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Meta's Customer Service is So Bad, Users Are Suing in Small Claims Court To Resolve Issues 69

Posted by msmash from the hello-IT? dept.
Facebook and Instagram users are increasingly turning to small claims courts to regain access to their accounts or seek damages from Meta, amid frustrations with the company's customer support. In several cases across multiple states, Engadget reports, plaintiffs have successfully restored account access or won financial compensation. Meta often responds by contacting litigants before court dates, attempting to resolve issues out of court.

The trend, popularized on social media forums, highlights ongoing customer service issues at the tech giant. Some users report significant financial losses due to inaccessible business-related accounts. While small claims court offers a more accessible legal avenue, Meta typically deploys legal resources to respond to these claims.

Meta's Customer Service is So Bad, Users Are Suing in Small Claims Court To Resolve Issues More | Reply

Meta's Customer Service is So Bad, Users Are Suing in Small Claims Court To Resolve Issues

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  • How do you serve Meta with the lawsuit?

    • Re:and how? (Score:4, Funny)

      by ole_timer ( 4293573 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @01:55PM (#64564575)
      get a lawyer? look at the site for small claims in your area? have a cup of coffee?

      • Yeah, pretty much this. Kind of weird to even think it would be hard.

        Filing against rando in off grid house in Idaho is kind of hard, tracking down one of the largest companies in the world is pretty straight forward.

    • Re:and how? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @02:11PM (#64564647) Journal

      You pull their incorporation in your state and look up their service agent. Most States require them to list one if they intend to do business there. Failing that, you could always look in their home state and serve them there. Some States also allow you to do service by mail. If they don't show up you get a default judgment, so there's that....

      • States also allow you to do service by mail.

        Recommend using Certified or Registered Mail to get proof of delivery.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shakrai ( 717556 )

          That's not bad advice, weirdly though, a lot of States allow service through regular first class mail, which provides no proof of mailing OR delivery. It's not hard to see how bad actors would use such a scheme to engage in sewer service and get default judgments, yet, it's legal in a lot of locales. :(

        • States also allow you to do service by mail.

          Recommend using Certified or Registered Mail to get proof of delivery.

          That's REQUIRED when Serving by Mail.

          Also, if you filing in U.S. Federal Court, you have 120 Days after Filing in Court to actually "Complete Service".

    • How do you serve Meta with the lawsuit?

      Same way you Serve any Corporation. Serve their Registered Agent at the Address listed as Public Record in the State they are Incorporated, often Delaware.

      If you can dig up their Corporate Counsel, you Serve them, too.

      If they are Based Overseas, then you Serve at their U.S. Offices. In an abundance of caution, I'd try to serve them at their Main Offices, too.

      Since "All have a Duty to Assist in Service", you can usually Serve nearly anyone High-Up in the Corporation (like any Board Member), and it will be co

  • Aside from the ridiculousness of having to sue a company in order to use their product (and all the "no warranties" stuff the user probably agreed to in the EULA), I'm half surprised the legal notice gets their attention. What's the judge going to do, deploy sheriffs across state lines to raid Facey headquarters?

    • Re:Surprised that works... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MerlynEmrys67 ( 583469 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @01:52PM (#64564565)

      That is the beauty of small claims courts. Costs almost nothing to use - easy to serve a large company as they must list where to serve in their incorporation, and if they don't show up you get a default judgement that you can use to take money directly out of their accounts. So they show up with lawyers at hundreds of dollars an hour - costing them more than what you are asking for. Simpler for the company to simply give you what you should have gotten and settle out of court.

      • Re:Surprised that works... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @02:17PM (#64564679) Journal

        I used the mandatory arbitration process against a credit card company once. It never should have gone that far, the dispute was for less than $100, but their customer service sucked donkey balls and they ignored my CFPB complaint. Fine print of the credit card agreement said THEY would pay the arbitration filing fee, which is $2,000, so I put together a complaint and filed it with JAMS. Not only did they have to eat the $2,000, they also had to hire an outside law firm to defend the complaint, and the lawyer assigned therein was incredulous that it went that far. It was interest and late fees for a "late" payment that was actually timely and for which I had irrefutable proof (statements from my credit union showing payment withdrawn before the due date) that it was timely.

        Side note: Don't ever do business with Goldman Sachs. They suck. I'm apparently not the only one [9to5mac.com] that thinks so. Literally the worst bank I have ever done business with. Worse than Synchrony even. It's the Spirit Airlines of credit cards, except, Spirit at least knows how to take your money correctly. ;-)

      • I got charged a fee on my electric bill that I should not have been. I looked into small claims court. Depending on where you live, they can make you pay the legal fees for the other party if you lose. I could just see having to pay 5000.00 dollars for a bunch of lawyers they had on retainer if I lost. I had three people, including a supervisor, at the the company that actually did the work at my house say that I shouldn't have been charged the fee (because the people I pay my bill to is not the same compan

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Unfortunately Small Claims is the only way an individual can deal with a large corp on equal footing. The local utility owed me some money (rebate on smart thermostats) and kept telling me next month, next month. I filed a claim online https://www.nycourts.gov/court... [nycourts.gov] They called me a week before the court date saying they wanted to settle, I told them when I have a check in my hand, I'll rescind. They fedexed it overnight. Nothing to be afraid of, at least inhttps://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/06/20/17332

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by zeiche ( 81782 )

          some states have a Public Utility Commission that have teeth. use your state’s PUC instead of small claims if possible.

    • well, most large corporations seem to have forgotten that they can claim anything in a EULA but that doesn't matter, what matters is what is legal and what is not. So, many large corp's appear to put clearly illegal terms in their EULA's and then are shocked when a judge would find against them. Secondly, in American Jurisprudence (I am not a lawyer, I did clerk in a law office for 6 years though) there is the concept of the 'reasonable man' meaning, what would a reasonable man think/do, when faced with XX

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      Small claims generally means you're in the same state, at least, as the other side, and generally in the same court district. And generally, there are mechanisms in place to make it easy to force payment.

      In California, for instance, once they're past the deadline to pay the judgment, you file paperwork with the county Marshall's office, naming specific items to be seized and auctioned off to satisfy the judgement (and the cost of collecting it), like office equipment or company cars. There have been multi-b

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HBI ( 10338492 )

        The ability to collect on a judgement is pretty remarkable when you see it in action. There is no aspect of your life truly immune.

        Bottom line is to pay what you owe (or exercise your rights) before you find out.

  • Old tactic, new company (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MerlynEmrys67 ( 583469 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @01:49PM (#64564545)

    30 years ago my bank merged with another. Car loan was with the bank. I mailed in the car payment - they cashed the check, no problem I thought. They came back and said - we didn't get the payment. Went to the branch and gave them the next payment by check. Same outcome. I soon received a letter saying they were going to repossess my car. Got the copies of the check and the bank records showing that they sent it to the location that processed loans, and they stamped it endorsed. They still didn't credit my loan.

    Off to small claims court I went. About a week before the case was to be heard, the branch manager calls me to ask what is up. Give him the story and he got back to me with a credited loan, and a few hundred dollars to cover fees and time spent. What a waste of effort on both sides

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This is just escalation. Companies don't want to be bothered by customer support, and the only way for them to give a shit is to haul them into court. I'm sure that the bank will be demanding all loan signers go through their own arbitrator, but at least for now, a small claims lawsuit will get some action done when everything else is ignored.

      Want to know what created the Karen archetype? Businesses fucking customers on the CS side, where only the loudest, most assholish people were the ones that got any

      • My mom's bank is very helpful in this regard. The local branch that is. Because the managers there will get on the phone with the corporat office and which point they have to go through all the headaches that mere customers have to go through... I see this other places too, like the AT&T reseller that has to wait on hold to talk to AT&T service

        Overall the modern approach to customer service is to just not bother with customer service.

    • Re:Old tactic, new company (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @02:04PM (#64564609)
      Ugh. Sounds like a bank, alright. Once I went into my bank to ask for a cashier's check. They specifically had a policy that they didn't charge for cashier's checks if you had a balance over 10k as long as you only asked once a month or less. I had only had for one before and it was a year before my visit. They told me they wanted to charge me $6 for the service. I told them that went against their own policy. They then acted like they'd never had such a policy (but it was in my bank paperwork and they very clearly did, in fact I found it on their website also).

      I told them that because they were rude and lying I wanted my money. I told them I was closing my account and they needed to give me my balance in cash or cashier's check and they should close my account immediately. They refused and said they didn't have to because my stated reason was "Because it's my money and not yours" on the account closure form. I immediately called the police and reported the incident and asked for an officer to stop by. It took the cops a couple of hours but they called me and met me at the bank. I told them the bank has my money and I want my money. If they won't give it to me I plan to press as many charges as humanly possible. The cop goes in with me and I gave them my ID, and a copy of my last statement, then asked to close the account. The same clerk/bitch didn't outright refuse but went and got the same manager I'd just argued with. That manager immediately wrote me a cashier's check and closed the account without saying much of anything. Then I completed the police report, walked across the street (literally) and started a new account with a new bank. Been with the new bank ever since.

      • Tell me you pressed charges and whether they were found guilty!

      • Re:Old tactic, new company (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @02:26PM (#64564699) Journal

        I did the same thing to a bank that once put a hold on a small ($400) deposit, which led to a bounced check, despite the fact that I had over 25k on deposit in savings and CDs with that same bank. They pointed to a recently changed hold policy, I pointed out I had ample funds to cover the deposited item if it was bad, plus they had my recurring payroll deposit, so why are you nickel and diming me?! They refused to budge, so I closed the account on the spot.

        Just to be extra petty, I made them give me cash, so they'd have to do the paperwork with Uncle Sam for the "suspicious" activity. Any cash transaction >$10,000 triggers extra reporting. That part actually pissed them off, lol, they REALLY wanted to give me a cashier's check.

        • Oh, yeah, the RICO forms! I buy and sell used cars a lot and I get hit with those all the time. I normally write "used car" but what I'd rather write is: "It's not any of your fucking business. Your KYC and AML laws are immoral and anti-freedom. I hope you fail." However, I'm sure that'd get me a SAR in about 10 seconds after the bank teller read it.

          Fuck the government and their efforts to "keep us safe" (a phrase that sets off red-alert bells esp since CV1984). I'd rather deal with the gangsters and abus

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        Friend of mine, who worked as an IT contractor, took a check from a customer to a branch of the bank it was written on. They refused to cash it because it was drawn on a different branch and he didn't have an account with them.

        He expressed the opinion that they must be in pretty bad shape if they don't trust their own branches and have no way to verify funds. Loudly. Repeatedly. By the time a manager came running up to give him his cash, he's seen several potential customers get up from the load department

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by LazarusQLong ( 5486838 )
        Banks suck.

        Several years back I had an account with this one bank, since gone out of business. I had two jobs, one day job that paid shit but gave me benefits, then my consultancy, that paid more, was more sporadic, but no benefits.

        One day, after work, I got a call from one of my wealthier clients and because of that call I spent most of the weekend with her, and got a ginormous (for me, at that time) chunk of CASH for my services, plus another chunk as an 'appreciation' My paycheck came in thursday, s

  • I got banned for posting a room for rent on facebook market place... I appealed and got a response that the ban was permanent and there is nothing they would do. I deleted my facebook account that same afternoon.
  • I wonder how many more people are going to follow this path now. I see Meta's legal department seeing this article and going "Oh Shit!".

    • I am seriously thinking about suing them for allowing scam ads to run rampant and then invariably reply to ALL reports with "We’ve taken a look and found that this ad doesn’t go against our Advertising Standards."

      The EU is looking into this, and several EU countries have implemented a way to report those ads directly to local authorities.

      • An effective response would be to stop using Facebook/Meta. If you don't see the ads in the first place then they have no business model.

        If enough people did the same they'd change. (And I'm not hypocrite: I had a Facebook account but closed it completely several years ago. It's possible to live without it.)

        • As I have stated elsewhere, there are (way too) many groups, forums and communities which moved to Facebook Groups. As of now, there is a duopoly: Reddit and Facebook. Discord is trying, but it's simply not designed for proper information structuring.

          If I ditch Facebook, I ditch a plethora of information and people I can connect to, who share my (also way too) many hobbies.
          It's the only thing that keeps me on Facebo(r)k.

  • Getting to a real human at meta isnâ(TM)t easy if itâ(TM)s even possible.
  • Just abandon Facebook/Instagram/Meta. Heck Linkedin by Microsoft has turned into their version of Facebook.

    Folks could make Facebook the next MySpace.
  • Customer support wasting time, locking account without reason, same old game.

  • My 81-year-o father was banned on account creation (Score:3)

    by Burdell ( 228580 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @03:42PM (#64564927)

    I'd told him about a couple of local organizations that (unfortunately) post some notifications just on FB (or possibly also X, but that's worse IMHO). So he tried to create an account... and for some reason was banned immediately. He never tried to post or anything. No idea what he could have done that would have triggered that, but no method to appeal either apparently.

    • This also happened to my friend. My conjecture: Meta automatically created a "digital profile" of your father based on his email address, phone number, full name, birth date, residence, and other relevant information that all combined would likely identify him. This means that Meta may have permanently banned your father's (and my friend's) overall identity from its servers, which is, of course, very troubling. So here's my advice to your father and everyone else:

      My friend got around this by creating an acc

    • Was that in 2016 or 2020? It was quite funny to see Meta trying to deal with the endless spam accounts peddling election bullshit, by laying waste to their entire platform banning many legit accounts in the process.

      They still have a spam problem now. The platform (and the company running it) are a shitshow.

  • Facebook is in a death spiral (Score:3)

    by ZP-Blight ( 827688 ) on Thursday June 20, 2024 @04:45PM (#64565143) Homepage

    I have a community page on facebook I use to announce new versions as I release them, live coding sessions, new plugin releases, etc.

    I recently released a major version representing over 8 months of work. I wrote a long blog post about the new/enhanced features and posted a one paragraph announcement on my community's facebook page along with a link to the blog on my own website.

    Facebook instantly deleted the post, classifying it as "spam" with no recourse to object. How can I be spamming my own page?! The linked blog post was all original text and imagery I created specifically for the new release.

    I ended up posting the announcement with no links and told my followers to move to Zoom Player's reddit community instead.

    • They viewed it as spam because you didn't pay them for what they viewed as an advertisement. (Source: directly out of my butt, however... it's the only thing I can think of that comes close to a 'rational' reason).
  • Our organization is in the throes of this now. Itâ(TM)s not just that they have bad customer service - itâ(TM)s that the mechanism they have to restore access to our account is buggy and doesnâ(TM)t work. Even when we are the ones listed as the recovery email, we just get errors from their site. Our official Instagram feed has been out of our control for years â" with no way for even our board of directors to restore it. Maybe a lawsuit is the only way?

  • Reminds me of a Far Side cartoon... The chickens are restless.

    Meanwhile, I'm going to bet Meta's real customers--the advertisers--experience great service if they have a problem.

  • Meta has customer service? That's news to me. I've never seen any evidence of that.

  • Having a Facebook Business account trying to support communication with customers on Facebook is the most rediculous show of non-existing security.

    Not only is Meta not able to filter out messages from scammers claiming to be meta representatives and using meta logos in their accounts, obvious scammer keywords doesn't trigger any filtering either.

    As a result every business owner using Metas platform must every day carefully NOT click endless amounts of phishing and other scam links.

    Maybe if they solved this

  • It usually costs at least $2000 if you file direct in court. And another 2K if they try defending it. Our law if the product has a brand, you can sue the parent. So you may sue Sony or Apple and not Sony(Australia) etc, and the nominal directors personally. This is hard, unless you are a business Lawyer. Usually an hour before court, corporate council calls and asks how much for all this to go away. Apple (Australia) was insistent a claim be filed their online system and they determine the technical complai

  • You get the support you pay for with Meta.

    Oh, wait... not paying them? Then you don't get support.

    Advertise? Get support
    Pay for verification? Get support
    Build meta tools? Get support.

    Use the service as a free user, get free support through self service

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