Over the New Year’s weekend, I decided to migrate to a new phone. Since I wasn’t interested in transferring over anything from the old phone, I just figured I’d set up the new one with Facebook and a couple of other essential (for me) accounts. Unfortunately, Facebook, for being a thieving company, is also one with a piece of shit support system for those with issues. Facebook support is hands-down the worst in the world.
Here’s what happened.
I download the Facebook for Android app on my new phone, made sure it’s updated and then tried to login. Facebook says I have the wrong password. I’m a bit of a ditz so I have no idea what my password was.
That’s fine, I just decide to reset it and get a new one. It’s that easy right?
Far from it.
Getting a new password set off a chain of events that made my life a living hell for the next few hours.
I created a new password, and then tried to login again.
I was met with this screen.
Choose an option it says. What options? There’s only ONE!
No problem, I pick that one…which then led me to this.
Now, as I’ve changed my password and been automatically logged out, how do I login again to verify my new login?
I tried going online on my notebook and logging in through there. Nope, I got the same shit asking me to first pick an option (of which there was only one) and then reconfirm my login on a previously used machine, of which my notebook was obviously one.
Next I tried different browsers.
I tried Chrome, I tried an old version of Microsoft Explorer, I tried the new Microsoft Edge browser. Nothing worked because they were all asking the same thing.
HOW THE HELL DO I PROVE MY IDENTITY WHEN YOU’RE BLOCKING ME FROM LOGGING IN?!
Dear Facebook support, did you ever think of this when you made this asinine identity check? The fact I can access my damn email (which is what they used to send the reset link) that’s tied to my Facebook account doesn’t confirm my identity?
Have you guys ever heard of using security questions or OTPs to verify identities? Are you guys so goddamn busy stealing data that you don’t have time for other methods?
Speaking of which, there literally is NO way to contact Facebook support if you can’t log in.
Believe me, I’ve tried.
I searched for email address, live chats and even forms to reach out to Facebook support for help.
The email addresses I found all returned my email, the live chat links were all dead and the ONE form I did find to fill out didn’t even ask me for my login…so how the hell will they reach me back?
WTF, right?
Have you ever heard of such an absurd thing?
Thankfully, I managed to find a way to login to confirm my identity. For those with the same issue, here’s what I did.
After changing your password, try to log in again. You’ll get bombarded by the same shit as always, asking you to verify your login from another machine. That’s fine.
Next, you’ll want a VPN.
I used NordVPN though I figure any VPN will work. Log in to a US server.
Then refresh the Facebook tab that was asking you to verify. It should now ask you to reconfirm your login location (which is now listed as the US). Say ‘Yes’ and it should finally log you into your account.
I stumbled onto this method by pure luck.
After giving up that night, I found out that Netflix US has the old school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and I wanted to watch. To do that, I had to appear to be from the US, so I switched my VPN setting to make it so, which was how I got the new verification test.
If I didn’t luck out with that step, I have no doubts that I’ll be sitting here twiddling my thumbs because I’m still locked out of Facebook.
If I didn’t need it for work, I guarantee you that I’d never be logging in to Facebook ever again because this incident has shown me one thing damn clearly; Facebook sure as hell doesn’t care about its regular users one bit.