Facebook.com
Complaint 316527 Details

FACEBOOK IS TAKING UNAUTHORIZED MONEY OUT OF BANK ACCOUNTS.
I WOKE UP ONE DAY TO FIND FACEBOOK HAD REMOVED $2261.14 FROM MY BANK ACCOUNT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION:
I advertised with Facebook from September 2012 to April 2014. I kept a Daily Spending Limit of $1.50 meaning that Facebook agrees not to ever charge me more than that and I agree to pay up to that amount. I also had a Billing Threshold of $250.00 meaning that at any time if my bill reached $250 I would automatically be billed. This means NO bill should have ever exceeded $250. The TOTAL amount of money I spent with Facebook from September 2012 to April 2014 is $782.60.

On April 13, 2014, Facebook accessed my bank account with 3 unauthorized charges. $754.00, $752.54 and a third for $754.60. This was a complete shock to me. I raced home to access my Facebook and look at my billing summary. Strangely, no such charges or transactions show up on my Facebook account. My billing shows my last legitimate bill on Apr 01, 2014 for $7.06 (which was a normal bill for me). There was a Current Unbilled Spend of $19.03. No sign of charges for $750+, let alone 3 of them.

I attempted every way possible to contact Facebook and to my horror realized that I really do not have access to them. Any phone number that you find for them has the same recording, “Unfortunately, we do not offer phone support at this time.” They direct you to use the Help Center for answers. Well, I don’t need answers, I need someone to give me back the money they took from me without authorization. That’s not listed in their Help Section. I emailed to Report a Problem on c.facebook.com/ads, which claims 24 hour response time. At the time of this writing its over 30 hours and no response. Am I impatient? You bet I am, they took $2261.14 from me that they had no right to take; money that I need. I shouldn’t have to wait at all, let alone wait longer than the advertised waiting period.

At this time, I have not received a response from Facebook, have filed a dispute complaint with my bank to dispute the charges which will take up to a week, and I have filed formal complaints with the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, and the California Department of Consumer Affairs. I canceled my card with my bank for fear of Facebook continuing to charge me. I confirmed with my bank that indeed the charges were paid to Facebook. Needless to say, Facebook will never get another card number from me, nor will they get another dime of my money. They should not get yours, either.
If you never planned on advertising with Facebook then great, good for you. Facebook advertising used to be a great system. Everyone knows that in the last year posts do not get seen by as many people as they used to. I built 2 business pages on Facebook, one before the change when Facebook went “public”, and one after. The one before went extremely well, $1.50 Daily Budget netted me 6000+ likes in a little over a year and the response to my business was worth it. Really worth it. After the change, I’ll be lucky to hit 1000 by a year’s time, and post distribution is seriously limited. I personally believe, as do many others on Facebook, that Facebook is deliberately choking post distribution to encourage more Promotion Spending by users. I also believe that Promotion Spending does not get you the potential distribution it could and this is done deliberately by Facebook. I base that opinion on my experience with Promotions before and after the changes to Facebook’s business model. Now, trust me, it’s not worth it.

Regardless of whether they are choking distribution or not, Facebook has proven to me that they are not responsible and your card information is NOT safe with them, period. Any company that has access to your money…you should have access to them. If one hour after I post this they return my money, it doesn’t negate my warning here. Even if they were hacked and someone using their name got into my account, it is still unacceptable. They simply cannot keep your information or your money safe.
Pass this along, perhaps someone will avoid the stress and pains I’ve had to go through this week suddenly missing thousands of dollars out of my account. DO NOT GIVE FACEBOOK A CREDIT/DEBIT CARD NUMBER FOR ANY REASON.