How to Claim Facebook Page Ownership for your Dealership

Whether you recently acquired a new dealership or you just can’t tell who owns your current dealership’s Facebook Business Manager, figuring out how to claim Facebook Page Ownership doesn’t have to be shrouded in mystery. Follow these steps to take ownership of your Facebook/Meta Business Manager and Page today.

It’s Time to Take Ownership of your Facebook Business Page

Picture this: your dealership has not only survived, but thrived, through the unprecedented times over the past few years, and you’re finally ready to expand your auto group.

Some of your neighboring dealers didn’t fare as well, and now you’ve got prime showroom real estate to snap up to grow your booming business. You chose the perfect showroom location that will take your auto group to the next level, you had the legal team go over the fine print, and the paperwork is finally all signed and completed: YOU are the official owner of the newest location added to your growing group.

Nothing can stop you now, right?

Wrong!

It’s now time to embark on what can be the most convoluted and frustrating roadblock of your dealership acquisition journey: battling Facebook, now known as Meta, for the rights to the page that you now own on paper, but do not yet own in the Metaverse.

Does It Really Have to be This Difficult?

Sure, it sounds silly that something like a Facebook Business Page can throw a wrench in things when you’ve already bought a location. You’re probably thinking, “Well, I now own what used to be XYZ Motors, so the Facebook account for XYZ Motors will automatically become mine now, too!”

Sorry to break it to you like this, but it’s not that simple. Because of the policies of Facebook, now Meta, there are several steps you need to take to prove to them that you do have the right to ownership of this page.

So Here’s the Deal… and We’re Speaking from Experience

Two of our amazing clients recently purchased dealerships in their area that were up for sale. Congrats!

On a long list of to-dos in the digital marketing realm, one of the first action items was to acquire access to the pre-existing dealerships’ Facebook pages and rename them.

Getting access has been relatively easy on all accounts, but it turns out that renaming your Page and taking ultimate ownership is a whole other ball game. Apparently this small but crucial rebranding step is something that can only be done by the Individual Page Owner or the Business Manager that owns the Page.

In both instances, the actual Business Owner of each page was unknown, and Facebook/Meta keeps this info under lock and key so when we contacted the Facebook Support Chat they, unfortunately, wouldn’t tell us who owned the Business Managers or how to get in contact with those individuals.

While this may feel like a stalemate there are ways to still gain ownership of that page, which is what we’ll get into in this next section.

We went through the process detailed below in order to dispute ownership and have it granted to a legitimate individual within our clients’ organizations.

Why the Hassle? Why Not just Delete the Page and Start Over?

Well, there are a few reasons, with the first being that deleting the page is just as cumbersome as trying to acquire ownership.

At that rate, you might as well just create a new page and let the old one die a slow and lonely death, but there’s another reason why you don’t want to do that either:

You’re sitting on a goldmine.

It can take months, sometimes years to build up a robust and engaged social media channel for your dealership and you really want to throw that all away? This is not the way, my friend.

Those are new and returning customers just waiting to be engaged by your new dealership. So bite the bullet, jump through the flaming hoops below, and get that Business Page ownership!

“We didn’t buy a new dealership, we just can’t figure out who has access to the Business Manager that owns our current Page.”

If this sounds like your situation, great news, just follow these steps to fix that, too! This is actually way more common than not, so don’t feel bad if your dealership’s Business Page falls into this category.

Many dealers and other business owners alike don’t know who has full control of all of their social media channels and other digital marketing assets, but that ends today! Well, at least for Facebook/Meta Business pages it does.

How to Claim Ownership of your Facebook Business Page in 2022

The following process was successfully used to dispute the Facebook Business Manager ownership of a Facebook (Meta) Page for two of our clients that recently acquired new dealerships.

Because Facebook Support gives you so little time to handle everything, we highly recommend that you:

A. Read through these steps thoroughly before getting started, and
B. Pull together all of the requirements for the first two steps before ever beginning to make a claim

Step 1: Initiate the Dispute on Facebook Support Chat

Reach out to Facebook’s Support Chat through Business Manager and initiate your claim / explain the situation. You will need to provide the following to the Support Chat when you go to file a dispute:

Your Ad Account ID
- (they only seem to truly care if money is involved, so if you don’t have one of these, get one started with Dealer Authority today!)
Your Facebook Business Page link

Be aware that most communications come with this “threat” from Facebook support:

In addition, please note that if we do not get a response from you within 24 hours, your file will be closed automatically.

After you’ve initiated that claim they will let you know that they are beginning their investigation into the matter.

At this point, the conversation should be/or will be moved to email correspondence as it may take them a few hours or even days to get back to you.

After doing some digging they should come back with something close to the following:

Hello,

I hope this email finds you well. We can start admin dispute if you want. Please see the requested documents :

To be able to help to process your request please make sure that you provide all of the following documentation in one maximum 2 PDF files.

1. A valid photo ID of the requester.

- You can find the different kinds of IDs we accept in the Help Center: https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185

2. A signed statement with the request and below information:

- A description of requester relationship to the Business (and authority to request access to the Business, as applicable);
- An explanation of your request, and whether there has been a termination of the employment and/or business relationship with the named person(s)/Business, as applicable;
- The past three invoices/billing statements on the ad account(s) that the Business owns AND the last 4 digits of the credit card(s) on the account(s);
- The email address associated with the Facebook account that you wish to have added as the new admin of the Business;
- A declaration under penalty of perjury that the information you have provided is true and accurate (eg. “I certify that the information provided is true and accurate.”) – your statement must include similar language!

To avoid any delays, please kindly note that the document needs to be written in English and needs to be signed.

Once you have provided this information, we may follow up with additional requests for information or documentation to evaluate your request. Providing the requested information does not guarantee that we will be able to fulfill your request.

Keep in mind that if we are able to process your request, only one admin will be added to the Business Manager, and it will be the admin’s responsibility to take action and manage the people who work on the Business Manager.

Please kindly note that we will need to receive the signed document (no more than 2 PDF documents) within the next 48 hours. In case you will need more time please inform us on the estimated time you will need.

All the best to you and your business.

Thank you for contacting Facebook.
Kind Regards

Step 2: Prepare your Supporting Documents

In one PDF doc, combine the following info:

The past three invoices/billing statements on the ad account(s) that the Business owns AND
The last 4 digits of the credit card(s) on the account(s);

On your dealership’s letterhead construct the following letter of intent and save it as a PDF:

Date

To Whom It May Concern:

I, Business Owner’s Name, am the President/Owner/Title of Dealership Name. We are requesting Business Manager access to the Dealership Name Facebook Page as we own this property and all associated assets. Please add the email address for Responsible Employee’s Name, Email Address Connected to The Employee’s Personal Facebook Account, as the new admin of the business. Under penalty of perjury, I certify that the information provided is true and accurate. Please contact me at Business Owner’s Email with any further questions.

Best regards,

Add a physically written signature here

Business Owner’s Name
Title

Copy of Business Owner’s Driver’s License Attached Here

Example Declarative Statement Doc:

!!Important!! Notes Before Sending your Documents

The declarative statement doc MUST BE SIGNED.
Regardless of whether it’s you or an associate of your organization – whomever it is that you want to be set as the admin to take over the Business Manager / handle the ownership of the Facebook Page, YOU MUST provide the email address of the responsible party that is attached to their personal Facebook account.
- Do not provide their work email -unless they fall in the highly unlikely category that they created and maintain their Facebook account under that work email address.

Step 3: Send Docs & Provide Any Additional Info Needed

Email your supporting documents back to the Facebook Support Concierge within 48hrs.
After you’ve sent those out, it will take a few days for them to review. They may come back requesting additional information, but you should have a leg up on the situation by having your docs prepped ahead of time.

The Resolution to your Facebook Page Ownership Dispute

The ultimate result ended in having the new dealership owners being placed as the Admins of the Business Manager accounts that officially owned those Pages. Well done!

We Have Admin Access, Now What?

With that Admin access, the owners were then able to:

Make Page name changes,
Add other users and admins to their Business Manager,
Add in third-party social media agencies,
And so on…

Whether you want to transfer page ownership from that Business Manager to yours or keep it as-is, the absolute next best step is to add a couple of trusted employees as users to your Business Manager. Facebook/Meta can be an extremely volatile platform and is known for locking users out of those profiles for even the smallest infractions.

Don’t get caught with your pants down.

Make sure you have at least one other person that has access to your Business Manager so if you get locked out or worse, get hacked, at least someone else within your organization has access to this crucial social media marketing asset.

Need Some Extra Muscle to Get the Results You Need?

If you’re struggling to take ownership of your dealership’s Facebook page or having issues communicating with Facebook/Meta, Dealer Authority is here to help.

Having run into this problem a time or two now, we know how nuanced this can all be and how frustrating it is to tackle on your own. Partnering with a vendor that knows how to get the results you’re looking for is key, and that’s what we’re all about.