How Can I Talk To Facebook Customer Service

Imagine that ane solar day you lot're kicked off Facebook. It happens, regularly. Y'all may not know why exactly. It looks similar an algorithm may have washed it — and at present you need to achieve a human being at the company to get back on. NPR has interviewed more than 2 dozen users in that situation — all people who rely on Facebook to do their work, brand their living.

Their stories, which we'll share in a divide article, made us wonder: If you needed to reach Facebook, what would you do?

Many people would become online and search for "Facebook customer service."

We tried that, and got this number: 844-735-4595. Information technology was prominently displayed as the top search outcome on Google. Google even made it a "featured snippet" — that is, a result highlighted in a box at the summit, enhanced to draw user attending and lend brownie.

Until recently, a telephone number at the top of Google search for "Facebook client service" led callers to a scam, NPR has found. Google/Screenshot by NPR hide caption

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Google/Screenshot by NPR

Until recently, a phone number at the top of Google search for "Facebook customer service" led callers to a scam, NPR has establish.

Google/Screenshot by NPR

Delight do not phone call it. You lot volition become someone real — but not from Facebook.

The start fourth dimension NPR called, someone picked upwards then put the phone down — perhaps on a table. Yous could hear mumbling in the room. Information technology felt suspicious.

So NPR gave the number to Pindrop, a visitor that specializes in phone fraud. A Pindrop researcher, who has to remain bearding for his piece of work, called up and recorded every bit he pretended to exist a Facebook user in distress.

A Pindrop Researcher Calls A Simulated Facebook Customer Service Number

A telephone call center operator named "Steven" — who, according to Pindrop analysis, is based in India — says: "Thank you for calling Facebook." He is pretending to be a Facebook employee.

The Pindrop researcher plays along and explains he is locked out of his Facebook account. He needs help getting reactivated.

"Steven" gives him very unusual advice: Go to a Wal-Mart or a Target.

"But walk up over in that location and tell them to provide you an iTunes bill of fare. OK? And on the backside of that iTunes card there would be a 16-digit security code."

Maybe you see where this is going.

Steven continues: "You need to phone call us back on this same number and provide me that 16-digit security code and so that I can activate that access and we'll exist giving you the password for your new — for your onetime account."

This is a scam. The elevation Google search result for "Facebook customer service" led to a person asking for codes on iTunes souvenir cards. This is a well-known method of stealing from innocent people online. (Both Apple and the Federal Merchandise Commission have issued alerts well-nigh it.)

That price-free "Facebook" line was not just on Google. That number and others have been circulating on Facebook itself, on pages where users are asking for help, for at least a yr. In one instance, a user asked whether the number was valid and a member of the company's Help Team responded: "There isn't a number to contact Facebook. ... It sounds similar the email or notification yous saw is likely a scam." It's unclear whether the Help Team member reported it to her superiors to investigate.

"Wow. Wow. Wow. That's crazy," says Marty Weintraub, founder of Aimclear Marketing. He wrote a leading industry book on Facebook advertising, long before the residual of the world realized the company would dominate the Internet economic system. "This is an astonishing result."

He also wrote a book on how to manipulate search results, to get your brand or production upwardly on peak. He knows that companies monitor their search results, to see what their customers want, and that criminals and competitors try to exploit powerful brands. These are standard practices.

What Weintraub finds astonishing is that a term as basic as "Facebook customer service" slipped through the cracks.

"It's non like somebody's searching for 'Hey, what color are Mark Zuckerberg'due south socks?' It's not like it'southward something that'south off the beaten path," Weintraub says. "So 1 would call back that a company as large as Facebook would be monitoring [the] search engine results page for a major query surrounding their services."

According to Google data, "Facebook customer service" gets searched, on average, about 27,000 times a month in the U.Southward.

Weintraub says that is sizable, that Facebook should accept known about it "well-nigh the first minute" it came upwardly, and that the company should have guarded its users. "I'd be so scared," he says. "These are people who are looking for help with the product and they're getting scammed. OMG."

NPR informed Facebook and Google about the scam line.

Facebook said that it has been investigating the group associated with this toll-free number for some time; that this group is targeting many platforms; and that it's up to Google to explain why it displays sure search results.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement that the company has taken steps to remove the fraudulent number.

Neither company explained how the prominent search result went unnoticed.

And to be clear, Facebook does not have a phone number for regular users to call. It does have an online help center, located here. (Facebook pays NPR and other leading news organizations to produce live video streams.)

NPR's Aarti Shahani has started a page on Facebook for people to share concerns about the platform. Information technology's called Tell Zuck. If yous use Facebook for work, and find y'all're unable to reach the company, tell her your story at www.facebook.com/tellzuck .

How Can I Talk To Facebook Customer Service,

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/01/31/511824829/-facebook-customer-service-is-a-scam-literally

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