Wheelchair Worries - Can I Have My Money Back?

I have been on Facebook since 2007. I've boosted the odd post in that time. Boosting a post is when you pay money to Facebook, choose a series of options to target specific people E.G women, 40+, living in the UK and Facebook will guarantee you a minimum number of views depending on how much you spend. It's a handy tool. Considering the amount of users on their platform, It's a powerful way of advertising or promoting a product. As long as you don't need their support...

July 2024
I boosted a post in July and immediately had three pounds taken from my account. I had used this 'boost' feature before, but couldn't remember when they took their money. I assumed I'd already had some hits and they were taking a portion of the budget I'd set. Ten minutes later another three pounds came out.
"They're eager" I thought.
It was for the same amount, so I wasn't suspicious. A minute went by and another three pounds came out. I was getting suspicious now. Another ten minutes went by and four pounds was taken out, and then immediately again as if a hacker wasn't sure a transaction had gone through and refreshed the page.

I headed for support to alert them to this and stop it before it became costly, but I couldn't see how I could contact them immediately. All I could do was send them an email and wait for a reply. I Googled and after finding numerous pages about how they are uncontactable and even their FAQs are wrong because Facebook seem to make changes regularly but don't update the FAQs at the same time. I found out that if you go through the Meta Business Suite, you can talk to someone on live chat.

I opened the Meta Business Suite and clicked on help. This just pointed me at several recommended articles, but I found that if I clicked the drop down arrow next to my name, there was an option to open My Account in Ads Manager. On the next screen, I clicked the question mark and on the right side of the page a chat section opened.

However, as I'm writing this, I'm following the same steps I took back in July, but I'm no longer able to start a chat. This option was removed back in August and has remained unavailable. Remember how I said Facebook are constantly changing things? Either they are guilty of this again, or I have started so many chats that are unresolved, the system won't let me start anymore.

I spoke to Alpha (a bot), who took a few minutes "while I check this". They then went silent for a few minutes and upon returning to the conversation simply said "your concern has been forwarded to our internal review team. I had no more contact with this bot, I was asked if they could help with anything else, I asked if they could disable the account to prevent any more money being stolen. They didn't answer. They then contacted me to say my account hadn't been hacked, the charge was them temporarily holding the card while I verified my payment method. I had no means of reply as they ended the chat. I then completed a survey to say that my issue was not fixed. I sent them screenshots of transactions between my account and Facebook. They didn't reply on this matter again.

I then spoke to Jhie. I asked him to call me, which he did and the rest of this support request was done over the phone. I installed WebEx on my computer so that I could share access with him. I logged into my ads account and let him have a look around. He concluded that I had been hacked, he would forward my case and guaranteed that I would receive all of the money back. I asked him to repeat that again so that I can record him saying "I guarantee it". He told me I'm not allowed to record it. Something about their system detecting that I'm recording, but I would be emailed a transcript of the conversation.

I also asked him to disable the account so no more money would come out, he said something like "there's no need because any money that is taken will be returned to you." I can't be sure about this though and - unsurprisingly - I didn't receive the transcript.

Whatever the reason was for not disabling my account, more money was taken - £246 over 26 transactions - so I decided to ignore Jhie's assurances and cut the hackers off at source. I phoned Chase bank, explained my situation and they gave a brand new virtual card there and then. The hacker(s) weren't going to be able to add to my woes at least, but I was still owed over two-hundred pounds.

I headed back to Meta Business Suite and started another chat. Within a minute or so I was connected with an actual person. She called me on the phone as I requested and as I was fairly sure I wouldn't get a transcript of this conversation either, I recorded it. This conversation lasted for about twenty-five minutes, I've edited it down as I want you to hear for yourself that (eventually) she confirmed I had been hacked and I would have the money returned. My case had been passed onto her team and they had already started work on it (this was the twenty-ninth of July and they needed twenty-four to forty-eight hours).

August

About a week went by and with no sign of any money, I returned to the Meta Business Suite. I went back into the chat and was able to connect with another support agent.

It was now August 5th, my last contact was about a week earlier. I had been told on that occasion, that I would be waiting for a maximum of forty-eight hours. I asked what was happening, as this was supposed to a maximum of forty-eight hours. I was told we were awaiting the results of the investigation, but it is being investigated by the best team possible.

I didn't receive a reply again on chat. The same support operative entered the chat a few times but never said anything and left again. As I stated above, my ability to create a new chat had been removed. Any message I posted to an existing chat only received an auto response from a bot. Over the next several days I attempted to contact them on the existing chats, but they wouldn't respond.

So I resorted to using the only means available to me of getting support from them. The support inbox. They do respond within twenty-four hours though, so I didn't have to wait long for an answer. I emailed them several times and more often than not they would close the ticket (they had no idea if my issue was resolved). It was always the same auto respond with a link to a vaguely relevant article in the FAQ on their website. As they had removed my ability to reply and the support ticket was closed, I had to start a new support ticket about my increasingly old issue. As far as they were concerned - or whatever AI/bot technology they use - this case had no history and wasn't given the priority it should have.

I tried repeatedly to contact them contacting them via email and chat for about a week.

BREAKING NEWS 

It has taken a few days of writing to get to this point in my tale. I've just logged into Business Suite Manager to take some screenshots of my other attempts aat getting hold of them and I can no longer get to my previous chats. They have removed my account. Once again, remember when I said Facebook are constantly making changes? Although, I don't know if you can count this as making a change, or just removing any evidence that they owe me money. 

Please see before and after image of my Meta Business Suite access below.

I gave up. They weren't even reading my messages, they're uncontactable and they were going to keep my money that had been stolen from me. They appeared to be helpful, but I think it's clear in the phone call above (5:52 the follow up call) I was being told what I wanted to hear. Her whole attitude changed. I don't think I was ever going to get the money back.

October
By the middle of October enough time had passed, so I had temporary optimism and decided to try resolving this again. Maybe now I may get a different result. Or I should just say a result, a simple response would go a long way. 

There was no point using the pointless Facebook Support Centre and I hadn't got the ability to start another chat. I searched around Google again and immediately found lots of forum posts about people not being able to contact them. I tried a different plan, there was a web chat available for Meta Quest. 

"Meta own Facebook" I thought, "I'll see if they can help".

Predictably the woman I spoke to said Facebook was nothing to do with her, but she'll try and point me in the right direction. She sent me an email address...

I had no other option, so I started another mail chain that I was sure would get me nowhere. I sent a short summary of the issue and to my pleasant surprise, I got an email back from Darren quite quickly. He asked me for some more info and I replied as best I could. He asked for the account ID - which I provided but that account didn't exist  anymore. It did until Jhie looked at it, but I had got proof of the transactions at least.

He asked for times he could call me and did on the 18th October. We had a call over WebEx. He had a root around and found the transactions and even gave me the transaction ID for each one. He then sent me via email exactly what I should enter and where to enter it, when reporting the fraud.

This was starting to look frighteningly like I might actually get my money back. Nothing was happening after I'd sent them my report that Darren had draughted for me. He was telling me to be patient, and that they had received my report, I just needed to wait for them to get round to it. 

I waited another three days and emailed Darren again. I wrote;
"As I predicted, when I spoke to you on Friday - nothing was going to happen. Indeed nothing has happened but I see that the job status is completed?"

Darren then replied and said;

" I am positive that once the review is completed, an update will be sent on your Support Inbox. You will be glad to know that you will have direct access to. So I would really recommend to have your Support Inbox monitored for you not to miss any updates from us."

I did check the support inbox and I did get a reply, it wasn't the reply I wanted though.

"We were unable to verify your payment method.

Eh? Payment method? I had selected 'Unrecognized charges on own account' as I was instructed. Under  problem description I had entered 'my Ad Account was hacked and was charge through my account. I need help on this to be refunded since July 24' as instructed. I had said nothing about a payment method. 

"To protect our users, we can't confidently re-enable your payments account at this time. Please note, we take many factors into consideration when disabling payments, including spend history, ad characteristics and contradictory account information."

Once again, I have no idea how they can see all of these transactions - now with the transaction ID with them - and decide my account hasn't been hacked.

Darren then started to distance himself from having anything more to do with the issue. I think he had done what he intended. Fair play to him, he had responded quickly and had helped me... get back to the position I was in three months ago. They had the transaction IDs this time though, so how could they possibly deny this money was stolen?

After four months of wasting many hours trying to get my stolen money back, I sent them an email telling them I was going to take them to court. I issued a court claim for money through www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk/. It would cost thirty-five pounds, that could be claimed back if I win, and I thought there was no way I wouldn't win. I just needed to find some way to make this multi-billion dollar machine look down the back of the sofa for the pocket change needed to pay my two-hundred-and-forty-six pounds.

I received a letter from their lawyers. I was wrongfully suing Facebook who had nothing to do with this claim apparently. My issue was with Meta. 

Please note that Facebook UK is the wrong defendant for the purpose of your Claim.

For Facebook users residing in the United Kingdom, the Facebook service is operated and controlled by Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta Platforms Inc”), a company incorporated under the laws of Delaware in the United States of America.

I could only use this money claim service to claim money from a UK based company. It goes on to name eleven cases between 2019-2023 that have tried to bring a similar case to the crown court against Facebook UK and failed. If I cancelled my claim with money claim service and contacted these lawyers to confirm the case had been dropped they wouldn't take the matter further and it wouldn't cost ME any further money.

So that is the position I'm in now. I don't expect to ever see my stolen money again. Facebook are another example of a company that offer terrible customer support. Everybody seems to nowadays. I'm convinced their ineptitude is a means to make money. How many people are going to kick up so much fuss over such a small amount? Not many. My two-hundred-and-forty-six pounds will stay in their bank account containing millions upon millions and contribute to the mammoth interest they receive. They are worth billions, but have bots and computers rather than humans on Customer Service because it's cheaper. Even though this means that customer service is impenetrable. You waste hours trying to answer its stupid questions in a way it understands. Usually it points you to an FAQ which has nothing to do with what you asked, but because you wrote a word that ties in with a word in the FAQ.

My money is lost because of their inability to offer support. Facebook have over a billion users. How many of their users do they treat this way. How much of this multi-billion dollar wealth isn't theirs? They say you have to make money to earn money, it obviously doesn't matter how you make that money.

@fatpigeonsbook

@fatpigeonsbook