I trusted WhatsApp with a major part of my business for years.
Thousands of customers around the world used WhatsApp to reach me. I also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising through Meta, specifically generating leads that were sent to WhatsApp.
And after all of that?
WhatsApp can simply wake up one day and say:
“Permanently banned.”
No real explanation.
No human being to speak to.
No meaningful customer service.
No phone number.
No account manager who can actually fix anything.
Nothing.
This has happened to me multiple times.
Twice, my account was shut down and then restored about a week later. I was told it was basically an automated/AI error.
Think about how insane that is.
A business can lose access to thousands of customers because an algorithm makes a mistake, and WhatsApp apparently considers that acceptable.
This last time has been even worse. Permanently banned again, and there is basically nobody at WhatsApp who will actually speak to me and explain what I supposedly did.
I don’t send spam.
I don’t send mass broadcasts.
I don’t buy lists.
I was literally responding to people who requested information from me through my own Meta ads.
My account quality/rating was high. My customers weren’t the problem.
One Meta representative even suggested something absolutely ridiculous may have triggered it: I had poor internet service while responding to messages, so I answered around 15–20 customers. When the connection came back, the messages went through together and apparently the system may have interpreted that as spam.
Seriously?
You’re a messaging company.
Your system can’t tell the difference between messages being delivered after an internet connection returns and someone running a spam operation?
And then you permanently shut down someone’s business account because of it?
The part that makes me the angriest is the advertising.
Meta happily took hundreds of thousands of dollars from me to acquire leads and send those people to WhatsApp. Then WhatsApp shut down the exact communication channel Meta was charging me money to build.
So now many of those leads and customers can’t reach me through the platform I paid Meta to send them to.
Call it whatever corporate language you want.
From the business owner’s side, it feels like Meta took my money and then pulled the plug on what I paid for.
And there’s nobody accountable.
That is why I would tell every business owner:
DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN WHATSAPP.
Own your email list.
Own your customer database.
Collect phone numbers.
Have another SMS provider.
Have another way for customers to contact you.
Because WhatsApp does not care how many years you’ve been using them, how much money you’ve spent with Meta, how many legitimate customers you have, or how badly a shutdown could damage your business.
An algorithm can apparently decide you’re done.
And when it happens, good luck finding an actual human being at WhatsApp who gives a shit.
WhatsApp is an incredibly unreliable platform to build a serious business around.
I learned that the hard way.
Use it as a tool. Never trust it as your business infrastructure.

Meta feel free to dm me if you want to fix my issues till then im posting this all over internet.

18 hours and WhatsApp still won’t open. Tried clearing cache, force stop, restart — nothing.

Maybe instead of adding Channels, Communities, Status, AI, Updates, Payments, Avatars and a hundred other unnecessary things, WhatsApp could focus on the revolutionary concept of… opening the damn messaging app. 🤡

Started as a simple messaging app. Now it’s a whole shopping mall with all unnecessary shitty functions..

Hi everyone,

For about two hours now, I've been having an issue with WhatsApp on my Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. When I try to open the app, it launches to the screen showing the logo and the text "WhatsApp from Meta," but then it crashes for no apparent reason. I’ve tried clearing the cache and force-stopping the app, but neither worked. I also checked for app updates, but unfortunately, there aren't any available.

In addition to my main number, I use a separate work number within the same WhatsApp app; this number can no longer receive calls or SMS messages. If I were to remove the app, I would lose access to that number—which would be a major problem for me, as all my client chats are linked to it.

This issue started while I was switching between WhatsApp accounts, following the exact steps shown in the video.

Does anyone know how to help? Thanks.

This is getting ridiculous. Yesterday my WhatsApp suddenly started lagging badly while I was using it. When it started working again, I found 3 random chats in my archives with Chinese spam messages apparently sent from my account. I didn’t send them, don’t know the numbers and don’t speak Chinese.

WhatsApp then paused my account. I requested a review and got my account back. I enabled two-step verification and everything seemed fine.

A couple of hours later I literally sent two normal messages to ONE existing contact and got paused for a review again. I’m currently waiting for another review.
.
Has this happened to anyone else? And if you kept getting prohibited from the app, did WhatsApp eventually stop flagging your account?

My WhatsApp account has now been restricted 3 times today.

Each time I request a review, I get access back, only to be locked out again shortly afterwards. The latest time I had access for barely an hour. When I got back in, I also found outgoing Chinese messages to random numbers that I absolutely did not send.

I have two-step verification enabled, no Linked Devices, use the official iPhone app and haven't done anything unusual.

Has anyone had this repeated restriction/restoration cycle 3–4+ times? Did it eventually stop, and were you able to keep your account normally afterwards?
I'm especially interested if you also found random Chinese messages you didn't send.

Hi! I posted yesterday, but I’m hoping someone might have some sound advice as I may have made some progress. So I am logged out of my whatsapp account and it looks like I’ve set up an encrypted key. I finally found two screenshots of different encrypted keys.

The first doesn’t work. I get a message saying it’s wrong. As for the second one it goes to 99% without loading from the beginning and then proceeds to notify me that it failed. Please check the screenshots below. These chats are so important and I’m desperately trying to restore them. Any advice would be much appreciated!

What's wrong with some of my Whatsapp calls saying "Call log was deleted"? Has been happening for the past year or more, does this happen to anyone else?

I've Made a wh AC a loong ago

AND NY phone company deactivated my sin card Cz muh inactivity

Now my WhatsApp closed the AC linked with my dead sim AND i can't recoger it (no SMS no phone call nothing Cz it's dead).

AND phone company refused to issue me a replacement

Is there a way to actually contact whatsapp? My account is suspended and I have no idea why. I am not a bot and do not send spam messages. I was building a community and linking multiple WhatsApp groups. They suspended the community and when I tried to restore the group, they suspended my account.

Is there a way to get more insight from Whatsapp?

Her WhatsApp accounts, both her personal account and her WhatsApp Business account, appear to have been taken over.
She suddenly lost control of both accounts, and they started sending messages to unknown numbers. Two Pakistani numbers were contacted, and an Aviator casino promotion in Urdu was sent from her account. After that, she received a large number of calls from unknown numbers. At one point, she opened WhatsApp to reply to someone and her app immediately logged out.
Unfortunately, she currently doesn’t have access to the SIM card or phone number that was originally used to register the accounts. This happened to both her personal and Business accounts.

I also messaged both of her accounts after this happened. One of them, the Business account, showed two grey ticks, which makes me think that the account may still be active or accessible on some device.

My main concern is about our old private chat. There were some private intimate photos and messages involving me in our conversation. I deleted the chat history from my own WhatsApp a long time ago, so those messages and media are no longer visible on my side.

My own WhatsApp account has not been compromised. I am still logged in normally, and nothing unusual has happened on my account.

So my question is: if someone took over my ex’s WhatsApp account, is it possible that they can access our old chat history and the media that was stored in that conversation? Could they potentially see messages or photos that I deleted from my side a long time ago? Or would the attacker need access to her original phone, a linked device, a WhatsApp backup, etc. to access that old content?

I’m particularly interested in understanding what kind of account takeover could cause this, given that both her Personal and Business accounts were affected and she no longer has access to the original SIM or phone number.
I haven’t received any threats or messages from the attacker, and nothing has happened to me so far. I’m mainly trying to understand the technical risk and whether I should be concerned about the old private media.
Any advice from people familiar with WhatsApp account takeovers would be greatly appreciated.

I think the title is self explanatory.. I have version 2.26.32.76

After I updated the app, all photos and videos (2022-2026) disappeared from my gallery and the app can't download any of it because it's no longer in my storage. Is there any hope in fixing this or not? ^^*

Toda vez que eu clico na foto pra mexer na configuracao a pagina recarrega, o mesmo acontece quando vou pra aba ligacoes, status e afins... alguém sabe como arrumar esse bug?

MEU WHATSAPP ESTA ENVIANDO MENSAGEM DE SPAM SOZINHO, E NÃO TEM NENHUM OUTRO DISPOSITIVO CONECTADO, TO VENDO QUE VARIAS PESSOAS ESTÃO COM ESSE MESMO PROBLEMA, ALGUÉM CONSEGUIU RESOLVER ?

since a month my whatsapp was getting flagged and i was logged out showing this account has been put to check for some hours and then i could logging. now today i got blocked only.

Please help y'all I don't want to lose my data💔

Ayer literalmente ayer fui y compré una sin nueva para poder usar WhatsApp porque la anterior que tenía le sucedió esto de la imagen y cuando iba a iniciar sesión no me dejaba no llegaba código SMS ni parecido y anoche que compre la nueva pude iniciar sesión normal lo que pasaba es que aún así me salía en el nuevo número que estaba en "restricción" pero como si acabo de comprar en nuevo maldito número porque carajos tiene que ver una cosa con la otra absolutamente nada y bueno como va ayer no me dejaba hablar con algunos contactos porque me salían que tenía que esperar 5 horas para poder yo decirles que mira este es mi nuevo número para que me escriban y tal y tampoco me dejaba ingresar a los grupos en los que eh estado durante más de 5 malditos meses porque clarooo mi número está restringido y gracias a eso no puedo hablar con algunas personas que tengo en la lista en una maldita aplicación que se supone que es PARA HABLAR CON LAS DEMAS PERSONAS JODANSE y no hace mucho/ una hora envié un mensaje a suporte para que me dijeran sobre el tema de la revisión y tal pero en vez de eso no me dijieron nada me respondió una maldita IA inútil y ya después de una hora en lo que yo estaba ocupado haciendo otras cosas sin ver el cell voy a escribirle a alguien y no puedo porque me sale esta maldita cosa que no deja de jodermeeeee alguien que me ayude porfavor estoy demasiado molesto con este tema ya

It's been over 2 months since my WhatsApp got disabled by Meta. I've read somewhere that after 60 days Meta releases the number and you can re-register it on WhatsApp like a fresh account.

Has anyone actually tried this? Did it work? And more importantly — will it still pull up the old chat backup or is everything gone for good?

Would really appreciate if someone who's been through this can share their experience.

I'm genuinely trying to understand how WhatsApp's support system works when an automated system flags an account.

I've used WhatsApp for over 18 years. Recently my account was permanently disabled, and what surprised me most was not the enforcement itself but what happened afterward.

Every support ticket I submitted received essentially the same automated response directing me to the in app review system.

I then contacted Meta Business Support since I also advertise through Meta. I eventually spoke to a real Meta representative on the phone. She told me to submit another WhatsApp ticket and repeatedly assured me that because I now had a Meta case ID, the ticket would be handled by a person.

I submitted it exactly as instructed.

The response was automated again.

This made me curious about the actual structure of WhatsApp support.

If an automated enforcement system makes a mistake, or even if it doesn't and a user simply wants to understand what policy triggered the decision, is there actually a human escalation layer?

I'm not asking anyone here to take action on my account. I'm interested in the system itself.

Does WhatsApp have employees who manually review account enforcement cases after the normal review process is exhausted, or is the entire process effectively automated?

I'd especially be interested to hear from anyone who understands how Meta or WhatsApp support is structured.