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We have an issue with our Meta Business Suite account being “disabled”.

I have been wrestling with this issue for almost 2 weeks.
Is there any way to actually talk to a real person at Meta?

Long Story short in bullet format:

  • Account has not been actively used in a couple years.
  • We decided to try a couple sample test campaigns in FB & IG.  Placed ads on Oct. 17/24
  • Both campaigns required budgets to be pre-paid, and Meta took this from our card on file. (about $250)
  • Both campaigns were reviewed and approved (email notification & dashboard said “active”)
  • After the weekend, noticed no funds had been used up from our pre-paid budget.
  • Finally noticed in “Ads Manger” that our account is “disabled” because they can’t put a “hold” on our card.
  • They do not indicate how much they want to “hold” on the card.
  • I then noticed on Oct. 22, our credit card was to expire this month (10/24)
  • Updated card info (more than a dozen times) and keep hitting the “try hold again" button with no success.
  • Then we added another $1,000 to the card to ensure there would be sufficient room for a hold.
  • I have sent a total of 5 complaints to their “report a problem” support portal. (the only way I can find to communicate with Meta)
  • Despite all this, we still have ZERO response from Meta and the hold has still not been removed after a week.

The Meta Business Suite dashboard is one of the most complex ones in the industry (not including Google Analytics) and they have no problem “taking your money” but provide ZERO support or any way to activate a ticket or call someone.

We have tried a couple other solutions:

  • Suggested we try boosting the CEO’s personal IG account (the one associated with the company profile) instead, until maybe Meta unfreezes our account.  We launched with a $240 budget and it ran for a day (using about $26.00) when it to was suspended.
  • Another suggestion is to close the accounts, and recreate the Meta Business Accounts, but I’m worried we will lose our pre-paid funds in the account.  Also we will lose the account numbers which we have connected to another service that is growing our followers on IG.

So, any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Also, any contact numbers or emails we could try to reach a real person would be even more greatly appreciated.

How can these big companies that rake in billions operate without any front-facing support staff?

I just don’t get it.  I hate Meta, but the boss wants this fixed.

Thanks in advance,

Sincerely, Scott McKinnon

Hi Scott, 

 

I am so sorry you are dealing with this right now. Meta Business Manager is nightmare. I just dealt with a hacked account and it took 3 months to get everything resolved. There is a way to talk to someone, but it is not easy. 

There are not any contact numbers or emails, you can get them to call you. 

To start, go here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help

Click “Get Support” in the upper right hand corner, it will send you to this page: https://www.facebook.com/business-support-home/?source=business_help_center_support

It should list your recent account issues. 

Scroll to the bottom where it says “Still Need Help?” 

Click the “Contact Support” button.


It will take you to this page: https://www.facebook.com/business-support-home/contact-support?source=business_help_center_support

It will ask what issues are you having and it should list account hold. Click account hold and it will ask for your name, email, the issue, and a screenshot of what you are dealing with. It will either say “Start Chat” or “Send Email.” If it says send email, click the “Something Else” button under the list of issues. If it says start chat, then start the chat. 

This is where Meta’s shitty AI takes over. The chatbot will ask what is your issue is and they will send you automated responses not answering your question. 

 

Respond back with speak to a person, it may take two or three times before an agent will come on. Once the agent joins, tell them your issue. They will then ask for your ad account number and they will ask for your phone number to call you. They will usually call within five minutes, you will get a call from either a 650 area code or a 415 area code. Hopefully, they can help you then. 

Another way to get a phone call is to request a call with their tech pros. https://www.facebook.com/business/meta-pro-team/marketing-pros

Since your account is disabled, you might not have that option. The problem with the marketing pros is that they are not legit tech support, they are there to sell Meta Business Manager. You are better off contacting support like I mentioned above. 

If those don’s work, contact Will Jennings, he is an expert in account recovery and dealing with Meta Business Manager. 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wkjennings/

Good luck with this and keep my posted on how it goes, sorry you have to deal with this. 

 

Best, 

 

Dan

 

 


Hello Dan,

Thank you so very much for your well documented response.  I appreciate that you took the time to detail the process.

I started following you steps. I made it to the 2nd website you mentioned but I could not find the “Still need help” button.

I ended up going to the business help page (THIS IS A LIFE SAVER) and found an article about changing “Lifetime Spending Limits” which I know nothing about.  Meta dictates a “Daily Spend Limit” based on usage and it pauses your spending if you reach it, but it resets each day.  Apparently there is also a “Lifetime Spend Limit” set by the client.

In following their instructions about looking where to find this limit and change it ( I could not find the actual limit or how to change it) BUT I DID FIND the “Still Need Help?” button.

When I clicked this, I got a pop-up window called “Ads Payment Support”! Fantastic.

It indicated “We noticed some unusual activity, so your ad account has been disabled. If you believe this was a mistake, please answer these questions so we can investigate.”  I asked for a review.

I described the issues in detail and uploaded some redacted screenshots showing our credit card transactions from Meta.

They have indicated they received the request and will get back to me by email after reviewing.

I feel we are on our way to resolving this issue.

Dan, I can’t thank you enough for your help and insights.  I have struggled for almost 3 weeks trying to get support.

You are most deserving of some sweet Karma coming your way!

Cheers.

Scott McKinnon

 


Hi Scott, 

You are very welcome! I’m so glad this helped and that you were able to get in touch with them. That’s great you are on your way to getting the issues resolved. 

I learned a lot about dealing with them during those 3 months, they are an absolute joke. 

I hope you hear back soon from them with a resolution. 

 

Cheers, 

 

Dan Levey


Hi Dan,

We finally broke the barrier today!

Received two emails back from Meta over the weekend.

  1. One was regarding the “hold” on our credit card again.
  2. The second about us still having an issue with breaking their advertising policies or community guidelines.

It gave me the opportunity for a “second review”.  I sent them account owners ID and chose the option of “Not sure what policies we broke”.

At the same time, we contacted the bank to see if there was a hold by them on our card.

Sure enough.  The bank had a hold on our credit card for “any marketing” charges.  We don’t know why this was done by the bank, but they removed it.

About the same time, we got a message from Meta: “We found that our technology made a mistake adding restrictions to your ad account. We removed the restrictions and you can continue advertising.

So, we don’t know if it was a single issue or a combination of two issues, but we are good to go now after a 3 week battle.

I believe your instructions are what got us headed in the right direction to fix all this, so a BIG THANK YOU to you!

Just got confirmed our new ad placement is active again.

Have a great month ahead!

Sincerely,

Scott


Wow! I’m glad to hear you got your issue resolved @dan.levey, thank you for sharing such a detailed response for the rest of our members. 


Haha @scott.mck, I couldn’t agree more!

You are most deserving of some sweet Karma coming your way!”


Hi Scott, 

 

That is great news! I’m glad you were able to get the issue resolved. I hope you have a great month ahead as well! 

 

Dan


Wow! I’m glad to hear you got your issue resolved @dan.levey, thank you for sharing such a detailed response for the rest of our members. 

Thank you @Laura Porcincula! I am too, it was quite the journey, but glad it’s over. 


Haha @scott.mck, I couldn’t agree more!

You are most deserving of some sweet Karma coming your way!”

Thank you @Laura Porcincula. If anyone ever has any issues with Meta Business Manager, feel free to contact me. 


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