Over the weekend a message appeared on our Facebook Wall from a disgruntled comper. They were unhappy about the number of compers that they’ve seen using mutliple accounts to enter competitions on the social network and had even taken to “outing” one or two of them. The comment disappeared – we guess deleted by the user. However, it’s worth raising the question “should you have a Facebook account for competitions and another for personal”? The answer is “no” and the reason is not because we think it’s wrong, but because Facebook have guidelines that say it’s wrong. When you register with Facebook in the terms it states that you agree “you will not create more than one personal profile” and that you will “provide their real names and information”.
Multiple Accounts On Facebook
If you look under the Business terms there’s an even stronger message from Facebook stating: “Please be aware that managing multiple accounts is a serious violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If we determine that an individual has more than one account, we reserve the right to terminate all of their accounts”. Despite these rules, it’s known that some people operate a couple of Facebook accounts. Some like to keep their personal account for family and friends, whilst a comping account is used for liking/sharing and entering competitions with comping friends. Others of course will go beyond that and use multiple accounts for entering competitions. We thought we’d try and address a few issues surrounding multiple Facebook accounts.
Should I set up a second account for comping?
Our advice is simple – try and use one account and one account only. If you do use two accounts then you risk Facebook closing one or both accounts. Just be wary if you continue down that course.
I have mutiple accounts – what should I do?
If you have more than one FB account then consider closing one. According to Facebook there’s no way to merge two accounts. So you’ll need to decide which one you want to keep and then maybe delete the other.
Will Facebook catch up with me if I have more than one account?
Now Facebook aren’t the best at adhering to their own guidelines – we know that by the number of competitions that appear daily breaching their contest guidelines. It may well be that having two or more accounts is working for you and you’re prepared to take the risk. However, if fellow compers are starting to speak out against cheating then it may be sooner rather than later that FB starts to sort out multiple account issues.
What should I do if you think someone is cheating with mutiple accounts?
If you think someone is using multiple accounts to enter competitions via Facebook then report them to Facebook. There’s a whole bunch of “report abuse” links in their Help Center. It’s difficult to know which one to use though – the one thing Facebook is really good at is making things very difficult.
If I have one account how do I keep comping things tidy?
You can use Facebook Lists to filter the information that friends/family/compers see posted on your timeline. It might also be useful to do a bit of housekeeping and remove some people who perhaps you don’t interact with and keep tabs on your “liked pages”. If you have a comment or question then feel free to post below!