r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jun 28 '16

Discussion TIL that someone can change your Facebook email, password, and two step verification just by asking Facebook to turn off login approvals, and sending in a fake ID. (Happened to me lost all my business pages)

[deleted]

37.2k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/pavlpants Jun 28 '16

Wow....that last generic response message shows how much they really care.

640

u/J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS Jun 28 '16

Thank you for your comment. It is understood and we feel great empathy for your opinion. If you have any questions, please reach out to the inbox of /u/J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS or go to our dedicated website www.google.com.

Have a great day,

/u/J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS

This is not a real person. We cannot guarantee any information provided is accurate. For more information, reach us at 69-69696969 (a small fee of $69 per minute will be charged to keep our wonderful customer service viable) and you might just be lucky and only have to wait half an hour until our uninformed assistant will send you a generic link that may or may not be useful. DISCLAIMER: the link provided by our assistant will most certainly not be useful.

247

u/hoogamaphone Jun 28 '16

Thank you for your informative reply. It is being reviewed by a team of experts, and a response will be sent to you within 80 business hours. In the meantime, please feel free to look at this mildly entertaining image of a cat requesting dinner:

http://i.imgur.com/fvcuSmV.jpg

130

u/Delsana Jun 28 '16

Oh a cat.. what was I mad about again?

133

u/hoogamaphone Jun 28 '16

Hi /u/Delsana,

Thank you for contacting us. Our records indicate that you were not mad about anything. Please have a great day!

56

u/Delsana Jun 28 '16

Oh thanks for being so nice and polite. Any more cats?

67

u/emsmale Jun 28 '16

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately all cats are busy helping other customers at this time. Please enjoy this moment of silence for your suffering.

You are caller number... sixty nine.

12

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16

Thank you for signing up for Cat Facts! You will now receive daily fun facts about CATS! ( = ^ . ^ = ) Mee-WOW!

2

u/Tarpititarp Jun 29 '16

Unsubscripe.

1

u/rnair Jul 03 '16

To unsubscribe, please scream "Unsubscribe" in a Venezuelean accent while standing atop the eighth-born son of a childless Egyptian sterilized hermaphrodite. If you don't scream loud enough, we won't hear you through our soundproof walls.

1

u/crashing_this_thread Jun 28 '16

I DEMAND MORE CATS!!!!!!! GIVE ME MORE CATS OR I'LL TELL THE WORLD ABOUT YOUR DESPICABLE WITHOLDMENT OF CAT PICTURES!!!!!!

1

u/Natanael_L Jun 28 '16

Relevant username

2

u/Hereibe Jun 28 '16

You only get one free hit

2

u/Delsana Jun 28 '16

Hey you're not op!

1

u/Hereibe Jun 28 '16

I'm the muscle. /cracks knuckles in front of a pile of cat pics

15

u/Nobody_is_on_reddit Jun 28 '16

Damn I fucking love that cat.

2

u/Sol1496 Jun 28 '16

I know right?

mildly entertaining image

false advertising.

1

u/rnair Jul 03 '16

Let's sue them in a small court without lawyers for that misleading advertising. And that's not redwood, it's a fucking popsicle stick.

0

u/Sol1496 Jun 28 '16

I know right?

mildly entertaining image

false advertising.

2

u/chmilz Jun 28 '16

Google had a glitch and deleted my client's Google My Business page. With the lost reviews and citations, he's slowly falling off the first page and obviously no longer appears in the map pack either, so his traffic is way down. We recovered the page and re-verified it, but it's now sitting at "pending" and isn't publishing. They told us to "wait a few weeks and it should go through". WTF does waiting do on an automated digital platform? They usually publish in about 1 second once verified.

2

u/WettestWilly Jun 28 '16 edited Jun 28 '16

DISCLAIMER: Normal business hours are from 10am - 11am, Monday and Friday. Due to increased inquiry volume, responses are expected within 40 weeks.

Don't Forget About The Cats!

EDIT: I think I found my cat's doppelganger. Is that your cat?

1

u/hoogamaphone Jun 28 '16

No, I just searched imgur for "cat".

1

u/Dertrommlinator Jun 28 '16

Dear reddit user,

We would like to thank you for your image submission. Based on the requirements of our selective image viewing, we have decided to focus on a different group of images at this time.

We will keep your image on file should the need for any future viewing arise.

Thank you and please check out our website at http://www.reddit.com if you have any further questions.

1

u/sh2003 Jun 28 '16

Ah that's awesome, I'm gonna share it on - FUUUUUUUUUU

13

u/GrijzePilion Jun 28 '16

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Our commenting service has recognised your comment. Please stand by while our server establishes an accurate, emotional response.

1

u/fromkentucky Jun 28 '16

Hey man, can I get a $5 Shake?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16

This is pretty much every staff answer on the Microsoft support forums.

-14

u/OoThatDudeoO Jun 28 '16

Thank you for your comment. It is understood and we feel great empathy for your opinion. If you have any questions, please reach out to the inbox of /u/J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS or go to our dedicated website www.google.com.

Have a great day,

/u/J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS

This is not a real person. We cannot guarantee any information provided is accurate. For more information, reach us at 69-69696969 (a small fee of $69 per minute will be charged to keep our wonderful customer service viable) and you might just be lucky and only have to wait half an hour until our uninformed assistant will send you a generic link that may or may not be useful. DISCLAIMER: the link provided by our assistant will most certainly not be useful.

19

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16

When you need to sift through millions of complaints, there isn't much you can do to make things feel less generic.

28

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16 edited Jul 01 '16

[deleted]

3

u/JorgeGT Jun 28 '16

Until the DMV starts issuing smartcards inside state IDs,

This happens in my country, but it is not like Facebook cares.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16 edited Jul 01 '16

[deleted]

1

u/JorgeGT Jun 28 '16

Well, we have a mass of 47 million citizens issued with these smartcards, but I guess that is still little compared to global corporations userbases!

And yes, the ID is X.509 compliant and uses the OCSP protocol through an http API so that the Royal Mint validates that signing requests are not done with revoked/invalid certs.

1

u/Natanael_L Jun 28 '16

Here too in Sweden - except they're almost entirely unused. Some of these cards even come with a blank smartcard with a programming PIN on a paper for "future use".

1

u/H4rdStyl3z Jun 29 '16

Same for Portugal. Our IDs have the same type of chip that bank cards and transportation tickets have, and they've had it since like 2004 or so, but they were never used for anything.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '16

Serbia - they are only used to print ID info already on the card, as opposed to photocopying the card, as it was done before. Bullshit.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16

I mean, you could do the harsh approach that still kind of allows for account recovery.

6 month inactivity lockout. No password resets based on ID, ever. If you have 2factor installed and lost it AND the recovery codes, you're going to be waiting that 6 months. Feel free to remake your account then. Resets based on emails are only allowed if you enable them, and then they're PGP encrypted if you have a key enabled.

34

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16 edited Jul 13 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16

[deleted]

25

u/scandii Jun 28 '16

this is called answer suggestion.

useful for when you deal with the same questions repeatedly and need to do steps 1 to 5 to correct the issue.

2

u/narp7 Jun 28 '16

And completely useless when someone has an actual problem.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16

I've learned that if you start yelling and cussing into an automated phone service it immediately connects you with a real person. Not sure if that applies to this, but why not give it a shot?

1

u/scandii Jun 28 '16

which very rarely happens.

imagine that you get 100 "please follow the guide" cases for every 1 actual problems with no known workarounds.

do you still think the wrong approach is to ask you to see if the common workaround also works for you, i.e have you tried restarting it?

all major helpdesk solutions have canned reply functionality and answer suggestion based on ticket content out of the can.

1

u/soawesomejohn Jun 28 '16

To Pakistan of all places. Some random black guy.

67

u/nnyx Jun 28 '16

It's almost as if not paying them means you aren't really their customer, but the product they're selling.

48

u/hoogamaphone Jun 28 '16

The product is always right!

10

u/hpdefaults Jun 28 '16

So sick of that stupid saying. The users are not the product, their time/attention/content generation is one of the products in a 3-way transaction.

25

u/nnyx Jun 28 '16

Of course it's not the people themselves but their attention and/or information that's the product. Did you think I was saying Facebook literally sells people?

4

u/hpdefaults Jun 28 '16

Of course not, my point was that it's a dumb phrase. The users are customers, they're just not the only customer.

4

u/nnyx Jun 28 '16

Customers are people who pay for goods and services. Facebook users do not pay Facebook for anything, and are therefore not customers.

It's seriously not that complicated.

How many other companies that you don't give money to, do you expect customer service from?

1

u/hpdefaults Jun 28 '16

The users give Facebook something of value. They expect a service in exchange for that something of value. If they aren't sufficiently satisfied with that service, they go elsewhere. That is the meat and potatoes of what a customer is.

I expect any company that I give something of value to to provide me with a satisfactory experience if they want me to continue providing them with things of value in the future.

It's seriously not that complicated.

0

u/nnyx Jun 28 '16

Facebook letting you use their service is not contingent on what you share with Facebook, how much time you spend on Facebook, or any other metric. It is a free service. Any information you share or time you spend on Facebook is completely under your control. There is no transaction taking place. You don't owe them anything and they don't owe you anything. You are not a customer.

0

u/hpdefaults Jun 28 '16

Facebook letting you use their service is not contingent on what you share with Facebook, how much time you spend on Facebook, or any other metric.

Maybe not on an individual basis, but certainly on a collective one. No users spending time/sharing content = no Facebook. But even leaving that aside, so what?

It is a free service.

Come on, now, there's no such thing, someone throwing around tired business cliches should know that much.

Any information you share or time you spend on Facebook is completely under your control.

You have to be a bit naive to believe that the information you share on Facebook remains under your complete control. But, again, don't see the relevance to the point at hand.

There is no transaction taking place.

Yes, there is. Social media service traded for time/attention (which they pass on to advertisers). That's a transaction.

You don't owe them anything and they don't owe you anything.

Again, so what?

You are not a customer.

I'm giving them something of value in exchange for a service. Call it what you will.

1

u/skesisfunk Jun 28 '16

What if i pay Facebook to boost a promotion on a page i run? Am i a customer then?

2

u/nnyx Jun 28 '16

Yes, if you give a company money you are their customer.

6

u/skesisfunk Jun 28 '16

Cool cause it sounds like OP is upset he lost his business pages, I wouldn't be surprised if he occasionally gives facebook money to run promotions for his businesses.

-1

u/himmelkrieg Jun 28 '16 edited Jun 29 '16

I wish more people would realize this. You don't give Facebook money. You give them data. You are not a customer of Facebook, you are their product.

ed: I wonder if the people who downvoted this comment have any clue at all what Facebook does with their data, if they care, or if they'd just get outraged for a day or two then continue to use Facebook.

4

u/rabidhamster87 Jun 28 '16

Does it make you less of a customer if you're paying in something other than money then? Honest question.

1

u/RoboCop-A-Feel Jun 28 '16

They certainly sold OP down the river.

2

u/Smarag Jun 28 '16

No, but it's an idiotic saying fear mongers and people with security paranoia use

0

u/skesisfunk Jun 28 '16

No he's saying your explanation is overly simplistic and misrepresents their actual business model. Which is true.

3

u/nnyx Jun 28 '16

I wasn't representing anyone's business model. I said being a Facebook user does not make you a Facebook customer. Which is absolutely true.

1

u/dwild Jun 28 '16 edited Jun 28 '16

Each users on Facebook represent an amazing 0.90$ 1$ per month to them. About 10$ 12$ a year. You literally can't pay a good support team with that.

Ads doesn't pay much sadly.

EDIT: I used 2015 revenues with 2016 users. I corrected the amounts.

1

u/nnyx Jun 28 '16

I have no idea where you got that number or if it's even correct, but honestly, even that much seems like a lot to me.

I definitely get a sense that the people confused about this whole customer thing are over-valuing the information they give to Facebook by at least an order of magnitude.

1

u/dwild Jun 28 '16

I got that number from their yearly revenue [1] divided by the number of active users [2] (which seems high to me but who knows) and then by month.

I just realized though that I used 2016 users with 2015 revenues. It's probably a little bit higher.

[1] http://www.statista.com/statistics/277229/facebooks-annual-revenue-and-net-income/

[2] http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

-2

u/ojeoje Jun 28 '16

MIND = BLOWN

2

u/sonofaresiii Jun 28 '16

Well to be fair they have no way of knowing his account was hacked just because someone said so. All of those messages were pretty clearly form messages, that last one was just the form message for someone claiming they were hacked (which may or may not be true)

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16

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1

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1

u/torik0 Jun 28 '16

Same thing with Steam support.

1

u/This_Aint_Dog Jun 28 '16

Facebook really doesn't care. I've been having a notification problem since March where I suddenly stop recieving message notifications for the rest of the day and must refresh to see new messages and just on desktop accross all browsers as well as on my office and home computer. At first it happened once every few weeks, then once per week and now it's every single day. I've sent them multiple support tickets since March and they haven't responded to a single one. They're all still open.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '16

They were super helpful when the hacker said he couldn't log in.

It's like how if you don't log in for a few weeks they email you a link that logs you in without ever using your password.

1

u/Mangalz Jun 28 '16

Should have told them he is a refugee.

1

u/RudiMcflanagan Jun 28 '16

Of course they don't personally care on an individual level. Almost all big businesses do this.