The evil side of Facebook

Imagine buying something online with your credit card and the company using that credit card information for something totally different. That is exactly what happened with my friend with Facebook. Although I admire Facebook for its scale and achievement, I was shocked with lack of processes and PCI DSS compliance within the organization, and for harassment that my buddy is going through.

My friend ran a Facebook page for a company two years ago. She ran some ad campaigns on Facebook two years ago and had corporate card attached to the corporate Facebook page for which she was an admin. When she changed the job, she removed herself as an admin and moved on to her next gig. This was two years ago. Should have been end of story.

She recently bought a gift for someone on her personal Facebook page and entered the personal credit card number. Looks like her previous corp Facebook Page had some dues two years ago and they used her personal credit card instantly to take money from personal card with NO AUTHORIZATION.

This is where the problem started, after a lot of struggle and searching, my friend who uses Facebook like an average US person for more than 10 hours a month, realized that there is no contact information or even a call center to call and request for refund.

Luckily, she knows her rights and filed for a chargeback through bank credit card. After using Facebook for several years and uploading 1,000’s of pics and other important personal data, she was denied login on to her personal Facebook account. She was given a new terms & conditions page to accept that read that because she has filed for chargeback, Facebook can now or at any point of time in future can not approve her to run any ads. Also the T&C read that because she had filed for chargeback, she was also given notification that she should contact Facebook first before filing for chargeback with a link.

She was happy to see a link finally and when she clicked on it, she found an FAQ instead that has silly question and answers when she was expecting to pick up a phone call or send an email for billing support.

A company with a promise of $100 billion in market capitalization and connecting 1 billion people around the world has no people to speak to when you need. It is an irony that company which is in the business of ‘people’ does not treat them like people.