About 1 month ago I lost an Instagram account with 150,000 followers called "@supra_nation" and here's how it happened
Someone obtained my phone number, called Verizon, convinced them to deactivate my phone number on my cell phone, and had it activated on there's. Once they were operating under my phone number, they used it to change all of the passwords on my email and eventually came across the email address that I had linked to my Instagram account. Once they had control over that email address they were able to hijack my Instagram account. By the time I got all of my email addresses back it was too late. They had already changed the email address associated with the Instagram account and I had no way of getting it back. I contacted Instagram but they refused to give me my account back because I didn't have the original email address that was used to create the account.
I'm not sure if the person who did this was targeting my Instagram account or not, but I think whoever did it ended up selling the Instagram account because the username was changed and all 3,000 posts were deleted. I've sent numerous emails to Instagram explaining what happened and provided proof that I had control over the account for the past 4 years but they aren't doing anything to help. They simply just keep responding with the same generic message stating that they can't go any further without the original email address used to create the account.
Moral of the story, have two step verification on for emails and Instagram. Also, if you have an Instagram account where you have your followers send you submissions via email, make sure that email address is not the same email address that's linked to your account. Be careful guys.
Someone obtained my phone number, called Verizon, convinced them to deactivate my phone number on my cell phone, and had it activated on there's. Once they were operating under my phone number, they used it to change all of the passwords on my email and eventually came across the email address that I had linked to my Instagram account. Once they had control over that email address they were able to hijack my Instagram account. By the time I got all of my email addresses back it was too late. They had already changed the email address associated with the Instagram account and I had no way of getting it back. I contacted Instagram but they refused to give me my account back because I didn't have the original email address that was used to create the account.
I'm not sure if the person who did this was targeting my Instagram account or not, but I think whoever did it ended up selling the Instagram account because the username was changed and all 3,000 posts were deleted. I've sent numerous emails to Instagram explaining what happened and provided proof that I had control over the account for the past 4 years but they aren't doing anything to help. They simply just keep responding with the same generic message stating that they can't go any further without the original email address used to create the account.
Moral of the story, have two step verification on for emails and Instagram. Also, if you have an Instagram account where you have your followers send you submissions via email, make sure that email address is not the same email address that's linked to your account. Be careful guys.
