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Comment by anoncow | Hacker News Reader

The same is true for Facebook. My website and ad accounts were banned one day without a reason. They said it did not meet community standards. There has been no recourse since 2 years.

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I once tried to advertise on facebook. I was editing my ad, and when I was trying upload an image or something, it went into some sort of infinite loop of trying to reload the page. Then, seconds later, it was banned, taking down my business page and my personal account as well. Still down after two years and going through their "appeals" process, which involves trying to log in with my old password, saying it was a mistake, and nothing ever happening.

There is no appeals process unfortunately. For the past 2 years I have been asking for an update regularly and the only response I get is an automated response saying that they have checked my ad account and there is nothing they can do about it.

My website is still blocked by Facebook's sharing debugger and my ad accounts with balance in them have been blocked without a reason given.

You could sue them in small claims court.

I'm completely in favor of everyone suing facebook for literally any reason, but to be clear, what would the legal standing/basis be for this small claims court?

The balance in their ad account belongs to them, not to Facebook.

Beyond that, the point is just to make them notice you, so anything might be good enough. Reporting to a regulator like the CFPB can also be effective if the case looks financey - I got my PayPal account back recently that way after they didn't like how I typed in a tracking number and banned me for life.

I got banned from Gumtree for a similar system. I was using a script blocker, uMatrix (but have since stopped because of the hassle), and the site wasn't coded to handle something with reCAPTCHAs not loading and the error messages were useless. Support said it's an automated system and for contacting them about the ban, they blocked my email as well.

You do have a recourse, same as with any other business: you can always take them to court.

Unless they force binding arbitration in their terms. This is quite common and precludes you from going to court.

Which is why such terms should be illegal.

Yup. Binding arbitration clauses should be taken out with a RKEW as nuke from orbit means you're way too close.

// RKEW - Relativistic kinetic energy weapon

They're not even getting arbitration now- a professional arbitrator would likely find in their favor, at least as far as monies owed.

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