1.17:

I didn’t get any replies from Facebook after one and half months so I set up a brand new Facebook account and Fan Page for Flowing Firm. You can find them from the links around FlowingFirm.com.