A New Case

Now that my issues have been resolved, I’ll continue to help other people who have Facebook account troubles. The second case is my girlfriend Miriam Maurer, who has exactly the same issue, except she already has a new account she’s actively using. She started by sending this mail to Facebook support:

Dear sir or madam,

I want you to delete my account, which is registered to miri.facebook@mailnull.com. I read about the issues concerning the mailnull.com domain on http://pleasedeletemyaccount.wordpress.com. Since I gave up on that account some time ago, I would prefer if you’d just delete it.

Best regards,
Miriam Maurer

Tada!

Five months after I was locked out and three weeks after I started blogging about it, I can access my Facebook account again!

Hi Andreas,

I just reset your password and you should now be able to access your account. Also, I have updated your contact email address to avoid any further login troubles. Enjoy the Site!

Login: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
New Password: yyyyyyyyy

Since Facebook passwords are case sensitive (FACEbook is not the same as facebook), we recommend copying and pasting the login and password into the appropriate fields. Once logged in, you can change your password from the Settings tab of the Account Settings page.

Let me know if you need any further assistance with your account.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Lauren
User Operations
Facebook

I’ve already tested it and it works. Now I have to think about whether keep that account or delete it as planned. Who knows when something like this will happen again?

Wow!

I just received this mail, to my account email address:

Hi Andreas,

For security reasons, we no longer allow emails with this email domain to be used to access the site. Please respond from an alternate email address so that we can update your login information. Be sure to include all of our previous correspondence. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience.

Thanks for understanding,

Lauren
User Operations
Facebook

Looks like this is going somewhere! Joy!

Good ol’ endless loop

Just received this:

Hi,

In order to further assist you with updating your login email address, we will need for you to email us from hofi.facebook@mailnull.com, including all of our previous correspondence. Please note that the email address you are currently writing from is xxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xx. Sorry for any inconvenience. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,

Lauren
User Operations
Facebook

That sounds really familiar. My reply:

Hi,

I can think of no better reply than to quote the mail I sent to you on Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:47:27 +0200:

the problem with that is that you are blocking the email address that is associated with my account. I did write you numerous times from hofi.facebook@mailnull.com without receiving a reply. In fact, I sent the email to which you replied from both addresses at the same time, but only received a reply to the one not associated with my account.

My original request was to let me access my account again, but I would now be happy if it was at least removed so people stop sending me friend requests I can’t answer.

Seeing as you do not receive mails I send to you from hofi.facebook@mailnull.com, I can’t verify my identity that way. But since I still receive Facebook notifications to that address, I would suggest that you send me some confirmation information to hofi.facebook@mailnull.com and I quote it back to you from this address, thus proving my account ownership. I can’t think of any other way, unless you unblock the mailnull.com domain.

I repeat: You are blocking my login email address, hofi.facebook@mailnull.com. You are blocking every mailnull.com address. You don’t receive mails I send to you from hofi.facebook@mailnull.com. I receive mails you send me TO hofi.facebook@mailnull.com. I can’t email you from hofi.facebook@mailnull.com to prove my identity. You can email me something to hofi.facebook@mainull.com and I can send it back to you to prove my identity. If it’s not possible to do it that way, I don’t think there is a solution at all, unless you stop blocking my login email address (which in itself would solve the problem).

By the way, if I try to use your “Delete My Account” form, the error message states that my request is missing “T”. Screenshot: http://pleasedeletemyaccount.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/facebook-account-deletion.png

Kind regards,
Andreas

Another error message

Just for the record, this is the not-that-helpful error message I get when I try do delete my account:

Not entirely unlike Arthur Dent, I seem to be lacking T in my life.

New error message

I just tried once again to log in, which failed. Then I tried to reset my password. I noticed that the error message changed:

This is lot clearer than the previous error message which simply said the address was “invalid”. If I try to use the support form, the error message is still “The email address you provided is not valid”, by the way.

I sent this mail to Facebook support:

Dear Lauren,

I just noticed that the error message when I try to use any of your forms is not longer “invalid address”, but “This email domain has been reported as abusive”. I attached a screenshot.

This confirms my suspicion that you blocked the whole mailnull.com domain because of the misconduct of some users. I still would request that you inform those that are locked out by this action and give them the opportunity to either change their account address or delete their account. I know of at least one other person beside myself who is registered with a mailnull.com address and is thus banned from Facebook without any fault of her own and without this being visible to her contacts.

Kind regards,
Andreas

First Attempt continued

Okay, I admittedly dropped the ball on this for the last week. I’m kind of occupied with the fact that my thesis must be finished this month, so getting my facebook account deleted is not the highest priority in my life right now. I didn’t start a second attempt as I planned originally, since my first attempt already succeeded in getting a response by a human. Anyway, here is the last mail I sent to Facebook support:

Dear Lauren,

the problem with that is that you are blocking the email address that is associated with my account. I did write you numerous times from hofi.facebook@mailnull.com without receiving a reply. In fact, I sent the email to which you replied from both addresses at the same time, but only received a reply to the one not associated with my account.

My original request was to let me access my account again, but I would now be happy if it was at least removed so people stop sending me friend requests I can’t answer.

Seeing as you do not receive mails I send to you from hofi.facebook@mailnull.com, I can’t verify my identity that way. But since I still receive Facebook notifications to that address, I would suggest that you send me some confirmation information to hofi.facebook@mailnull.com and I quote it back to you from this address, thus proving my account ownership. I can’t think of any other way, unless you unblock the mailnull.com domain.

Kind regards,
Andreas

Apologies

Today I received another Facebook notification:

Nina added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Nina in order for you to be friends on Facebook.

To confirm this friend request, follow the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/n/?reqs.php&mid=a89ed2G249fe5f8G1edb73cG2

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

___
This message was intended for hofi.facebook@mailnull.com. Want to control which emails you receive from Facebook? Go to:
http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications&md=ZnJpZW5kO2Zyb209Nzg5Nzg3 NTg4O3RvPTYxNDQ1ODg3Mg==&mid=a89ed2G249fe5f8G1edb73cG2
Facebook’s offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304.

Dear Nina, since I can’t log in and can’t contact you in Facebook without being logged in, I’m not able to answer your friend request. Sorry.

Let’s Go – First Attempt

Okay, here we are. If you want to know what this is all about, please read the about page.

Today I sent the following email to Facebook, both from my account address as well as another one:

Dear sir or madam,

after several unsuccessful attempts in the following months to contact you, this is my first open support request, which I also published on http://pleasedeletemyaccount.wordpress.com.

It concerns my account registered under hofi.facebook@mailnull.com, which since February 2009, you are blocking me from logging into, but which is still neither disabled or deleted.

I request that you delete this account (optionally you could grant me access to it again, but deletion would be a satisfactory solution).

With kind regards,
Andreas Hofmann

Any suggestions what I should write to enhance my chances for a response?

Update 1 (2009-06-18 09:52)

I received this automatic reply. Note that I only received it once, to the address that is not associated with my account. This confirms my suspicion that they block my account mail address as spam.

Hi,

The Facebook Team has received your inquiry. We should get back to you soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to review our Privacy and Security Help page (http://www.facebook.com/help.php?topic=privacy). There, you’ll find answers to many common questions.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

The Facebook Team

Update 2 (2009-06-18 17:00)

So far so good, I received another reply:

Facebook users have the option to either deactivate or delete their accounts. The differences between the two options are described below.

If you deactivate your account, your profile and all information associated with it are immediately made inaccessible to other Facebook users. What this means is that you effectively disappear from the Facebook service. However, we do save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.), so if you want to reactivate at some point, your account will look just the way it did when you deactivated. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and expect their information to be there when they return to the service. You can deactivate your account through the “Deactivate Account” link on the Account page.

If you do not think you will use Facebook again and you would like to delete your account, you can do this yourself by taking the following steps:

1. Log in to your Facebook account.
2. Visit the Security section of the Help Center by following this link:

http://www.facebook.com/help.php?topic=delete

3. Click the “I want to permanently delete my account” link toward the bottom of the page.

Please keep in mind that once your account is deleted, you will not be able to reactivate the account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added.

If you are currently unable to access your account, you will need to reset your password in order to log in. In order to do so, click the “Forgot your password?” link that appears above the field where you would normally enter your password. Entering your login email address on the next page will cause a new password to be sent to that email address. Once you receive your new password and can log in, you can deactivate or delete your account using the steps outlined above. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

No, I didn’t cut anything of at the end, it really is like that. Perhaps this was actually written by a human, or it is a faulty template. Whatever the case, the point is that I cannot reset my password, because they are blocking my email address. If I type my address in their reset password form, it says “invalid address”.

My reply:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am aware of the distinction between deactivate and delete, but I can’t do neither myself. As described previously, the issue is that you are blocking my email address hofi.facebook@mailnull.com as “invalid”, and as far as I can tell this applies to everyone who registered with a mailnull.com address prior to February 2009.

If I try to use your reset password form, it claims my address is invalid. So I can’t do that. It would be of no use, too, because I know my password. The issue is with the email address, not the password. The same happens when I try to use your support form, it claims the address is invalid. But it is not, and Facebook notifications are still delivered to it. I’m just unable to login or do anything else. So I repeat my request for you to delete my account. Thank you very much.

With kind regards,
Andreas Hofmann

Update 3 (2009-06-19 10:00)

I received another reply, this time definitely from a human being. This is a first. Perhaps it is possible to solve this yet. Of course, there is once again this small problem:

Hi,

We can look into this, but for security reasons we need you to respond to this email from your login email address: hofi.facebook@mailnull.com. Also, please write your email address in the subject line and include all of our previous correspondence so that we can refer to your original inquiry.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Lauren
User Operations
Facebook

I can’t. I can’t respond from that address. Well, I can. But I never receive an answer. Because, you know, they are blocking that address. That’s why I can’t log in. That’s why I’m writing them. That’s why I want out. But before this was always told to me by an automatic reply, this is a human being I’m communicating with, so there is definitely hope now!