A bankruptcy lawyer from Indiana who shares a name with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke out about the challenges he faces and explained why he filed a lawsuit against the tech company on Tuesday after Facebook accused him of impersonation.
âIâm Mark Steven. And heâs Mark Elliot,â the Indiana lawyer told local news outlet 13WTHR on Wednesday, referring to their respective middle names.
The lawyer, Mark S. Zuckerberg, has a website, iammarkzuckerberg.com, where he details the âinteresting thingsâ that have happened to him because of his name â including receiving over 100 friend requests daily from people confusing him with the CEO, as well as receiving packages, letters, complaints, suggestions and demands on how to âimprove Facebook.â
âI canât use my name when making reservations or conducting business as people assume Iâm a prank caller and hang up,â the attorney wrote on his website.
The less-famous Zuckerberg went on to say that he has received âVenmo payment requests and money solicitations from total strangersâ as well as from ârelativesâ who reached out to him.
He recounted one instance in Las Vegas when a limo driver waited for him with a sign that read âMark Zuckerbergâ and drew a crowd that became disappointed when he arrived instead of the Meta CEO.
âMy life sometimes feels like the Michael Jordan ESPN commercial, where a regular personâs name causes constant mix-ups,â the lawyer wrote.
In more serious instances, Zuckerberg said, he has routinely received death threats and messages meant for the Meta CEO.
However, the lawsuit the attorney filed on Tuesday was due to Meta repeatedly suspending his commercial Facebook account, accusing him of âimpersonating a celebrityâ and not using an âauthentic name,â he said.
Heâs had the name longer than the 41-year-old CEO, the lawyer said, telling 13WTHR, âIâve got better things to do than sue Facebook.â
âThey have more money and more lawyers and more resources than I do. Iâd rather not pick a fight with them, but I donât know how else to make them stop!â he lamented.
Zuckerberg said his business account was shut down five times in the last eight years and his personal account has been taken down four times. Each time, he went through the proper appeals process.
The attorneyâs lawsuit states that he has spent over $11,000 to advertise on Meta. Even so, Meta âoftenâ takes âmonthsâ to reinstate his commercial page after a suspension, according to the suit.
âFor somebody who purports to be one of the leading tech companies in the world, and they canât stop doing this? And they canât seem to get their appeal process to work? I think they have a problem,â he said.
A spokesperson for Meta told HuffPost the company has âreinstated Mark Zuckerbergâs account, after finding it had been disabled in error.â
âWe appreciate Mr. Zuckerbergâs continued patience on this issue and are working to try and prevent this from happening in the future,â the spokesperson said.
Attorneys representing the Indiana lawyer did not immediately respond to HuffPostâs request for comment, but court records reviewed on Friday showed that the lawsuit is still ongoing.
âIf he wants to fly here personally and say âIâm sorry,â or maybe let me spend a week on his boat to say Iâm sorry, Iâd probably take him up on that,â Zuckerberg quipped to the local news outlet.




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