I'm hoping someone here has been through this and found a way out.
I'm a new e-commerce merchant based in Quebec, Canada. I set up a Shopify store and used Shopify's built-in Meta integration to connect my Facebook account and create a Business Portfolio. I never manually created anything, Shopify handled the entire setup automatically through their official channel.
The moment the connection completed, my Business Portfolio was flagged and restricted. The error message I received was:
"This account appears to have been created or used through automation that doesn't comply with our policies. This violates our Advertising Standards regarding account integrity."
The facts:
- I never ran a single ad
- I never manually created any assets : everything was done through Shopify's official Meta integration
- My personal Facebook account is in good standing and was not affected
- I have no prior violations of any kind
- The restriction was triggered entirely by Shopify's API calls, not by any action of mine
I requested a review through Account Quality. Meta came back and confirmed the restriction is permanent, with no further review option available. The chatbot gave me a case file but there is no human escalation path I can find.
What I'm trying to figure out:
- Is Business Verification still worth attempting at this stage, or is it too late?
- Has anyone successfully recovered a Portfolio that was flagged this way before spending a single dollar?
- Is there any realistic way to reach a human at Meta without an existing ad spend relationship?
- If I need to start fresh under a trusted person's account, what precautions are actually necessary to avoid triggering the same flag again?
I've read through a lot of threads here and it seems like this is a known issue with the Shopify–Meta integration, but most posts either go unanswered or end with "contact support" which hasn't been useful.
Any real experience with this would be hugely appreciated.