[akshay380]

Quick story short, we run a medical store and use WhatsApp for business(WfB I'll call it)for below points.
1. Accept snapshots of prescriptions from New/existing customers.
2. Inform customers that their orders are ready after they are packaged.
3. We do not send bulk promotion messages.

So sometime during April 2020, I woke up to see a message saying WhatsApp for business is banned for my account. Contacting support only got me a standard answer that we have violated commerce policy which I already went through and did not find a single clause that we could have remotely violated. So left it at that and used regular WhatsApp. Sometime few days back I randomly tried registering again for WfB and I was able to get through. A week later got banned again with the same standard reply of violating commerce policy. Absolutely no further communication from WhatsApp support after multiple emails. I asked them on twitter too but fell on deaf ears.

What can we do in such case? Entirely at the mercy of these monopoly regimes?

[moralfibre]

That is weird. Like i've seen in most internet companies, provision of support is completely lacking. Every product or service out there certainly has an issue or two. It is the redressal mechanism that distinguishes the good from bad.

I haven't yet tried whatsapp for business but have realised that they randomly grant business accounts to people. I am aware of friends with no business running a business account.

[dhanushs]

I think whatsapp business is just a place to showcase your products and may be have two whatsapp accounts on your phone.

[JoeTheWanderer]

Originally Posted by akshay380

What can we do in such case? Entirely at the mercy of these monopoly regimes?

I've dealt with WhatsApp support in the past and I know they can be very unhelpful. A quick search on Google leads to many articles on why you may be banned and what to do like this one from India Today.

Here's an excerpt from the above article that sums up our options in situations like this:

While WhatsApp is an extremely important service, it's a private service, offered for free, and its use is governed by terms of and conditions that users agree to. So in case if it has banned your number, chances are there is very little you will be able to do. Except writing that email and then hoping for the best.

Out of curiosity, were you using the official WhatsApp app or a 3rd party app? Using unofficial 3rd party apps seems to be a common reason why some businesses are banned.

[EightSix]

I too know someone who uses WhatsApp business without a business. Honestly, WhatsApp is way too overrated for what it offers which is why I and my family made the shift to Telegram this year. It gets frequently updated, simple, more private, easy to use, has unlimited cloud storage, huge member count for groups, channels feature, has bots which are really cool & useful and more and more people are ditching WhatsApp for it.

What you can do about this issue: I understand you too need to get your business done and can’t ask all your customers move to any alternative or specific app for your store. Frequently changing your registered phone might not be good for your customers. I feel you trapped by this monopoly. I suggest you get a e-commerce website for your store from, say ‘wix.com’, where you can manage customers and do a whole lot more than WhatsApp business. You might want to consider simple text messaging or SMS platform as an alternative.

Other than that, you might want to try tagging important people at FB/WA and not stop trying to reach out to WA.

[GTO]

WhatsApp cannot & doesn't read your messages. My best guess for what has happened = people have reported your number for sending spam. These could be genuine, or they could be those with malicious intent (competitors, jealousy). Check what all numbers you sent messages to in that week, to identify them.

While I empathise with your situation, there is no doubt that WhatsApp is doing a phenomenal job of controlling spam. I probably get 1 spam message a fortnight or something. Compare that to SMS where its like 1 every hour (God bless TrueCaller).

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by akshay380

What can we do in such case? Entirely at the mercy of these monopoly regimes?

Is that a paid service or is it free? If it is free, they can happily ignore you.

[Spinnerr]

I work in IT at a health care provider. Our Operations dept too faced a similar issue with WhatsApp when we had launched Medication Home delivery, after the successful rollout and announcement, suddenly WhatsApp blocked the account.

The Operations team on enquiring found out that WhatsApp has a policy against drugs, medication falls under that. They tried reaching out negotiating, etc etc. Didn't work. So they switched to telephone mode. WhatsApp is now just used to share location of the patient receiving the medication.

I don't have a whole lot of details as it was not under my purview, but heard the brief during a monthly meeting.

Edit: Found their policy. Link

[akshay380]

Originally Posted by GTO

WhatsApp cannot & doesn't read your messages. My best guess for what has happened = people have reported your number for sending spam. These could be genuine, or they could be those with malicious intent (competitors, jealousy). Check what all numbers you sent messages to in that week, to identify them.

Umm. They blocked it second time even when I kept the number idle

Originally Posted by Spinnerr

I work in IT at a health care provider. Our Operations dept too faced a similar issue with WhatsApp when we had launched Medication Home delivery, after the successful rollout and announcement, suddenly WhatsApp blocked the account.

The Operations team on enquiring found out that WhatsApp has a policy against drugs, medication falls under that. They tried reaching out negotiating, etc etc. Didn't work. So they switched to telephone mode. WhatsApp is now just used to share location of the patient receiving the medication.

I don't have a whole lot of details as it was not under my purview, but heard the brief during a monthly meeting.

That answers my question to a great extent then.

[akshay380]

Finally found the relevant bit in WhatsApp Policy.