Mustafa Fteja, of Staten Island, filed a lawsuit Manhattan Supreme Court against the company for $500,000.
"I had the Facebook for one purpose - to keep in contact with my family," the
New York Daily News quoted Fteja, who came to the U.S. 17 years ago, as saying.
He said he complained about his missing account but received only automated replies.
Fteja estimated he had about 340 friends on Facebook and used it for three years - mainly to keep in touch with people in Montenegro, Albania, Germany and Austria.
"I lived in a communist country where people had no rights. This looks the same to me," he told the
New York Post.
"I'm not doing this for money. I'm doing this for justice. I believe there should be some, somewhere."
He received an e-mail stating that he had violated the terms of the Facebook agreement, but he said he never posted anything objectionable and that he is not a spammer.
"I know one thing - I didn't do anything. I didn't violate anything," he told the
New York Post.
"Did someobody hack my account? I don't know. If it's that someobody hacked my account, Facebook should help me. If you have a problem with your AOL login, AOL helps you. Not Facebook."
The lawsuit also states that Fteja is a Muslim, and accuses the company of religious discrimination.
Fteja is also seeking the restoration of his account.
The
New York Post lists Fteja as being 39, while the
New York Daily News states he is 30.
A photo of him can be seen on the
Geek O System website.
MSNBC reported that the Facebook terms state that any dispute is to be resolved in Santa Clara County, California, where the company is based. It also says that if any money were paid out it appears it would be limited to $100 or the amount the person paid them during the past 12 months.
One person who left a comment on the MSNBC site said the amount being sued for was ridiculous.
“Try having a child born with Cerebral Palsey because the Dr.'s and hospital screwed up,” states the
comment by Jan Dyson. “We sued and only received $500,000 for that. He is in a wheel chair and has had 13 surgeries in 13 years and has to go through injections every 3 months for which we drive 2 hours to get them.”
