Facebook profile has just disappeared

[mindutopia]

Appealing to the hivemind for anyone who this may have happened to.

Dh's Facebook profile seems to have just disappeared. He had a few dodgy login attempts from various devices yesterday (obviously not him) and so he went to change his password and the account seems to no longer exist. We are no longer friends. I can't find him, nor can other friends/family members. I can go into messenger and click through to his profile (no photo but name is still there in messenger) from a previous message and it just says 'This content is not available'.

We assume he has been hacked, as he can see that the email address associated with the account has been changed. Supposedly if an email address has been changed, they are meant to send a notification both to the old email and the new one, so that you can confirm it's really you. No notification ever received, though he got all the other notifications about attempted logins, etc. Gone through the 'Hacked Accounts' advice from Facebook a million times and none of it seems to apply, as dh no longer seems to have an email/phone number linked to the account. And you can even 'help a friend' recover their account if it's been hacked, but seems to require being able to go to the account and click on it to report. But the account doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Has this happened to anyone? And what did you do? Dh thinks that someone has just deleted it, but it's bloody weird to go to the trouble of hacking someone's account simply to delete it 10 minutes later. I think it's stuck in the ether somewhere because of suspicious activity, but can't actually seem to contact anyone at Facebook to inquire about what to do. Everything seems to require an account to actually be there to report a problem with it. Dh doesn't even use Facebook really, but he does have two business accounts linked to his personal one that he does need to use and access and now can't get to them as it seems like the original account has gone poof. Has this happened to anyone? And what did you do?

Hopeful bump as Facebook’s rubbish instructions are still no more helpful than they were this am.

If he's been hacked the hacker may have blocked everyone on his friend list which is unusual as they usually target friends asking for money.

Most likely it's been hacked and the hacker has messaged a few people to scam them and they have reported the profile and Facebook have either temporarily or permanently deleted the profile.

Try going through hacked accounts procedure with them to recover the account.

That’s interesting as I hadn’t thought about blocking people. Maybe I’ll ask to see if someone who isn’t friends with him can find him.

The issue with the hacked accounts process seems to be that you need to be able to find the account to click on it to then report it’s been hacked. But if we can find it, we can’t report it.

Ah I’ve managed to find it now. I think it was suspended probably due to dodgy logins/activity. But the hacked accounts process says you need to confirm the current email, phone number or DOB on the account, which have obviously been changed, so not much use!

Did you ever manage to get this problem sorted? My dad is in the same situation and we're going around in the useless and frustrating circles as you describe above. Desperately trying to help him regain access and any advice would be appreciated!