
Incarcerated and Facebook - callumprentice
https://medium.com/@callumprentice/incarcerated-facebook-ebfba8885ae3
======
nucleardog
What scares me most about all these stories and personal experience, is it
often seems the only way to get these actual issues resolved is to know
someone that works at the company, or have enough of a platform on the
internet that eventually the cost of the bad PR gets to be enough that someone
notices and fixes it.

I don't know anyone that works at Facebook/Google/Uber/etc. When I have issues
they just go unresolved. Uber Eats double-submitted my order after throwing up
a bundle of internal server errors and literally my only recourse at this
point is apparently to sue them to get my $26 back. (Which I'm seriously
considering -- even if I don't get my $26 back, it will certainly cost them
more than $26 just to respond so at least the cosmic accounting will balance
out.)

It would be really nice if there were companies to give my money to that _did_
have some semblance of customer support that didn't require making friends
with the right people or curating a social media following.

~~~
mypalmike
If you have documentation of the double charge and of your attempts to get a
refund, your credit card company will certainly do a chargeback and return
your funds.

~~~
virtuous_signal
A company can choose to ban you from their service for this. Uber eats,
probably not an issue. But imagine the inconvenience of not having Uber for
the rest of your life. Or worse, Airbnb which doesn’t even have a close
competitor.

I would begrudgingly take the loss to continue having access to their
marketplaces. These companies have notoriously terrible customer service and
they don’t really have any reason to fix it.

~~~
tasogare
> imagine the inconvenience of not having Uber for the rest of your life

Imagine thinking you need Uber to live your life...

~~~
freepor
This is a point of view from someone who can afford alternatives. Taxis have
long been the transport of last resort for the destitute/homeless and with
Uber replacing taxis this does become a serious issue for many.

~~~
lmm
> Taxis have long been the transport of last resort for the destitute/homeless

WTF? Taxis are expensive. Destitute people take the bus, ride bicycles (in
various conditions), or walk.

~~~
dwyerm
Only if you're the one paying.

The ADA requires 'paratransit' service for persons whose disabilities prevent
them from using accessible, non-commuter, fixed route bus service. In many
cities paratransit is handed off to taxi services.

~~~
lmm
Sure, but that isn't going to involve Uber at any level.

------
NhanH
A few months ago, someone tried to create a fake account to impersonate my
mom. And long story short, somehow we couldn't get 2FA sms token to login
again(which I suspect is a bug), then the account was disabled not given a
reason.

We tried the process to verify it was her account, but after being asked to
submit passport photo + her photo, the ticket stops progressing for the past 2
months and it has been very frustrating for us. The account has years of my
mom's photo that wasn't backed up elsewhere. If there happens to be any
engineer passing by that can escalate this internally, I would be much
appreciated.

Facebook's "user support" is getting to the point where Google's support is
looking like a sane one. At least the automated system works when it is
supposed to. I got a couple of really weird behaviors trying to unlock the
account: the system asked to select an item from an empty list to send 2FA
code. The initial sms 2FA code that we received when the attacker tried to
login somehow got wrong encoding data (utf8 vs utf16), which shows up as non
sensical Chinese character.

~~~
m463
When these free services are funded by user data, it seems ironic that...
"passport photo + her photo"... more data seems to be the currency to get free
customer service.

~~~
hrunt
On the Make Me Smart podcast, Kai Ryssdahl has a saying for this: the solution
for Facebook's problems is always more Facebook.

------
craigds
Why do they even have this process? Who cares if someone in prison uses
Facebook? This is pretty absurd.

~~~
closeparen
Inmates do not have first amendment rights. Courts were routinely ordering
Facebook to censor them. You don’t pay lawyers and engineers to handle a
stream of menial, identical work orders. You pay them to develop a structured
process to be operated in a call center type environment.

~~~
int_19h
Why is this Facebook's problem, even? It's up to prisons to ensure that
somebody who shouldn't be using Facebook, isn't.

~~~
closeparen
It’s typically visitors on the outside posting on their behalf.

------
Jerry2
From TFA:

> _Fortunately I have some friends and ex-colleagues who work at Facebook so I
> reached out to them and asked for help, some of whom were kind enough to
> submit internal support tickets on my behalf. I wasn’t sure that was going
> to help so I fired off more emails and uploads of my ID but heard nothing.
> Thankfully 3 days later, I got a very terse email — “We unlocked your
> account”_

This is a common refrain that I see in all these FB/Google "locked out or
banned" horror stories. Unless you have some friends at high places at
FB/Google, you're SOL if you ever get locked out of your FB or Gmail account.

~~~
pishpash
Always take out your data, never let it be the only copy on those services.

------
Fr0styMatt88
This culture of not treating people even half-decently frustrates me. Is it so
hard to acknowledge that the user is a human?

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
It is. It's very hard, to the point of impossibility, to ensure that not a
single one of Facebook's 2.4 billion users will fall into a weird process gap.
Other organizations that are smaller by multiple orders of magnitude still
regularly fail at it.

~~~
uberman
I originally just down voted this comment, but I feel it warrants a response
rather than a down vote. I removed my down vote so here are my thoughts.

Big tech, Google and Facebook in particular don't have "weird process gaps".
What they have is a willful ignorance of any and all customer service. They
are the vanguard of a new economy devoid of any and all notion of customer
service. That quaint notion is too expensive in today's economy. Today,
"customer service" is provided via a one way email black hole.

The only way anyone gets customer service from any unicorn is either by
shaming them in a vial social media post or leveraging an internal contact.
There used to be a time where one could call and talk to an actual person who
actually worked for the company and might, just might be in a position to
help. Those days began to end with the shift to offshore call centers and now
have completely vanished thanks to canned email responses. I NEVER in my
wildest dreams would have though "I wish Google had an offshore call center to
support me".

Years ago, while flying British Air from Nairobi to London I had my camera
equipment and dress shoes stolen by ground crew. I called up BA and explained
that I had watched a person on the tarmac open my bag as it was being loaded
onto the plain. I don't even know if the ground crewman was a BA employee or
an Airport employee, but the BA rep on the phone told me she was mortified at
what had happened and the next day they couriered a check to me. No bickering,
no stonewalling, no email voids, just pure customer service.

That one great experience was snatched from the jaws of disappointment by a
timely customer service rep with the authority to help and has meant that I
will fly BA whenever it is possible over all other airline options. Would they
do the same today? I doubt it, but they did it once and I will always be a fan
as a result.

~~~
zaroth
I think this perfectly illustrates the different business models between these
companies. On the one hand, a company with billions of users where no money
changes hands and each interaction is worth maybe $0.01 in advertising, and on
the other hand a service for which you are paying hundreds or maybe thousands
of dollars each time.

Don’t forget that just last year we were watching videos of innocent
passengers being violently dragged off planes that they paid to be on. Despite
some feel good anecdotes, airlines are by no means a bastion of customer
service nirvana. Airlines hold 2 of the top 20 spots among the “Most Hated
Companies” in the US.

Good customer service, even when your ASP is tens of thousands of dollars per
customer, is probably _the single hardest thing_ for most companies.

Whether it’s Airlines, Search Engines, Phone/Computer Manufacturers, Car
companies, etc., we’ve seen basically every otherwise beloved brand fall on
their face when it comes to customer service at scale. (And that’s when we’re
not discovering their products are faulty, dangerous, secretly crippled over
time, spying on us, exploiting our personal data,...)

Of course there are weird process gaps. Here we are seeing an account being
flagged for incarceration, possibly because the account is actually being
attacked by someone submitting fraudulent requests in an attempt to get it
closed.

I don’t have a Facebook account and I don’t want one. But if that isn’t a
weird process gap I don’t know what is.

~~~
mehrdadn
> Don’t forget that just last year we were watching videos of innocent
> passengers being violently dragged off planes that they paid to be on.

Are you referring to the United incident in 2017, or a later one?

~~~
zaroth
I swear time is speeding up.

------
foogazi
Why the fuck does FB care if a user is incarcerated?

What’s next? You’re behind on your car payments or child support?

Your credit score is too low...

~~~
pheug
Social credit scores as seen on black mirror

~~~
pandizzle
And China

------
smelendez
I didn't realize Facebook had this policy and I'm curious if other services
do.

I would have assumed that an incarcerated person could give their credentials
to a trusted person outside to manage their account for them and relay
information.

~~~
AlexCoventry
I'm wondering what laws require them to follow this policy.

------
drummer
Facebook is just a dumpsterfire at this point,slow burning with occasional
intense flares. Best to avoid it.

------
mirimir
> My best guess though is that it was the same person who seems to be trying
> to get access to my account with weekly password reset requests and offers
> to purchase it.

Please say more.

~~~
callumprentice
Not much more to say I am afraid. I get frequent (weekly, sometimes more)
emails from Facebook containing password reset instructions "as per my
request". At least two people have begged me to give up my account name (just
my first name) that I seem to have got years ago - not sure it's even used or
relevant anymore.

My initial assumption was that if they can't get the account, they would just
try and mess it up for me.

On reflection it's probably unrelated and just one of those things.. I guess
if they're reading this post, I'll find out soon :)

~~~
umvi
Careful, people have been known to hire hitmen to get the name they want[1]

[1]
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/12/9/21003858/instagram-
polo-rossi-lorathio-adams-ii-sentenced-14-years-domain-name-state-snaps)

~~~
jwilk
Non-AMP link:

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/9/21003858/instagram-
polo-r...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/9/21003858/instagram-polo-rossi-
lorathio-adams-ii-sentenced-14-years-domain-name-state-snaps)

------
hansdieter1337
Pretty sure the same guy that tries to purchase and guess your password locked
your account.

It seems to be relatively easy to lock someone’s account since they don’t
check. Related: [https://bitrebels.com/social/how-to-someones-facebook-
shut-d...](https://bitrebels.com/social/how-to-someones-facebook-shut-down/)

------
walterkrankheit
I find it weird that Facebook even does this. It's like pile-on in a justice
system that's supposedly already dished its punishment. What right does FB
have to punish someone for something they did outside of FB? And jesus, have
some pity. But the fact that you can 'accidentally' be marked as incarcerated
is also really strange.

------
bikeshed
They were doing you a favour. Stop using Facebook.

------
ajdlinux
The author raises the point that his account could have been marked due to
fake information submitted via their law enforcement request form.

It occurs to me that companies don't run bug bounties and authorised
pentesting programs for _process_ flaws - I assume that would be deemed out-
of-scope "social engineering" even if it doesn't involve any psychological
trickery and just involves uploading a forged official document and seeing if
they even try to validate it at all.

------
51Cards
I was locked out of my FB account for no reason a couple months back. The
option I had was to send myself a text message but after a dozen tries over a
couple weeks and never receiving the message I gave up for awhile. I didn't
want to upload my ID to some unknown person. 3 weeks later I tried again and
this time I got the SMS message and was able to get back in. I took a back up
of my account as well just in case.

------
awinter-py
Allowing insiders to shepherd tickets is a ticking legal time bomb for these
companies.

Given how bad their dispute resolution is, and the huge dollar value of
getting your account back in an emergency, insider support channels are highly
valuable.

If I were in an AG's office I'd find a case of quid pro quo and research a
bribery suit. These companies operate internationally, so there are FCPA
implications as well

(and I'm not a lawyer)

------
randomchars
The form that was mentioned in the article:
[https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/564493676910603](https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/564493676910603)

------
VvR-Ox
The most important take away for me is:

Don't use services like Facebook.

Of course now a lot of people will moan when they read this because they think
my alternative is living in a hut in the forest but what I want to say is that
these companies have that kind of power because we gave it to them by
exclusively using their services because it was so convenient when they lured
us in.

Using other services or even building them on your own is more effort but it
could be worth the extra time when I look at scenes like this one.

------
theqult
>I did find a form online at Facebook.com that allows members of law
enforcement to report incarcerated users

Ehm ehm and why ?

------
badrabbit
Curious, is there even a paid alternative to FB?

~~~
lwhalen
Thinkspot, MeWe, and Mastodon.

------
spookthesunset
Yeah. I’m sure this guy was not at all doing something sketchy for Facebook to
shut down the account. This is a one-sided view designed to spark outrage from
all the people who are like “I don’t even own a Facebook!”. The perfect
clickbait for the ultra-paranoid viewer...

