Another Facebook flaw?

I’ve been tearing my hair out with frustration because of a Facebook problem. It’s one that, as I think about it, indicates what I think is a big flaw in their system – one compounded by their indifferent support.

I’ve set up a pretty barebones web site for a small business in Saint John, New Brunswick – the Urban Deli. I tried to keep it pretty simple for several reasons: 1) I think simple works best, especially if you’re small, 2) I’m not a site designer, I just do the simple, WordPress stuff, and 3) as important as a site may be, I thought effectiveness lay in setting up social media.

I set them up with Twitter (@urbandeli) and also on Facebook. Twitter is fine but the Facebook account – good grief.

The problem began with making a change to my own personal account. I’m transitioning from one email account to another and made a change in that personal Facebook account to the new primary email. But … that was also the email I had used for the Urban Deli’s in the set up. When I was setting them up I had used it as a temporary one until it was determined what address they wanted associated with it.

I suppose it was my fault for not realizing that Facebook uses email addresses as usernames — as the “account.”

So when I made the change of address in my personal account I received an auto email from Facebook to Urban Deli that read:

Someone else has registered and verified the email address <email address>, which was previously tied to your Facebook account. Because they were able to confirm this email, <email address> has been removed from your account. You can no longer use this email address to log in, and we will not be sending notifications for your account to that address.

You can still log in using <email address>. (Your same old account password will work with this email.) We will be sending notification emails for your Facebook account to <email address>. You can change these settings at http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php

Please contact us at info@facebook.com if you have any questions.

Thanks!

The Facebook Team

Am I misreading this or do the first and second paragraphs contradict one another? “You can no longer use this email address to log in…” followed by, “You can still log in … Your same old account password will work with this email.” As for that second quoted sentence about still being able to log in and the old password working –it doesn’t. So I can’t adjust settings, I can’t do anything.

It appears, then, that if you have someone’s email address, the one they associate with their Facebook account, you can just shut down their access any time you please. Is this an accurate assessment?

I have no idea because, the second problem with Facebook is that they ignore all attempts to contact them. It’s been about a month, I’ve sent a number of emails to a number of their “contact” addresses, and have received nothing except one email that said they would forward my email to the correct area. Otherwise, they have been completely silent.

I’ve even tried their “reset password” at login, thinking I might have it wrong (I’ve also tried myriad variations of the password). They are supposed to send an email with a link but I’ve no idea where they send it since I receive no emails from them.

Do I just ignore the problem and set up a new account for the Urban Deli? That may be what I’ll have to do but they already have a large number of “fans” for the account we can’t access and it would be confusing for anyone seeing two accounts for the same thing. It’s a poor solution though in the end maybe the only one.

It may well be that all of this is due to something obvious that I have missed and is easily corrected. But if that’s the case, why does no one seem to know what it is? When I talk to people about Facebook pretty much everyone is in the dark about how it works. And Facebook continues to say nothing.

What a schmozzle!