WHAT YOU CAN DO TO UNLOCK A FACEBOOK DISABLED ACCOUNT

I recently had my Facebook account locked and disabled for no particular reason and I was getting anxious and annoyed that Facebook was not willing to help to unlock the account especially when I use the Facebook account to manage my business Facebook Pages. I totally understand how you’re feeling right now if you’ve also had your account locked. Once you’re locked out, you pretty much can’t get in contact with Facebook support or log tickets because you need a Facebook account to do so. It’s a silly catch 22 situation where you need your Facebook account to be active in order to unlock your Facebook account – it just doesn’t make sense.

In any case, after sending a few emails to Facebook support and not receiving anything back for over a week, I decided to see if there was a way to unlock my Facebook account and I managed to do so. I wanted to share these steps with you in case you and I run into the same problem again. I’ve been helping my audience with Facebook problems in the past, in particular, I wrote an article on how to fix Facebook too many redirects issues, Facebook account unavailable, How to unblock website on Facebook which gained a lot of views and helped a lot of people. I’m hoping this will do the same as well.

Now, you have to remember that Facebook has a large user base and there are probably not enough Facebook support people to manually review all the issues and helpdesk tickets. You need to also remember that you are not the only person who is waiting for a fix. There will be hundreds or even thousands of users who are in the same boat as you. Also, just please remember to donate if this article does help as this will help me maintain this website so that I can help more people resolve their issues.

I did not receive any emails about the account being locked and disabled but I only found out when I tried to check my Facebook page and I received this message. I also had friends and family ask me why I’m no longer on Facebook.

The message, when I tried to login to Facebook:

Your Facebook account has been suspended. This is because your account, or activity on it, doesn’t follow our Community Standards.

If you think we suspend your account by mistake, you have 90 days to disagree with our decision. If you miss this deadline your account will be permanently disabled.

There was a blue button with Disagree with the decision which I clicked on and it automatically sends a message to Facebook to check the account. Now I’m pretty sure this whole process to “check” is automated but I did my see my very first email sent from Facebook. Please note that this was the first and only email I received from Facebook about my account being locked and disabled.

Thank you for taking the time to request a review of the decision to disable your account.

As a user of Facebook, you have agreed to our Terms of Service, which state that you may not use our products to do or share anything that infringes someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.

Your account has been reported multiple times for violating someone else’s rights. We previously warned you that if you continued to infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties, your account would be disabled.

If you believe your account was disabled in error, you can reply to this email with more information, and we will review our decision.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

I’ve never received any previous warnings so I’m not sure what the issue was. It would have been more thoughtful for Facebook to actually state the issues rather than send a generic email to its users. Once you send the appeal to review the decision, this is the message you end up seeing when you try to view your Facebook profile:

We received your information

Check your email for an update on your request, and to find out what other information we need. We will only be able to complete your review when you send us this information.

We’re always looking out for the security of our community, so you can’t use Facebook while we review your information.

Once again, this was very generic and a standard message and there was no useful help. All you can do is wait for a reply which I did after 1 day and you probably have guessed it, it was another generic email.

Hi,

As a user of Facebook, you have agreed to our Terms of Service, which states that users are prohibited from taking any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law. When we receive a proper claim of intellectual property rights infringement, we promptly remove or disable access to the allegedly infringing post. We also terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.

We previously warned you that if you continued to infringe the rights of third parties, we would terminate your account. Accordingly, your account has been disabled and you are no longer permitted to use Facebook.

Thank you for your cooperation,

How did I know it was generic? It didn’t even address me with my first name. The email message states that I was previously warned, but when I thoroughly checked my emails including the junk folder I did not see anything from Facebook about any warnings.

I then replied to the email stating that I never received any warning and asked for the actual issues and to cite what the problem was with some evidence. I sent several emails asking for a reason why the account was locked and waited but I never received any replies. Apparently, after 30 days of an account being locked, Facebook will delete the account and that is where I felt helpless. After a week of waiting for an explanation, I received no reply. Most people would have given up and I almost did but there was something that urged me to battle this issue and figure out a way to get back into my account. I honestly didn’t do anything wrong!

After trying a few things like logging into the account from a different IP address, browser and even through the mobile app, nothing worked until I did this – yes it was a bit of a fluke but it worked and hopefully, it will work for you too.

MY FIX – REMOVE DISABLE LOCK

• Open a private or incognito browser and go to this URL: https://www.facebook.com/login/identify

• Enter your email address (the mobile number didn’t work) and click search.
• Try to login into the account and even do a password reset. Then try to login again and you may receive this error message.

Your account has been locked

We saw unusual activity on your account. This may mean that someone has used your account without your knowledge.

Account locked xxx

To protect you, your profile is not visible to people on Facebook and you can’t use your account.

Click on the Get Started and follow the prompts. You may be asked what you think may have happened and select the option that you think your account has been hacked.

• It looks like someone may have access your Facebook account. To secure your account, you’ll need to answer a few questions and change your password the next time you go to Facebook. For your protection, no one can see you on Facebook until you secure your account.

Once you reset your password, you should be able to log in. For a few days, you will not be able to post anything and you will just have to wait but at least you were able to log in.

UPDATE: I was able to post straight away, but was unable to upload pictures. It took about a week for my account to be fully active.

After you log in check your activity logs to see if there was anything unusual. To do this follow these steps:

Go to your security and privacy settings

Click on Activity log

Go through each option and see if there was anything unusual that you know you didn’t post, view or interact with

I checked the Your post section and I did find the most recent post that I never published or created which does seem like my account was maybe compromised. It was a video in private mode and it was created at around 5:18 AM (my local time) and I’m pretty sure I was not awake at that time. I also don’t keep my mobile phone next to me when I’m sleeping so it did look very unusual.

All the other tabs didn’t have anything unusual. I even checked the Logins and logouts and they were all initiated by me.

Lastly, I removed any apps and websites that I no longer used. You can check your list in Settings and then Apps and Websites

You can check out this video:

I hope this article helps and if it does, please don’t forget to join my newsletter and even donate to support my digital journey.

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Marco Tran

I am an entrepreneur based in Sydney Australia. I was born in Vietnam, grew up in Italy and currently residing in Australia. I started my first business venture Advertise Me from a random idea and have never looked back since. My passion is in the digital space, affiliate marketing, fitness and I launched several digital products. You will find these on the portfolio page.

I’ve decided to change from a Vegetarian to a Vegan diet and started a website called Veggie Meals.

I started this blog so I could leave a digital footprint of my random thoughts, ideas and life in general.

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