- Look, this isn't funny anymore, okay.
So as you probably know by now, my Instagram account,
which is the primary way that I get sales on animals
was suddenly just deleted.
It completely disappeared, wiped from the Instagram database
which apparently is a thing that just happens.
I even found an article since that video.
The article's called,
"User Not Found; The Day I vanished from Instagram"
and it's describing exactly what I had happen.
And there's been tons of people that have messaged me
saying the exact same thing happened.
But luckily, I have multiple platforms.
And when it comes to selling reptiles,
my second most successful way that I sell animals
is through my mailing list.
While mailing lists seem kind of outdated,
'cause people don't like checking their email,
and most people are on social media
and don't use email as much as they used to.
It's still a very successful way
that people grow small businesses of all sorts.
And I've been building this one for a long time.
It has 32,000 subscribers,
which I would say is pretty good for a mailing list.
There's many people that go full time,
just on the mailing list with like 10,000 subscribers.
So I was happy with this and I kept sending emails as usual.
And then my mailing list account disappeared.
It was, it was deactivated just like a few weeks
after my Instagram account was deleted.
My mailing list was shut down
It's not even funny, why am I laughing?
I was so frustrated.
I couldn't get into my account.
And so I sent an email to the company
and I was like, where did my account go?
The second most important way that I sell reptiles,
where, where is it?
Why can I not log in?
Why does it not exist apparently all of a sudden?
Well, before I figure that out,
I want too quickly explain something
which is soft and hard bounces.
You're gonna send emails to people.
Sometimes those people inboxes are full,
or maybe the server is down.
If they're using a certain email company
and that company's server is shut down
while you send them the email, they're not gonna receive it.
And the mailing list company is going to know
when that happens and is called a soft bounce.
It's a temporary error.
So the next time you send an email, they'll try again.
But then there are hard bounces,
which means that there is a permanent error
trying to send emails to a person.
This happens for two big reasons.
The first is that the email address simply doesn't exist.
This usually happens when someone inputs a typo.
The second reason is
because the domain was deleted or is fake.
So I just checked my spam folder.
And there's one from @audit.taxy.NJsalestaxaudit.com.
That just doesn't exist.
It's just a fake email.
And so those are the only two reasons
an account should be marked as a hard balance.
And so the mailing list will automatically remove this email
from your list so that you're not trying
to constantly send emails to these fake accounts,
which could also affect the health of the list.
Well, I emailed the company and I was like,
why was my account deactivated?
They responded and said
please note that your email was blocked.
And we have now unblocked the email for you.
This was so broad that I asked, why was the account blocked?
And they said, Hey, there, it was blocked
in our database due to a hard bounce.
I hope you enjoy using our platform.
My personal email that I use on a daily basis,
the domain that I own, was marked as a hard bounce,
which means that the mailing list company
thought that the owner of the mailing list was fake.
They thought my email didn't exist
and they marked my email as a hard bounce
and blocked it from their servers,
which shut down my account.
I just always had this faith in the mailing lists
that they knew what they were doing
because well, that's their entire, that's,
they have one job which is to send emails
to people that sign up to your list.
Now this mailing list
has blocked 800 of my readers or subscribers
because they were all hard bounces.
And I never really thought about how many that is
and how many people that would be entering typos.
I do see, like, I'll see when someone signs up
and I'll see that they spell Gmail incorrectly.
So I'll just fix it for them.
But 800 is 2% of 32,000,
which is one in every 50 people signing up to my list
apparently doesn't exist.
And there's a lot of people that'll email me like
angry 'cause they're not getting updates on animals
but they sign up to the list.
They're like you told me that you'd send emails
to the list first so that we'd always know
when animals are available.
And I do and I'm like I did.
And they're like, why I'm not getting them.
And I check and it turns out oftentimes that either
maybe my email just went to their spam folder
but other times they were marked as a hard bounce.
Every platform has its flaws.
There's no perfect way.
It's, for a second, I was like
do I have to just go back to getting people's addresses
and mailing them newsletters to their mail?
Well, of course they're gonna get lost sometimes.
Some mail might get stolen.
Some might, fly out of the mail truck,
but naturally when you're doing any sort of platform,
like on YouTube how sometimes accounts will just
randomly get unsubscribed from other accounts and stuff.
But if 2% of my subscribers were unsubscribed accidentally,
that would be 13,000 people.
But every, and then like Instagram.
Well sometimes we just delete your account.
Like how are platforms still so unreliable now?
All I've got left is that my YouTube account.
It's just gonna disappear I feel.
I already have an active strike on the channel.
So if I were to get two more, my account's just deleted.
I'm permanently banned from YouTube.
And I think it's a false strike.
Like how unreliable is it?
'Cause every time I send an email,
new emails get marked as a hard bounce,
which now I'm pretty convinced is actually
just some of you who want to get updates on animals.
But no, you just get blocked from the list
because apparently you don't exist.
It's still hard without the Instagram
'cause that was just such a vital backbone of sales,
but I got an email I think from Facebook.
Now, speaking of weird email addresses,
this came from Facebook
which then says Instagram plus plus
a a z r w 4 k c q 7 q d r a,
which is just kind of a weird, I know like a lot of
whatever, you know, I'm not even gonna question it.
And they said, hi we won't be able to help you
until we receive proof
that you're the owner of this account.
Without verification of the owner,
we can't be sure we're helping the right person.
I have no idea the context of this.
Like I know my account was removed
but I don't, help me with,
I don't remember asking them for help
'cause I can never find any form of contact.
But I just randomly got this email
and they said, please reply to this message
with an attached digital copy
of any of the following documents
that match the information on the account.
Now here's the problem.
The information on the account is Emerald scales.
That's it?
My name isn't on it.
GoHerping isn't on it.
It's just Emerald Scales.
Which means that they will only give it back to me
if I can prove it's the business.
If I can prove that I own the business.
Well guess what, Emerald Scales, as you might know
is not a business.
Emerald Scales is just a name.
The business I have is GoHerping LLC.
Like that's, that's it.
There's no association with Emerald Scales,
so they want a local business license,
which I don't have, I never got a business license.
A tax filing, which I do have, but it's under GoHerping LLC
which is not what they want.
A certificate of formation,
which I don't have because it was never formed.
'cause I've only formed GoHerping LLC
and not Emerald Scales.
Articles of incorporation.
It's not incorporated.
GoHerping is, but that doesn't work
'cause I already have my GoHerping account,
or a utility bill.
I mean I can give them like my electricity bill.
I don't know what that has to do with Emerald Scales.
Also while editing this video,
I realized they didn't even sign the email.
It doesn't say Instagram support.
It doesn't say Facebook support.
It just says thanks a few minutes later they said,
hi thanks for contacting us.
Before we can help,
we may confirm that you own this account.
Please reply to this message
and send us a photo of yourself,
holding a handwritten copy with this code below.
So they want a picture of me holding a piece of paper
with a number written on it.
I'm not on the account.
I've never, there's,
maybe there's a picture of me on the account,
but apparently it doesn't matter.
And they just want this picture.
So both of my hands need to be in it.
So I'm just gonna take a screenshot of this video.
Include the code handwritten,
followed by your full name and username.
Wait, I messed up.
I can't read that.
And then the username.
Includes both your hand.
This does not seem like a real email.
It has a typo includes both your hand.
That's holding the sheet of paper and your entire face.
This seems like a scam, but it's from support.facebook.com.
I mean there's no sensitive information on this.
It's not like they ask for my password
or my address or anything,
but there's literally typos in this email
from the Instagram team
which apparently came from Facebook support.
I think it's real.
I don't, am I just, am I,
look @support.facebook.com?
That's the email.
If I copy and paste it, it goes to facebook.com.
It's not like they replaced the O with a zero.
Like this is actually, okay.
(upbeat music)
Well I guess I'll screenshot that and send it to them,
but they also want,
I don't have any of those documents they want
but we'll see what happens with that.
So that's my venting frustration.
It's just kind of irritating.
But finally, last thing is there are some animals available
on Emerald Scales right now.
There's a few more to come
but currently there's a blue tongue skink,
two leopard geckos, a ball python, and a tegu.
If you wanna check those out Emeraldscales.com.
So irritating but that's that.
It could be worse.
I could be dead.
I could have no eyeballs, I don't know.
Goodbye.