Suing Facebook in small claims?

I ended up in the same situation with my restaurant business. Personal Facebook account was suspended (which hadn't been used for anything except buying ads for mentioned business for something like ~4 years), and I guess because of that, the professional Instagram account linked with the personal Facebook was also suspended.

I had ads running and tried for ~2 weeks to do anything about it, but Facebook kept charging me and I kept being unable to resolve it by any manner at all. Eventually reached a real human via Facebook support somehow, and they said there was nothing they could do.

Had to lock and block my card for the charges to stop. Wrote to my bank about them charging me even though I was suspended, I got all the money back from the day the suspension started (took screenshots from day one it happened) and I'll never use anything related to Facebook again.

So I guess my advise is to lock the card, ask your bank nicely and if the bank won't help you, take it to court. Not sure what country you are in, but usually there are organizations that help you pro-bono for easy cases like this when huge companies try to take advantage of the small person, often leading to something called "small claims court".

It will absolutely get their attention and get your issue in front of a real person who will have the organizational power to fix it.

A cheaper way to do the same thing is to fedex a business letter written in formal english, citing dates and times you tried to resolve the situation and that your next step is to file a legal complaint.

It should be just as effective but it will save you the small claims filing fees.

You don’t specify where you are but if you’re in the UK, use the free small claims process [1]. No lawyers, no expenses, pre-trail hearing with a judge (over the phone), and then a trial if the judge decides it has legal legs.

I’ve used it before and it’s very effective. They will send a letter to Facebook on your behalf (with all the court’s crown logos on the letterhead, etc), they must respond or end up in court.

[1] https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

You should exhaust your administrative remedies first. Go through your bank and through facebook. For your bank a chargeback, read the specific terms, it sounds like services not received would apply if you are unable to access the services. Presumably facebook is not continuing to run the ads if the account was banned. Eliott has some good contact info for executive customer service as you have already contacted them the normal way.

Failing that it costs around $100 to file in small claims and serve the defendant, if you lose you are out that money, plus the time. If you win the fee is included in the judgement is almost every state. The process is to find the registered agent to name in the lawsuit, file the case with the clerk where the defendant is located and pay the fees, serve the defendant and have proof of service. Most likely they will negotiate a settlement and it would end there, before going to court. If you can't agree you go to small claims and either travel in person or appear by teleconference. Make your case with the judge and prove all the elements required for your type of case, it isn't super formal though. If you win and get a judgement and either they pay or you go to the sheriffs to collect.

> I tried contacting my credit card company, but FB uses a different vendor account for each bill posted, making it difficult for the credit card company to stop these transactions.

Another option might be to have the credit card company handle thing as if you had fraud on the card. Cancel the card, issue you an new number, and -- critically, you will have to specifically ask them to do this -- do not automatically update billers with an existing relationship with the new number/authorization for you.

Assuming this works correctly (it may not), FB will be unable to bill you for the ad spend. The downside of this is that they may send these debts to collections at some point, which could hurt your credit rating and be a problem for other reasons.

So this might be more of a last resort.

Somewhat related - my wife and I own a small business and Yelp basically forced us into a $150 a month advertising package by deleting all out positive reviews and posting bogus negative reviews (they were by people not even locate in our state). At the time we were new so this was a big deal.

We went along with it but at some point our card expired and I never updated my account with them. I tracked it for a few months to ensure they weren’t accumulating, once that proved true I never thought about them again and mark their invoices as spam. Going on a year plus and it’s continued to work; we don’t pay them a dime, our few positive reviews we get at yelp remain online and we encourage our customers to avoid them and post everywhere else.

FYI small claims courts are limited -- in NY, for example, I'm fairly sure small claims can provide equitable relief but not punitive or injunctive (pay back money, but can't give you a penalty or force FB to do something).

In practice it doesn't matter (you just need to get their attention + they will fix). Depending on FB's TOS, they may try to move you to arbitration, though once again, you don't care, you just want to get expert attention.

Maybe read the TOS before filing -- you might be able to trigger arbitration directly.

FWIW I had a similar situation last year, my FB account kept getting disabled for nonspecific rules violation. After months, it turned out to be an edge case in their billing logic.

Main takeaway: they probably aren't doing this on purpose, and would like to do a good job, but can't because they don't know how.

Useful advice I got, both from their tech support person + reddit: create a business manager acct and use it to manage your facebook account. Give access to multiple people. That way if one gets disabled you can continue your business.

Chargebacks will get you banned for life from most Meta products, potentially even affecting personal accounts FYI. Adtech vendors have blocklists for users/companies/etc that they will not do business with, and a chargeback will get your name/credit/card/etc on that list.

Few weeks back I posted a comment on Instagram. A warning popped up that it wasn't as per community standards.

I understood that it was wrongthink, so I immediately deleted my comment.

The warning system on Instagram comments is good for protecting you from committing Thoughtcrime.

One method I've known to work for people is to buy an Oculus. You need a Facebook account for it and Oculus tech support can reactivate your Facebook account. After that return the Oculus. This is the post where I first heard of this [1] and it worked for my brother-in-law. YMMV.

--

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29624826

File a chargeback. They will instantly cancel your account.

Fax or mail (certified with return receipt) Facebook a letter and state that you revoke their authorization to post electronic funds transfers to your account. Staple the certified receipt or fax confirmation to a copy of the letter. That's all your bank needs (double check me here) to reverse any transactions thereafter and assess a fine to Facebook, which will likely face a fine from it's bank as well.

The matter will be resolved by next morning.

When return receipt arrives, staple that to the copy as well should the matter escalate further.

Have a lawyer write a letter to their lawyers. Their lawyers will have incentives aligned to what you want better than the rest of the company.

Absolutely.

There is an asymmetry in access to the law. If you can afford a lawyer (like FarceBook) then you can do pretty much whatever you want, knowing that most people do not have the resources or will to do anything about it. So FarceBook can suspend your account and really not care. Verizon can change your plan then tell you it is policy not to let you change back. Paypal freezes your account. On and on.

But you have the right to take people to court. This guy took Instagram to court, then to the Supreme Court of New Hampshire. He won his appeal to the NHSC. https://www.nhpr.org/post/teatotaller-caf-owner-takes-facebo...

Step 1 is to find out the laws in your state about small claims. Some states are small claims friendly, some not so much. Just google "your-state small claims".

Step 2 is to document everything. keep all email. Send documents US mail with a receipt required so you can prove everything. Think of it this way - you are going to present this to the judge. If you say "I sent them a letter", the lawyer can (and often will) say "we have no record of the letter". Hauling out your receipt and saying "it was delivered to xx office on May1 at 10AM according to this receipt".So

Step 3. Understand the law. This is hard. But the law determines the outcome. Some cases may be so egregious that you don't really need to be specific, but if you can be specific it helps. You can try to find out about consumer law in your state by google. For example here is a Maine website about consumer rights: https://www.maine.gov/ag/consumer/consumer_law_guide.shtml

Step 4. Think like a judge. If you gave the other side a chance to respond (a demand letter) that is a plus. If there is no sign you attempted a reasonable resolution that is not as good.

Step 5. Win.

Doing this is hard, but in my book every small claims or pro se representation in court is a pro democracy action.

I'm interested in setting up a site to help people do small claims and appear pro se. I represented myself in a post divorce court case, lost, filed an appeal and lost the appeal. I set up a 2 second website https://usingthecourts.com. Visit and send an email if interested. Free and no tracking. (edit to remove fragment)

If you're in the US, contact your state attorney general. This is a widespread, known issue that a few are building cases about. They have back channels to facilitate getting the account back.

$300? De-minimis. The costs of you taking any legal action far outweigh the benefits. The best course of action is to cancel your card and check with your company that this blocks all recurring payments. It'll be a pain to reinstate legitimate recurring payments you may have on the card - but the flipside is you'll get a chance to review all the recurring stuff that you subscribe to!

Definitely do chargebacks on the card. And don't mess with lawyers. Anyone telling you to contact one has never contacted one. Why would anyone spend $800 to get $300 back? Small claims is definitely a legit way to go if you cannot recover the funds. Facebook likely won't even send a representative and you'll win by default. Collecting from them is another issue in itself, but you'll at least have a judgement against them. I have taken people to small claims and it's fairly simple.

Was your email to legal@ a demand letter? I’ve sent demand letters to that email previously and had my issues, both times, sorted within 48 hours.

File a chargeback on the credit cards

My guess is that the FB TOS requires arbitration for all disputes arising out of use of the FB platform, or some such broad language.

Chargebacks are one idea, but it likely won't get you all your money back. I have to imagine that FBers on HN could connect you with a lawyer there — can you leave a throwaway email account in your post so that people could reach out to you? I'm a nobody but do know a lawyer or two at FB.

Not entirely applicable in this case, but I had a similar situation with Google (they claimed I owe them money, no way to actually pay, let alone challenge it). Eventually it went to a collections agency who do have humans working for them, did reply and cancelled the 'debt' immediately when I provided evidence.

Google, Facebook, etc might not want to talk to their customers. But adjacent companies might.

Other than all the courts/suing discussion, handling undeserved charges on your bill is exactly what your credit card company is supposed to do. The whole "they use different vendors" thing should be their problem, not yours. Press them again and tell them to take care of the problem regardless of which processor (and how many) they originate from.

Filing for arbitration can be even easier. Both will likely be effective.

Have you read the relevant terms of service? Do they require using some arbitration service instead?

First, where are you? In the US? What state?

Small Claims Court in California tends to be effective. The great thing about filing a small claims court case is that the other party has to either settle, or show up in court. They do not have the option of ignoring this. They have to send someone, or lose by default.

Most small claims courts have online instructions on how to file, and many will accept filings on line. Here's California's page: [1]

Facebook reportedly no longer requires arbitration.

[1] https://selfhelp.courts.ca.gov/small-claims-california

Small claims is an excellent option. Or alternatively take them to arbitration if the ToS provides for it. Either way the expense to you will be minimal.

Once you realize that legal is the big tech company’s first line tech support things go considerably more smoothly.

Pro tip: get on privacy.com. Give FB (or anyone online) a temporary credit card from there, rather than your "real" one.

If you're really done using their services, you can just close the card. Once the card gets declined, they will notice, believe me.

Further tip: for most things (maybe not for FB), the name & address you give are also not checked; just the card number, expiration, security code, and zip code.

Of course, you might be giving your real address and/or phone number somewhere else on the site, if you want to get something physical shipped to you.

Thank you all for the useful comments and feedback. I noted some people asking where I am from: BC, Canada. I am not sure how much this changes from the legal standpoint. But I will carefully review all your feedback, and proceed carefully with different options provided. Should I create another post about how this will get resolved, or simply reply again to this thread? Much appreciated.

Can’t you just file a chargeback for every fraudulent charge?

I had a similar thing happen, where an account that I use only to run ads and never post anything was flagged as a bot. I eventually got through to a person on chat who was entirely unhelpful, but in the survey after I just typed out my issue in every text box. A few days later my account was unbanned and I could log in and stop the ads. Kinda mind blowing process to be honest, probably won't be doing business with them again.

If your business is incorporated, you might not be able to take the small claims court route. You need to double-check the rules for your state; some only allow natural persons as small claims plaintiffs.

What would otherwise be a slam-dunk could end up being a waste of time if you show up and the judge decides the wrong party filed the suit (you personally vs. the business associated with the Facebook ads account).

Unless you are in a jurisdiction where Facebook has some actual presence, a small claims court isn't going to be able to do anything.

I am in the exact same boat.. and someone hijacked the account and actually activated ad services. They have thus far been unresponsive and I really don't have it in me to rebuild 18 years of social networking. I may have to give this demand letter deal a shot.

Seems feasible from a layman’s perspective, but might not from a lawyer’s. Why not talk to one?

Put a freeze on that card and get a new one? Inconvenient as it might be, works every time.

IANAL, but if you need to do this on the cheap, perhaps start with your state AG?

I am all in favor of suing FB but one way to stop this is to pay all dues and close your card before the next payment happens.

You’re trying to recover lost ad revenue or the amount of money you paid in advertising because you can’t cancel your account?

> making it difficult for the credit card company to stop these transactions.

I would of had them cancel the card and issue a brand new one.

Dispute each charge with your bank. Give them the evidence that they have not responded to your attempts to contact them.

Stop the credit card immediately. Get rid of the card; not new number. This staunches the flow.

Cancel your credit card (report it as lost) - Facebook will soon chase

I would take them to small claims court for sure. That's abusive.

I'd contact a few news agencies in your city, see if someone wants to pick it up as a human interest story. Maybe call up your reps in Congress, one of them might like an excuse to rail against tech companies.

Cancel the credit card and take them to small claims.

Hey I built getdispute.com to do literally exactly this: sue big companies in small claims court easily.

First, I strongly recommend sending them a demand letter. You can generate one for free on getdispute.com/products/demand-letter and/or pay us a few bucks to mail it.

Second, physically mail the letter to their legal address. The mail goes to someone in legal tasked with reading the mail.

90% of our cases end here. A correctly written demand letter, sent by physical mail usually gets noticed and resolved very quickly.

If nothing happens after a few weeks (give it 3-4 wks) then you could file a case in court. This will require you to file the case, pay the filing fee, and then serve the defendant via a 3rd party process server. Could all be done in 1 day if you know what you're doing. If you serve the defendant (FB) correctly, they are now obligated to show up to court or otherwise risk a default judgement against them that cannot be reversed later.

Another 50-75% of cases end here as most defendants prefer to settle out of court.

If they don't respond, you will need to go to your court date and explain the case to the judge. Usually, without a defendant appearing, the court will grant a default judgement in your favor, assuming the judge decides they do in fact have jurisdiction. To be safe on jurisdiction, file in the county FB does business, or otherwise has a legal entity registered.

All of this said... it's probably not worth the time/money to do more than send a demand letter. It is probably worth your time to send a physical demand letter.

Good luck. 2.7m small claims court cases are filed each year in the US, approx 50% by individuals. So you're in good company.

I may be in the minority here, but while I empathize with you over the indignity of it I don't think this would be a slam-dunk case for you unless their agent just doesn't bother to show.

You paid them to serve ads. They presumably served the ads as promised, and your store is currently benefiting from the ads. "But I didn't want them" doesn't get you far when you previously signed a recurrent-billing contract.

If this gets all the way to a judge, on paper, it'll look like you just failed to stop service. You'll argue it was impossible. They'll reply with "you could have gone to [some form on some obscure page]" to cancel. The icing on the cake will be "you would have known if you read the terms and conditions you signed."

Skip that humiliation and re-read the terms and conditions to see if there's some specific rain dance you have to do to end the contract.

If nobody here can work some magic on your behalf, I would suggest you cancel your credit card and cut your losses ($300 is less than a speeding ticket or runaway AWS bill). The time involved in filing and the mere cost of parking at the courthouse once or twice is going to claim a chunk of that anyway, if you win.

If you're really bitter, file chargebacks. You can always bypass blacklists by playing at synthetic identity fraud (start using androgynous nicknames for yourself, typoed versions of your last name and addresses of friends/family on all future applications for anything to fuzz the credit bureaus).

There's a reason everything is now subscription-based with an obfuscated cancellation process-- we've found a way to institutionalize negative option billing. Welcome to America.

ed: I started poking around at it for you just for fun. I lost faith in the legal system so long ago that I forgot all about the joys of arbitration! You definitely wouldn't win at kangaroo court.

https://www.facebook.com/legal/commercial_terms

> You agree to arbitrate Commercial Claims between you and Meta Platforms, Inc. This provision does not cover any commercial claims relating to violations of your or our intellectual property rights, including, but not limited to, copyright infringement, patent infringement, trademark infringement, violations of the Brand Usage Guidelines, violations of your or our confidential information or trade secrets, or efforts to interfere with our Products or engage with our Products in unauthorized ways (for example, automated ways). If a Commercial Claim between you and Meta Platforms, Inc. is not subject to arbitration, you agree that the claim must be resolved exclusively in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California or a state court located in San Mateo County, and that you submit to the personal jurisdiction of either of these courts for the purpose of litigating any such claim.

If you're European, frame it as a GDPR issue. You have the legal right to correct your information.

Mail dpo@facebook.com, asking them to correct this, explaining them you have tried normal channels, and reminding them they have one month to reply. Failure to do so means you can lodge a complaint with your local data protection instance.

Close your credit card account.

Well, Facebook (and most other websites) is a private corporate premises, they can certainly stop doing business with anyone for any legal reason (e.g. they just don't like you).

Taking money from you is a different matter, of course. But they don't have any obligations to provide you their services.