Grey Facebook Accounts: The Reasons and the Risks

May 18, 2022

Do you have a Grey Facebook Account? You could be at risk of losing this very soon.

Recently, we have noticed Facebook taking action against so-called ‘grey’ accounts, and have had several worried Facebook Page owners on the other end of the phone after receiving an email from Facebook saying their account will be shut down in a matter of weeks.

 

But what actually IS a Grey Account?

A Grey Account is basically a Facebook Profile that can’t be verified as an actual real person. According to Facebook: “A ‘Grey Account’ occurred if you turned a private page into a public page or merged duplicate pages anytime since opening the account (this apparently looks shady to Facebook).”

Grey Accounts general have no profile picture or header photo (or if they do, they’re generic images and not of a real person), and often have little to no activity, photos or posts.

Nine times out of ten, people set up grey accounts in order to manage their business’ Facebook Page to avoid having to link this to their personal Facebook Profile.  This we can 100% understand.  There of course is need for a healthy work/life balance, and it can be hard to switch off from work when your Facebook account is being flooded with notifications from your business page.

But unfortunately, this does leave your page in a very vulnerable position, and even more so with the latest news from Facebook about Grey Accounts being shut down all together.

 

What does this mean for my Business Facebook Page?

If you do have a Grey Account and it is linked to your business’ Facebook Page, you will potentially lose access to this and be unable to manage your page.  If you are the only admin on your business page, the risk is doubled and there is potentially no way you can regain access to your page.

This of course would mean that you would no longer be able to post content to your business page, reply to comments and messages, or manage customer feedback.  All in all, this leaves your Facebook page and your business in a very dangerous position.

 

So, why is Facebook shutting them down?

Though it may not seem like it (and we don’t often say this!), Facebook may actually have your best interests at heart in this situation.  The decision to remove these accounts is actually because they don’t have the same security features that other Facebook profiles do and they are more likely to get hacked.

They are also working to get rid of fake profiles and bots that pose a threat to Facebook users and are often used to steal personal information.

 

What can I do?

If you have already received the notification from Facebook that your account will be removed, there is nothing you can do to stop this.  However, there are steps you can take to protect your Facebook business page and groups that you manage.

In the warning that Facebook has emailed out to several Grey Account holders already, they lay out a few options of how to move forward.  Do ensure you complete the following steps before the expiry date to ensure your business page isn’t compromised:

  • Create a new account or use an existing, standard profile to continue using Facebook.
  • Transition ownership of any Pages or groups that you manage to another genuine profile.
  • Download your information.
  • Delete your grey account or wait for this account to automatically be disabled

Here, you can either transfer the ownership of any pages or groups to an existing Facebook profile, or set up a brand new profile and transfer the ownership there.   If you choose to set up a new profile, do ensure that this has a name and profile photo that can be matched to a valid ID, and a few Facebook friends helps too!

Whether you’re setting up a new profile or transferring ownership to an existing one, PLEASE (we are begging you) make sure you are NOT the only admin of your business page.  Even though you have just prevented losing access to your page, this has not protected it from being hacked.

If you haven’t done so already, or even if you have but want to be doubly sure, please give THIS blog a read, and take the steps to protect your Facebook account as best as you can.

We know we keep going on about this and we don’t mean to be pushy, but we have seen so many people fall victim to hackers lately, and one even lose thousands of pounds through their Facebook Ad Account. It is absolutely devastating to see people lose the pages they’ve worked so hard to build up, and we wouldn’t want this to happen to you.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions or need any help with anything we’ve mentioned above, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.