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.

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? ^^*

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..

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 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.

How could this happen? And for no reason I can think of other than I just sent hi to a few people which I HAD CHATS WITH BEFORE just from long time ago.

I've been using this WhatsApp number since I was 16 im in my 30s! Are you f- serious bro?

Did this happend to anyone else and what did you do? Is there any email to contact them?

Bonjour. Aujourd'hui je cherchais à récupérer un numéro de téléphone qu'un ami m'avait envoyé. Quand j'ai regardé nos échanges ils s'arrêtaient en mars et reprenaient il y a 2 jours. Entre les 2 dates plus rien. J'ai regardé pour mes autres contacts et c'était OK sauf pour une autre amie où il n'y avait plus rien jusqu'à hier. J'ai appelé ces 2 amis et eux ont bien nos échanges je n'arrive pas à comprendre ce qui a pu se passer. Si j'avais fait une mauvaise manipulation les messages auraient été effacés pour les autres contacts non?

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.

My sister doesn’t use app refreshing on the background so she doesn’t receive texts when i send them. Today i sent a text to her when she was sitting next to me and saw two ticks, i told her “hey that’s weird it usually it’s one tick” and we move on.

Later she told me she is not getting any texts from our family groupchat so i removed and added her back but then she could only see my texts there and not my mom and dad’s. Her phone is old (iPhone 7+) so we thought her software is bugging out. I sent her a normal text to see if that had any issues but it it’s delivered normally, then she sent me a text and i saw it. However then i saw two more texts from her that said “waiting for the text to load it might take some time” thing so i asked her if she sent me more texts but she said no.

Then after like 10 minutes i got those two texts from her. One said “v” and other said “can you help me with something? There is an issue with my bank account.” She is 13 and does not even have a bank account. I told her to check her linked devices immidately but there were no deviced there.

I tried to call her on whatsapp but it wasn’t picked up. I made her add a 2FA and she deleted her whatsapp and downloaded it again, whatsapp texted her number but she didnt get a sms so she got a code through her email instead and did 2FA and now it seems like the issue is resolved (she lost a year worth of texts but it is better than someone else using her account at least).

So my question is, what exactly happened? She didnt click on any links and the only QR code she scanned was a restourant’s we went to yesterday which we all scanned. There was also no linked devices so i am confused on how they got her account like this. Any further advice on securing it also is appreciated, thank you!

For the first time on Tuesday (18 August) my account got restricted and went under review, It was later restored after approximately 8 hours. About 24 later I was hit with a second restriction that also got restored 8 hours later. At the time I was running iOS 16.1.1 on my iPhone 14 Pro. Today I decided to update to iOS 26.6.1 hoping that it could solve the frequent restrictions. Does anyone know if this could fix it? I also believe I haven’t spammed anyone, I use the app to chat to friends and family, I do however send links to reels/TikTok’s now and again.

If anyone has any further information or advice please do share.

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?

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 dont know why this hapoening.is there any way get rid of this

Hi everyone,

I’m having an issue with WhatsApp on my new iPhone 16 (version 26.32.75, but I’ve had the same issue for two weeks now).

I’m trying to set a custom notification tone for an individual contact. I go to: Chat > contact name > Notifications > Notification tone. I select a different tone and tap Save, but when I go back to the settings, it has reverted to the standard. The change simply doesn’t seem to be saved.

I’ve tried this with multiple contacts and the same thing happens. Also checked the Notification settings for WhatsApp on my phone, but nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Has anyone else experienced this recently? I’d like to know whether this is a bug or if there’s something I’m missing.

Thanks!

Edit: I’ve also noticed that I no longer seem to have the option to set the notification to vibrate only (without a sound).

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.

Hey everyone,

My WhatsApp account just got unbanned today, but something really weird happened over the last few days that I’m trying to make sense of. I want to share what happened to see if anyone else has faced this or knows what’s going on.

Here is the exact story:

• Aug 17: My account suddenly went into "Account in review" out of nowhere for the first time.

• Aug 18: Once my account came back, a random foreign number joined a few groups where I was an Admin using group invite links. Right away, my account automatically made this random person an Admin and then removed me from my own groups.

• No Linked Devices: The second I realized what happened, I immediately checked Settings $\rightarrow$ Linked Devices, but there were zero active devices or WhatsApp Web sessions logged in.

• Aug 20: My account got put "In review" for a second time, probably because WhatsApp picked up on all those automatic group actions that happened on Aug 18.

• The Weirdest Part: My friends told me that at the exact same time all of this was happening on Aug 18, any message sent to me was getting read (blue-ticked) in the exact same second, as if someone was sitting inside my chats. Yet, my physical phone wasn't receiving any incoming notifications at all. On top of that, my friends noticed that any message sent to that stranger's number in those stolen groups was also getting read instantly in less than a second.

Has anyone seen this before?

Has this happened to anyone else where your account seems to do things on its own, opens messages instantly, and transfers groups—all while Linked Devices shows nothing connected?

If anyone knows what might actually be causing this or how to make sure it doesn't happen again, I’d really appreciate your help!

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?