Facebook Holds Fanpage Hostage (Even After Ransom Is Paid)

As most of you already know we have quite a following on Facebook. We refer to our facebook “fans” as friends and one of the thing we like to do is stay in touch with them on a consistent basis. Of course, at times our friends can give us a hard time, for example : we want our facebook friends to communicate and interact in english but at times they just ignore our requests . Nonetheless, they make Cognac fanpage what it is on Facebook. They make it one of the largets and most active cognac community anywhere in the world.

The cognac fanpage on Facebook is owned by Tommy Holen Helland, an all around awesome guy. We were able to strike a deal and work together as Cognac.com is the most popular and most visited cognac site on the web and cognac fanpage the most popular cognac community on facebook. The other day Tommy contacted me saying that Facebook sent him an email saying our fanpage has grown too large and needs to be verified. Emails like these don’t make you mad, it just shows you are doing a damn good job. Here is the email we received from Facebook ,

Hello,

Our records indicate that you are currently the admin of a Facebook Page with a large number of fans, Cognac. To ensure a positive user experience, we require admins of large Pages to confirm their affiliation with the brand, business, person, or entity that their Page represents. Please use the following link to authenticate your Page.

(URL)

You will also be able to authenticate your Page by viewing your Page and clicking on the “Authenticate Page” link below the “Edit Page” link.

If you are unable to authenticate your Page in the next three weeks, you may lose the ability to publish stories to your fans.

The Facebook Team

I got the above email forwarded to me by Tommy and I advised him to fill it out as soon as possible. According to Tommy, he filled out the form and for weeks there were no response. Let me remind you, all this time the fanpage has been growing anywhere from 100-200 fans each day and we haven’t been able to update it. Great. And then this email lands in Tommy’s inbox

Hi Tommy,

Thank you for providing us with this information regarding your Page, Cognac. Because you were not able to authenticate your Page by one of the methods previously offered, we are requiring that the name of your Page be elaborated upon to accurately represent the content of the Page.

If you are using your Page primarily as a blog, we are requesting that you add your personal name to the title of the Page. For example, if your Page is named “I Love Music” we are requiring that you change the name to, “I love Music by “, followed by your name.

If your Page is representing a website, you also have the option of making the URL of that website your Page name. For example, if you maintain www.ilovemusic.com you can change the name of your page to ilovemusic.com.

Publishing rights have been blocked for this Page until this process is complete. Once we have received your requested name change we will authenticate your page and enable your Page’s publishing rights again. These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users. Please reply to this email with the required name change for your Page and we will be able to assist you further.

Thanks for contacting Facebook.

Now we have no idea what’s going on cause seems like Facebook is throwing out some automated messages our way and we can’t seem to get any other replies besides that. When I talked to Tommy (the cognac fanpage founder) , he told me that he had filled out the form (mentioned) in the first email, the very next day. If you look at the second email it says “you were not able to autheticate your page.” The authenticate process is as simple as possible and I am sure Tommy did exactly what they asked for and he said he did. I don’t see any problem. It’s a straight forward form requiring straight forward answers and it was done. But we haven’t been able to get our fanpage back after weeks. The most frustrating part is that we have no clue what is going on.

One of the problem (seems like it cause we have no idea if it is since Facebook won’t reply) maybe that our fanpage is called Cognac. If you look closely, it says that they are requiring fan page titles should represent a website if they are associated with website. Well, whether we pick Cognac or Cognac.com , it doesn’t make a difference to us. But personally we shouldn’t have to choose cognac.com because we are cognac on the web as we represent cognac, plain and simple. We are willing to choose cognac.com if that’s what it takes to get our fanpage back but then again, no replies from Facebook.

Anyways, this post was just to let anyone who has a large facebook fanpage know that this might be coming your way soon. Also we wanted to let our friends on our fanpage know that we are well and alive and have been itching to update. Facebook held our fanpage hostage and asked for ransom which in this case was filling out the form. We filled out the form, sent multiple replies but even after the ransom was paid our page is still their hostage. Go figure!

To Facebook Team : If you are reading this please email Tommy Holen Helland whose email address you already have or email us at cognacblog(at)gmail(dot)com and let us know how we can get our fanpage back. If only we could get a reply from you we could come to some conclusion and not leave our fans high and dry not knowing whats going on. This might not be a major issue to you but it is to us as we would like to connect with our fellow cognac loving folks.

Related posts:

1. The Official Cognac Fan Page On Facebook
2. Cognac Lovers Define Cognac In Their Own Words
3. Cognac.com : We Are Now Serving Cognac
4. Conjure Cognac Is Shaking Up The Cognac Industry

One Response to “Facebook Holds Fanpage Hostage (Even After Ransom Is Paid)”

1. AdamCMiller says:

   March 4, 2010 at 1:07 am

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