I had all my Meta accounts suspended because the Meta bots decided a joke I made about having to pay for Marvin's two stomach surgeries by becoming a narcotics dealer was me using the platform to sell drugs. Facebook, which at this point serves almost exclusively as a platform for misinformation, scams, and identity theft, had decided that my attempt at sarcasm was the real problem. Now, they may or may not be right about that. However, what I would like to focus on is the hopeless task that awaits any normal person that gets their account disabled.
First, Meta has constructed a perfect loop of "customer service". When you find out your account has been disabled they give you an opportunity to appeal the decision. You aren't given a reason for the account being disabled in the first place, so this makes the appeal process VERY difficult. It's a digital Kafka role playing game where you have to defend yourself for a crime that has not been identified. When you send the appeal in, you get a screen which says "We'll let you know". There is no back and forth or any email given. They will get back to you... or not.
So after a few weeks I had not heard anything. It wouldn't have mattered to me at all but the band's database is that Facebook page. It became swiftly evident that it would be hard to let anyone know about our gigs, LPs being released, etc. This was my motivation to solve the problem. I will now save you or anyone you know a great deal of time by telling you how to get this done. First, you have to be persistent. The only way I could figure out how to interact with the company in a meaningful way was to get my Instagram account verified which would then access a "customer support" feature. This cost me $15 but I figured it would be worth it. As far as I can see, this is the one and only way to contact Meta. They don't even have a phone number. It's all a bunch of Indian dudes sitting at card tables responding to chat texts.
What I didn't count on was how infuriating the customer support chat is to use. You first have to get past the bot chat feature. If you manage to get past that (I did by opening three different reasons for needing to talk to someone), you will be asked through amazingly stupid questions that don't help anything. Example: What can I help you with today? "I can't log in". OK, let's have you log in to see what the problem is. "I can't log in." You are not able to log in? "No". Have you tried logging in with another device? "yes". Were you able to log in there? "No. I can't log in anywhere." What is your url? "I don't know. I can't log in." Can you log in to tell me your url?
It goes on like that for about 25 minutes for the first part of the chat regardless of how well you explain the problem in the initial contact. Then if you have the right guy (it's always an Indian man that seems to be about 26 years old) he will maybe figure out what you are trying to accomplish and the hurdle you face in trying to do so. It's important to note, many of these guys don't seem to have the ability to put 2+2 together. It really seems like they're fucking with you.
On one of the chats I had a guy call to tell me to forget about trying to get my account back. The account was gone. When I asked to speak to his supervisor, he said he didn't have one. "You don't have a boss?" Yes, but I don't know who that is. "So who instructs you on what to do?" No one, We get emails. "From who?" I don't know. "So if I was General Motors and couldn't get into our account to buy a bunch of ads, who would I talk to? "I don't know. I'm sure there is somebody."
I finally got some action going when I started a chat saying I wanted to place a five figure advertising buy for the Whiskey Daredevils but couldn't log onto our band account. Can someone help me log on so I can give you $10,000 in revenue? THIS got some action. Within a week I had a fellow who was very pleased with himself who called to tell me the account was active again and he had fixed everything. Though it had taken 7 weeks, 9 online chats, 5 phone calls, and countless hours scouring the internet to figure out how to do it, I did it. We now hope to be able to tell you when we are playing gigs again. In today's world seven weeks is like a decade, so I hope you all remember who we are when that next post hits.
I wish I had spent that time on getting my account back focusing on the NFL. I took a couple bad losses last week. The good news is THIS WEEK is a great time to right the ship. Why? Because Old Reliable, aka The Cleveland Browns are doing their traditional late season move of starting a player that clearly has no business being a starting NFL player as the QB. I guess they have this small hope that they get lucky and somehow have stumbled onto the next Tom Brady, but they always find out they have the current Cody Kessler. I have no fucking idea why they are starting DTR this week as he has already shown that he can't start in the NFL. Winston can get the ball downfield, beat the Steelers, and set the franchise single game passing record. DTR sorta sucked at UCLA and gets injured as soon as he takes the field. Cincinnati is somehow still in the playoff hunt (slimly, but still in). They should bury the Browns. I got on this at Cincinnati -7.
Minnesota is good. They are better than Green Bay. Last week Green Bay was -3 at Seattle and killed them. In that game Geno Smith got injured and couldn't come back in the game. His knee is, in the words of medical professionals, "sorta fucked up". This week the 12-2 Minnesota Vikings are also -3 at Seattle. Same spread to a better team with an injured QB? Minnesota -3.
Baker Mayfield has an insane record as a road favorite of 13-4 ATS. I was as stunned as anyone to read that as my most vibrant memories of Mayfield are from when he stupidly played with one arm losing games for the Browns. The Cowboys have had some recent success but let's be reasonable here. They beat Carolina and the Giants. Tampa is a legit "get in the playoffs and maybe win a game" team. I think they take care of business here. I'd like it better at 3, but I'll still take Tampa -4.
Current Record: 30-27
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