Is my Facebook page really disabled? Here’s how to check.
If you manage a Facebook page on behalf of a business or company, chances are pretty high that you have received a message like the one below in your Facebook inbox. These messages all say something like “Your Facebook page has been disabled due to violation of our community standards.” But very often (read: almost all of the time) these messages are fake – and learning to identify the spam is important so you can tell if your page is really in trouble.
Sample spam message
This type of scam message has become prevalent on Facebook over the last six months or year. My clients’ pages sometimes receive multiple messages a day. And, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I just had a client report this same phishing scam on LinkedIn. So it appears the scammers may be migrating over to new platforms.
So what do you do about it?
First, let’s cut you some slack. It is perfectly human to panic when someone says the page you are responsible for was taken down. In fact, the cybercriminals count on you panicking. Really good social media managers have been duped by these messages. I will even admit to having the panic reaction once or twice myself. So the very first thing you have to do is … pause. Take a deep breath.
Do. Not. Panic.
Second, you have to activate the logical part of your brain.
Check your Facebook page. Is it still there? Does everything look OK? Do you see any warning messages on the page telling you the page has been disabled? Does the page actually look like it was disabled?
Check for other notifications. If the message was actually from Facebook, you would have received it in other places. Facebook never tells someone their page has been deactivated by sending a direct message to the page and not communicating in any other way. If it had been a real message, you would have received an email at the email address tied to your Facebook profile or an actual notification on the page (the notifications that appear under the “bell” icon). You may see a banner or other message on the page or in Business Manager that tells you there’s been a change. If the message ONLY came via direct message and was not sent in any other way, it is almost certainly spam.
If your Facebook page looks fine and you did not receive a notification on the page, in Business Manager or by email, chances are very high that this is a fake message.
Third, look at the actual message you received. There are several very common red flags that can quickly tell you that the message is a fake:
Spelling and grammar mistakes. There are often glaringly obvious errors in the copy of these messages. While the proficiency of Facebook support can be debated sometimes, they tend to NOT make spelling or grammar errors in official messages.
Branding. The account sending you the message is basically a fake business profile. Very often the scammers will try to make the message look as official as possible by calling the account something like “Meta Pro Support” or “Facebook Support.” Then they may use the Facebook logo, the Meta logo, or some version of a caution sign or alert sign. But if the branding looks fishy, it probably is. And if it’s anything other than Meta or Facebook, it’s definitely fake.
Urgency. All of these messages are designed to get you to click a link and enter your login credentials. Basically they are a sophisticated phishing effort. So first, do not click anything. Second, really look at the website link that is provided. If it does not begin with www.facebook.com, it is spam. Any link that leads to like www.meta-support-cases.com is fake. If it contains a lot of dashes and does not begin with the main domain facebook.com, it is fake. Do not fall for the urgency ploy, and do not click! In addition, you can hover your cursor over the link to see where the link actually leads. Evaluate the website address and see if it looks like a legitimate Facebook page.
Sample scam message
In some cases like the one here, the scammers have made things look a little more legitimate. The URL included in the post is an actual Facebook support link. And the message is signed “Meta Security Team.” It may be tempting to believe this is real but there are still several red flags:
The logo. The generic warning symbol is definitely NOT something Facebook would put on an official account. If you see any profile picture that is a warning sign or symbol, that is almost assuredly fake.
The weird periods. You may note the stray period at the end of “Community Standards” and also at the end of “Meta Pro Team.” This is intentional – it gives the scammers more options as they can create an account for “Community Standards” (no period), “Community Standards.” (one period) and “Community Standards..” (two periods), etc. Most people won’t notice the extra period.
An aside for those of you who are really dorky: This also prevents Meta’s software looking for fraudulent accounts from flagging the account because the period counts as a different character and is therefore a different word. Facebook may have software looking for accounts called “Community Standards” but may not be looking for “Community Standards.” (with period)
Weird capitalization. Again, official messages from Facebook are pretty clear of copy and typographical errors. If you see things that look weird, that’s another red flag.
The link. This link goes to a specific post, which makes no sense. And I might bet that if you hovered over that hyperlink, the actual website might be a different. But any way, that URL looks wrong.
Bottom line – when you see a message like this, use extreme caution. Take the deep breath, do not panic. The first step is to make sure that your page was actually impacted. Chances are pretty high that it’s a scammer and the only thing you should do is report the message and profile as spam and continue with your day.