These are grave mistakes that may render your Facebook account locked or taken over by someone without your knowledge. Read more about How To Secure Your Facebook Account here.
Facebook is the dominant company when it comes to social networking industry, or social media in layman’s grammar. Facebook is the most powerful social networking site with 3 billion monthly active users.It’s also the most used service among the services of Meta,the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram altogether.
Let’s start discussing about the grave mistakes people make when signing up for Facebook or when creating a Facebook account.
We’ll be discussing them in this way :
Mistake (I’d state the mistake first)
Consequence (Then talk about it’s implications)
Solution (How to fix it)
Let’s go !
1.Using Someone’s Contact As Primary Contact
When signing up for Facebook, you’re asked to provide a contact – be it an email address or a phone number,as your primary contact.
Sometimes people underrate using someone’s contact as theirs ,but it’s not good for your account.So they use someone’s phone number or email address to sign up for Facebook.
Why Is It Bad ?
You won’t know how grave using someone’s contact is until you forgot your password and wants to recover or reset it.If that person isn’t with you, how can you reset your password?
Furthermore, nowadays Facebook locks an account if it detects a suspicious login attempt or a suspicious activity,whenever Facebook sees this in your account the technology will think it’s an unauthorized access,it’s not the real owner of the account,so they’ll lock it. To unlock your Facebook account you’ll have to confirm your identity through receiving verification codes on your phone number, if you no longer have access to the number , you can’t easily unlock your account ,you’ll have to start a more rigorous confirmation method by uploading your ID.
So only use a phone number or an email address that you own as your Facebook primary contact.
How To Fix ?
If you’ve already used someone’s contact instead of your own,you can follow these steps to change it .
Go to Menu .
Tap Settings
Tap Personal and Account Information
You’ll see options to edit your name and your primary contacts.
Tap either your email address or phone number, the contact you’d like to remove or edit.
Follow the onscreen instructions to edit or remove your contacts and add new ones.
2.Using A Guessable Password
The second among the login credentials is the password. Your password is what you’ll use to log in to your Facebook account on another phone or browser, it’s what’s used to verify whether you’re the real owner of the account or not.
I can remember the first time I created a Facebook account, I used my phone number as the primary contact and the password as well,what a facilitated access !
Why Is It Bad?
Using a guessable password like your name, your phone number or other public info about you,will only facilitate taking over your Facebook account to these bad guys, this will make you to either lose access to your account or become locked out of your account. So use a strong password when creating a Facebook account.
How To Fix It ?
If you’ve mistakenly used a weak password you can change it to a string one by following these steps.
Go to Settings
Tap Password And Security
Tap Change Password
Follow onscreen instructions to change your password.
Tips On Strong Passwords
Make sure it’s not guessable.
Make sure it’s a password you can easily remember as well.
Use a password with a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. Like Newyear2022&&,this is just an example.
3. Using An Unofficial Name As Username
This is one of the most usual mistake,we’ve names on Facebook, random names. It seems that Facebook users don’t even think before they choose a name as their username. I’ll tell you why it’s good to use your official name on Facebook.
Why Is It Bad?
It was normal ,but now that Facebook asks users to confirm their identity with an ID when locked out of their,it won’t be good to use name that’s not your official name.
In these months Facebook locked many accounts because of suspicious activity, and if they’re unable to use their phone number to receive verification codes, they’re asked to confirm their identity by uploading their ID,like their National ID Card,Voters Card or other government-issued IDs.
Among the rules of verifying your identity by uploading your ID is, the name on the ID must be the same as your Facebook username. You may think ‘ Huh,I may use a digitally modified ID card that contains my username’ ,but Facebook won’t listen to anything of such,Facebook said ‘we don’t accept digitally modified IDs’ ,so you better use your official name in the first place.
How To Fix It?
To change your username on Facebook
Go to Settings
Tap Personal and Account Information
You’ll see your account info,name contacts etc.
Tap Edit button beside your Facebook username to edit your Facebook username.
Heads up,if you change a Facebook username, it’ll take 60 days before you change again.
4. Providing A Wrong Date Of Birth
Facebook users don’t seem to care about their date of birth ,they just provide a random date of birth not realizing how grave it is.
Why Is It Bad ?
Inaccurate date of birth is also a grave mistake ,you’ll realize how grave is providing a wrong date of birth when Facebook asks you to confirm your account by uploading your ID.
Among the rules of verifying your identity by uploading your ID is the date of birth on the ID has to be the same as the one on your Facebook profile.
So provide your accurate date of birth when signing up for Facebook.
How To Fix It?
To change your date of birth on Facebook
Go to Your Profile
Tap Edit Profile or Edit Your About Info
Scroll down to Basic Info
You’ll see Birthday.
Follow the onscreen instructions to edit your date of birth.
Note: If you’ve changed your date of birth recently, you’d have to wait for some days before you change again.
5. Adding Friends They Don’t Know
This may seem normal ,but it’s not good for your account’s security.Mostly newly created accounts are likely to be suspended by Facebook for any suspicious activity, so beware.You may be suspended for sending too much friend requests on Facebook . Facebook itself suggests you only add people you personally know. That’s why sometimes Facebook these users from sending friend requests to people, because Facebook thinks they don’t know the people they’re adding.
Perhaps you may have been prevented from adding someone on Facebook, and tells you that they recommend you add people you know.
Why Is It Bad ?
It makes your account vulnerable to being taken away by bad guys.
Sending too much friend requests my even render your Facebook account locked, Facebook may even permanently suspend the account.
How To Fix It?
Don’t send too much random friend requests to people you don’t personally know,add only people you know. Facebook’s smart technology can simply detect and guess whether you personally know someone or not,they track your location,they consider whether you have mutual friends or you are both members of a group.
That’s all for now,have any questions? Ask in the comments section.
