When A Godsend Visits You

I believe there are three types of people when it comes to helping others:

Type 1:  Those who never help at all, under any circumstances. You could be lying on the street, bleeding to death, and they’d pass by as if you weren’t there.

Type 2:   Those who help ONLY when it’s convenient for them. You could be lying on the street, bleeding to death, and they’d come to your aid if they weren’t in a rush. However, they’d pass you right by if they were on the way to a very important date, maybe even to a not-so-important date.

Type 3:  Those who will help you, even if their acts of kindness inconvenience them. You could be lying in the street, bleeding to death, and they’d come to your aid, even if they had a horrible day and couldn’t wait to get home to have a stiff martini.

Type 3 is a rare person, but it’s a godsend when one of them helps you out of a nightmare experience.  So, without further ado, here’s the story of the godsend who came to my rescue last Wednesday, after scammers took over the FabOverFifty Facebook page, and we could no longer post a thing. How it happened is a long story, and it was totally our fault, but it happened, and that’s what counts.

Our Facebook page has 522,000 followers, and it’s an important part of our business. When we saw the page was no longer ours, Simone (my daughter, who works with me) started to communicate with Facebook over text message.  It’s impossible to talk–as in saying words with your mouth–directly to anyone at Facebook. All communication is done online, at least with companies who don’t have gigantic advertising budgets!

Frantically, I began reaching out, via email and phone, to people I know whose companies do spend a great deal of money placing ads on Facebook. Perhaps they have access to real people there, I thought. No one responded right away, and I was becoming more and more frantic.  Plus, I noticed that many of our old Facebook posts had been removed. I felt as if my baby had been kidnapped. Then, a soft porn post popped up on our page, that linked to a strange website in a far off land. We were headed for big trouble.

At last, I reached Robert (not his real name), and he sprung into action immediately, calling an ad agency he knew that worked directly with Facebook reps (real people) all the time.  But, that’s not where his help ended. He consistently stayed on top of the situation, even though he has a big (new) job running digital advertising for an important brand. He tried to figure out how to get our page back. He called me when he got home from work to try and put my mind at ease. He assured me that a Facebook team was working on the problem, although he hadn’t yet heard back from his contacts at the ad agency.

By the next morning, Robert still hadn’t received word from his contacts. Although he had work-related meetings most of the day, he made sure to stay in touch with me via email. Finally, word from Facebook came that afternoon.  We had to supply them with notarized documentation that we indeed owned the page. Simone and I completed the paperwork in record time. I raced to the notary a block from my house, and scanned the notarized documents back to Robert.

Strange posts continued to appear on our page throughout the day. I slept fitfully again that night.

On Friday morning, about 36 hours after the ordeal started, Robert received this email from Facebook:

Thanks again for having Geri send over those documents so quickly. Our Pages team reviewed the request and has successfully released ownership of the Page from the unauthorized Business Manager. We have also taken action on the offending Business Manager and permanently disabled it for fraud.”

I wanted to fly to Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, CA, and kiss the “Pages team.”  But it was Robert who I really wanted to thank. And, he continued to help over the weekend, working on our page so it had extra security and making sure that only people we knew had access to the page to publish posts.  

When I asked Robert  why he was doing so much to help us, he answered “I thought that I wouldn’t want my mother to be in the same situation.” Robert’s mom is a lucky lady. So am I.

0 Responses to “When A Godsend Visits You”

  1. İzmit Kurye says:

    TUZLA KURYE, https://www.izmitkurye.net

    REPLY
  2. Mare says:

    That was VERY nice of “Robert” to give his time & effort to help you out. Thank you “Robert”! I agree with you about the 3 kinds of people who help(or don’t). #3 is rare. & then there are the people who are a 0 because they scam, hurt & steal other peoples things. Wouldn’t this world be a much better place if most or even more people were #3? I like to help others because I know what its like to need help & no one cares enough to even think about helping you. Some times even doing something little for someone else can make a big difference. & It makes you feel good when you can help someone else, too. I’m sure it makes the person you help feel good too. 🙂 I’m glad you were able to get your Facebook page back.

    REPLY
    • Geri Brin says:

      Enjoyed your comment, Mare. Thank you for taking the time to write it and for your kind words. Geri

      REPLY

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