Facebook account hacked, suspended or banned

In all 27 EU Member States, the Digital Services Act requires Meta to give a clear statement of reasons for any suspension or restriction (Article 17) and to keep an internal complaint mechanism open (Article 20). The GDPR adds a right of access to your data and a right to have inaccurate data rectified. Our legal demand is built on any breach of these obligations, at the same flat fee in every Member State.

Facebook accounts held in the United States are governed by the terms of service concluded with Meta Platforms, Inc., which designate California law and the courts of the Northern District of California or San Mateo County. Our legal demand relies on the commitments Meta has made in those terms, on the consumer protection and privacy rules of the State where you live where they apply (for example the California Consumer Privacy Act and its right of access to your personal data), and on direct escalation to the company's legal team. Where the matter goes further, a claim before the court designated in the terms is assessed case by case, with US counsel where local representation is required. The fee is quoted from $950.

Outside the EU and the United States, the case rests on the terms of service you accepted, on the consumer and data protection law of your country of residence and on the Meta group entity competent for your region. In the United Kingdom, we rely on the UK GDPR and the platform duties under the Online Safety Act; in Switzerland, on the Federal Act on Data Protection; in Canada, on federal and provincial privacy laws. The same method applies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, with local counsel where a filing on site is needed.

Meta strictly distinguishes personal Facebook accounts from the pages, groups and Business Manager accounts attached to them. Disabling a personal account automatically removes access to all administered pages, ongoing ad campaigns and installed pixels. Recovery requires a distinct argument for each affected entity. Our firm documents the full Business Manager scope in the legal demand letter sent to Meta in order to obtain a complete restoration.

The Meta Oversight Board, established in 2020, is an independent appeals body able to overturn moderation decisions. Its jurisdiction nevertheless remains limited to a small number of symbolic cases and review timelines frequently exceed six months. Our firm favors a direct legal demand letter to Meta's legal counsel, faster and better suited to individual situations, reserving Oversight Board referrals for files raising an issue of principle.

Before any contentious step, we ask our clients to retrieve the exact wording of the rule invoked in the Facebook Account Status panel, accessible through the Meta Accounts Center, as well as in the email sent by Meta Support. That qualification drives the legal argument and the identification of any breach by Meta of its statement-of-reasons obligation under Article 17 of the DSA. A vague, generic or contradictory ground already constitutes a usable lever in the legal demand letter.

To process your case efficiently, we expect dated screenshots of the suspension notification, the personal account handle along with every page, group and Business Manager account attached to it, any prior violations displayed in the Account Status, the history of ad campaigns and any earlier exchanges with Meta. The quality of these exhibits directly drives the speed of review and the evidentiary strength of the legal demand letter.

Article 20 of the DSA requires diligent and timely handling of internal complaints without setting a fixed time limit. Meta in practice communicates an indicative deadline of around 7 days to respond to an internal complaint, which may be extended in complex cases. In practice, our legal demand letters addressed to Meta's counsel reach a decision within an average of about one month. Temporary suspensions (24h, 7 days, 30 days) are legally distinct from permanent deactivations, the latter requiring denser argumentation and additional legal grounds. These timelines apply in the same way to files outside the European Union, the legal demand letter then being addressed to the group entity competent for your region.

A rejected appeal through the Meta form or the Account Status workflow does not close the door to a new remedy. Article 20 of the DSA compels Meta to re-examine any complaint presenting new factual elements. Our firm builds an argumentation that differs from your first appeal, exploits statement-of-reasons defects and addresses the legal demand letter to Meta's internal counsel rather than to self-service tools. Clients located outside the European Union follow the same route, the demand being addressed to the entity of the group that handles their region.

When the legal demand letter and out-of-court avenues fail, the firm initiates judicial proceedings. For personal-use Facebook accounts, we file interim relief proceedings before the competent court as urgent interim relief to end a clearly unlawful situation, together with pre-action evidentiary measures where needed, with substantive grounds drawn from the right to privacy, civil liability, Articles 15 and 16 of the GDPR and Article 17 of the DSA. For pages, groups and Business Manager accounts operated as economic assets by brands and companies, we bring the action before the competent commercial court to obtain reactivation and compensation for business losses, lost advertising revenue, harm to commercial image and termination of contracts with partners and advertisers. Where hacking or impersonation is involved, the firm assists in filing a criminal complaint for identity theft and unauthorized access to a computer system. For clients established outside the European Union, we assess jurisdiction in light of the platform's terms of service, the client's domicile and the applicable international conventions, working alongside local counsel when the case calls for it.