My nightmare and why I’m back on Pinterest cautiously

by: Patricia

Aug 23

In February, I starting using the WordPress plugin Blog2Social. All of my social media accounts connected with no problems except for Pinterest. For some reason, Pinterest absolutely would not accept the password I entered. I knew it was correct, because well, I’m not a good ruler follower, so all of my social media accounts have the same password. While attempting to log in on Pinterest, I got the following message:

I had no idea what I had violated because I never got the email mentioned. This also meant I had no idea on how to appeal. The phrase “get in touch with us” is quite difficult. Nowhere on Pinterest’s website is there a “Contact Us” link. A Google search gave me the link to the “Pinterest Help Center,” which consists of a whole bunch of articles with no one to talk to. At the bottom of the “Can’t log in to Pinterest” page, they ask “Still need help? Contact Us!” Finally, I get to speak to someone!

Nope. All I see is “Log in and we can help you better!” with a “Log into Pinterest” red button. Hello, I can’t log into my account it has been suspended! I screamed. Then I see a link in a much smaller font, “Continue without logging in.” Now I’m going to get speak to someone!

Nope. All I see is, “Help us get your message to the right person on our Community team.” There is a drop-down menu with the heading “What do you need help with?” I select, “Getting into my account.” And of course, there is another drop-down menu asking “Tell us more” and I select “Appeal account suspension.” They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, here’s what I got next.

I clicked on the “I still need help” button. I filled out the form and submit it. Other than the confirmation email, I heard nothing from them. After a few days went by, I go back to Google in hopes of finding a telephone number for them. I find something called GetHuman, and again a picture is worth….

Not wanting to believe them that a company the size of Pinterest would not have a telephone number, I continued on with my search, and at some point, I did find a number. It soon became evident this number was a scam as the girl who answered told me, “For $79 Pinterest would reactivate my account.” Yea, I hung up.

Seeing there was no solution, I opened a new account with a different email. All of my followers were gone, all of my pins were gone, all of the time I had put into it was gone.

Finally five weeks later, I receive the following:

Pinterest - Big Max's Studio

No, he did not reactivate the account. The first image in this post was taken today. I’ve emailed them back letting them know the account was not reactivated, and have heard nothing. Further, when did pinning things such as images of logos, brochures, websites, etc. become spam? What exactly do they do if someone does report something as spam? Maybe a competitor wants to take you out, they just report you as spam and poof you are gone? Their policy seems a little “Lucy Goosey” to me.

As I said above, I lost everything I had put into Pinterest, but the worst part of the whole thing is I lost the URL to my website. In the old account my website had been verified, now when I try and verify it with the new account I get the following:

Pinterest - Big Max's Studio

And, I’m no longer bigmaxsstudio, I’m bigmaxsstudio0057. Could I not at least be bigmaxsstudio007?

When you actually do hear from Pinterest the email address is help@pinterest.zendesk.com. Really?! A company the size of Pinterest, that wants people to pay to boost posts works through Zendesk? Really?!

So in the end, yes I am cautious about diving into Pinterest again. At this point, I can only hope for a better outcome. I must say though, I really would like to have my name and website back.

I know I’m not the only one to have had this happen to them, actually from everything I’ve seen on Google, it’s quite common.

Do you have a nightmare Pinterest story?

I’d love to hear it. Let’s chat.

3 Comments

  1. Alishba

    Hey there!
    I also got suspended from Pinterest without any reason, they just said I have violated their policies but I didn’t do anything spammy. I tried multiple times to contact them but they are not replying.Feeling so devastated as I invested my time to learn and use that Platform that’s really unfair.
    Well! I see your profile on Pinterest, Congratulation you got your website on new account that’s good!
    I am also thinking to get a new business account but don’t know whether i will get my website linked to the new one, any tips and suggestion would be really appreciated.
    Looking forward to hear from you. Thankyou!

    Reply
    • Patricia

      Hi Alishba,

      Just before I opened the new account I contacted them again. Still nothing, then within a couple of days of opening the new account I heard that they were going to reopen my account. I combined the two accounts together, but I still can use my original username. I haven’t put too much time into it this time, because I’m too afraid it will happen again.

      Just keep writing to them.

      Good Luck!

      Reply
      • Vu Linh

        Hi Patricia,

        I feel sorry about your story with Pinterest and I have a story just like you. How do you get your URL back? I want to create a new account, but I can’t because they blocked my URL.

        Good luck!

        Reply

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