Hacked instagram account

Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
My son is the victim of a scam where "bitcoin miners" have taken over his account and are posting bullshit things to his stories about the wonderful bitcoin mining program they have, including a $500 investment that will return $10,000. They've locked him out of his account and told him to pay $500 and they'll give it back. Obviously, he's not going to do that but we'd like to have this account taken down (he has another IG account he can pivot to). Problem is, the account was opened 10 years ago with a very old email which is no longer functional, and efforts to take it down via FB and otherwise have not succeeded. I'm a technological luddite, so I really can't help. I guess I'm wondering what should we do now? Can we call Instagram (that fact I'm asking about "calling" may reveal my oldness) and have them take it down? Looking for help here.
 

bsj

Renegade Crazed Genius
SoSH Member
Dec 6, 2003
22,774
Central NJ SoSH Chapter
One thing he should do right away is reach out to as many of his instagram friends as he can using a channel OTHER THAN INSTAGRAM (email, phone, text, etc) and ask THEM to report the account. Enough reports and they will investigate it.

Here are some additional steps

https://help.instagram.com/368191326593075

I wish you luck. My Dad lost access to Facebook and I've been trying for almost 8 months to get it back. He lives in a nursing home and has no ID any longer (long story...he has dementia and lost it at some point) beyond an insurance card and some random non official pieces. And he also has no contact with most of his FB friends (he really cant even remember many of them). FB was one of his last connections to the outside world. Yet, Facebook refuses to give it back to him. I've tried everything I can and no luck.
 
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Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
OK, thanks. He has been able to get the word out that he's been hacked. Dumb question, but how does one "report" the account?

Edit: Nevermind, I just did it myself. I reported it as a scam
 

Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
One thing he should do right away is reach out to as many of his instagram friends as he can using a channel OTHER THAN INSTAGRAM (email, phone, text, etc) and ask THEM to report the account. Enough reports and they will investigate it.

Here are some additional steps

https://help.instagram.com/368191326593075

I wish you luck. My Dad lost access to Facebook and I've been trying for almost 8 months to get it back. He lives in a nursing home and has no ID any longer (long story...he has dementia and lost it at some point) beyond an insurance card and some random non official pieces. And he also has no contact with most of his FB friends (he really cant even remember many of them). FB was one of his last connections to the outside world. Yet, Facebook refuses to give it back to him. I've tried everything I can and no luck.
Thanks. Somehow they've rerouted emails, so he cannot change his password. It's pretty sinister. I don't know what he did to give them access initially (although pretty sure he fell for a scam granting some sort of access, and when they asked him for money, he refused and now he's fucked).
 

Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
If you’re comfortable sharing the username, I’ll gladly report it from my account.
Thank you. The account name is jfreeman_1 His instagram stories have been taken over by a "bitcoin miner." To the extent it would be helpful for anyone and everyone here to report it as a scam, please do! We're fine with not recovering the account, would like it taken down. He has another account at insta which he's slowly having his followers migrate to. He had 1450 followers on the hacked account. Down to 950 this morning.

Edit: To the extent others on SOSH can report the account, I'm open to that
 
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CarolinaBeerGuy

Don't know him from Adam
SoSH Member
Mar 14, 2006
9,419
Kernersville, NC
Thank you. The account name is jfreeman_1 His instagram stories have been taken over by a "bitcoin miner." To the extent it would be helpful for anyone and everyone here to report it as a scam, please do! We're fine with not recovering the account, would like it taken down. He has another account at insta which he's slowly having his followers migrate to. He had 1450 followers on the hacked account. Down to 950 this morning.
I reported both the story and the account from my two personal accounts and my work account. Hopefully that will help.
 

Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
Nothing works. Account is still coopted by hackers and posting stories about bitcoin scams. I guess it is what it is, but surprising to me that he cannot contact Instagram by phone or some other conventional way to get the page taken down.
 

soxhop411

news aggravator
SoSH Member
Dec 4, 2009
46,276
Nothing works. Account is still coopted by hackers and posting stories about bitcoin scams. I guess it is what it is, but surprising to me that he cannot contact Instagram by phone or some other conventional way to get the page taken down.
Hey. From the link that @bsj posted did you try the below?
Request a security code or support from Instagram

If you're unable to recover your account with the login link we sent to you, you may be able to request support from us.
To request support from Instagram:
Instagram app for Android:


  1. On the login screen, tap Get help logging in. below Log in.
  2. Enter the username, email address, or phone number associated with your account, then tap Need more help?. Keep in mind that if you have more than one Instagram account you may need to select the account you’re having trouble logging into first, then follow the on-screen instructions.
  3. Tap Need more help? then follow the on-screen instructions.
  4. Select either your email address or phone number, then tap Send security code.
  5. If you don’t receive a security code, tap I can’t access this email or phone number below Send security code, then follow the on-screen instructions.
Instagram app for iPhone:


  1. From the login link screen, tap Need more help? below Send login link. Select either your email address or phone number, then tap Send security code.
  2. If you don’t receive a security code, tap I can’t access this email or phone number below Send security code, then follow the on-screen instructions.
Be sure to enter a secure email address that only you can access. Once you've submitted your request, you should receive an email from Instagram with next steps.
Learn more about what you can do if you don't know your username.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 26, 2005
30,494
Nothing works. Account is still coopted by hackers and posting stories about bitcoin scams. I guess it is what it is, but surprising to me that he cannot contact Instagram by phone or some other conventional way to get the page taken down.
Not that this is that helpful but here is an article about someone who took seven months to get their account back. She used many of the same steps suggested in this thread: View: https://medium.com/@racheltsoumbakos/my-instagram-account-has-been-hacked-and-instagram-doesnt-care-what-do-i-do-now-7f89394474a0
.

This seems to have gotten a response but only from an android phone:

Except for the help centre link.
You know, that terrible “lack of help” centre? I followed their advice once more for the Android instructions (from this link: https://help.instagram.com/368191326593075 but you have to do it from your phone, not a PC) and instead of having no luck, Instagram actually responded to my request asking for a photo of myself with a code they had provided. I had heard rumours that this response was possible but had never had any luck with getting this sort of reply from Instagram before.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 26, 2005
30,494
Here's another article about someone who got their account back: https://tobebright.com/my-ig-got-hacked-how-i-got-it-back-why-it-was-a-blessing-in-disguise/.

One thing she says is to try to find someone who works at FB/IG because internal reports are dealt with much more quickly than external. So maybe your son can tweet or use other social media posts to see if anyone he knows has any connections.

Two, there's apparently a guy named Juan who can deal with this. Really, well at least according to the article.
 

Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
Here's another article about someone who got their account back: https://tobebright.com/my-ig-got-hacked-how-i-got-it-back-why-it-was-a-blessing-in-disguise/.

One thing she says is to try to find someone who works at FB/IG because internal reports are dealt with much more quickly than external. So maybe your son can tweet or use other social media posts to see if anyone he knows has any connections.

Two, there's apparently a guy named Juan who can deal with this. Really, well at least according to the article.
Thanks for this heads up! A fraternity brother of my older son works at FB. I'm going to try to have him reach out to him to see what, if anything, can be done.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,840
On account now (jfreeman_1). I don't see any references to bitcoins anywhere, but I reported it.
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
25,895
Los Angeles, CA
I've heard horror stories about people trying to get back control of hacked FB/IG accounts for as long as I can remember. It seems crazy to me that there isn't an obvious formal channel for doing so. They should have the ability to verify you are who you say you are. For one thing, they should have a record of what the email on the account was before it was changed., and they should be able to see that it was recently changed, corroborating your story. Beyond that, you could message them a selfie with you holding your ID or something. It's basically a form of identity theft.
 

Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
I've heard horror stories about people trying to get back control of hacked FB/IG accounts for as long as I can remember. It seems crazy to me that there isn't an obvious formal channel for doing so. They should have the ability to verify you are who you say you are. For one thing, they should have a record of what the email on the account was before it was changed., and they should be able to see that it was recently changed, corroborating your story. Beyond that, you could message them a selfie with you holding your ID or something. It's basically a form of identity theft.
It absolutely is, and I find it unnerving that he has no access to a page that has his personal photos, and general things he likes and he seems to be at the mercy of these hackers who could post all sorts of shit on that page, or use his photos for who knows what?. I don't understand why FB/IG doesn't err on the side of taking something down if as you say, you can verify your ID. It's very frustrating.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 26, 2005
30,494
I don't understand why FB/IG doesn't err on the side of taking something down if as you say, you can verify your ID. It's very frustrating.
First and foremost, I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that it's part of the business model of most tech companies to limit customer service. Customer service is hard, it's expensive, and it's labor-intensive. Particularly for customers that have millions or billions of users. Using machine learning algorithms to try to solve 99.99+% of problems is way better for the bottom line.

And for the ones that can can't be solved, limiting interaction with real people to the squeakiest of squeaky wheels probably saves them a ton of money.

The tech companies don't care one whit about what goes on once people are subscribed and using their pages so long as it doesn't impact their business model and the random hacked page doesn't impact their business model.

It's amazing to me that people put up with all of this but I guess most people think that it'll never happen to them.
 
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Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
First and foremost, I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that it's part of the business model of most tech companies to limit customer service. Customer service is hard, it's expensive, and it's labor-intensive. Particularly for customers that have millions or billions of users. Using machine learning algorithms to try to solve 99.99+% of problems is way better for the bottom line.

And for the ones that can be solved, limiting interaction with real people to the squeakiest of squeaky wheels probably saves them a ton of money.

The tech companies don't care one whit about what goes on once people are subscribed and using their pages so long as it doesn't impact their business model and the random hacked page doesn't impact their business model.

It's amazing to me that people put up with all of this but I guess most people think that it'll never happen to them.
Yup. I spoke to my IT guy this morning and he basically parroted what you wrote. When a company has 270 million users or whatever, why would they give a shit about the college kid who was stupid enough to let BS bitcoin hackers breach his page? Harsh but true. Doesn't make it suck any less.
 

Bleedred

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 21, 2001
9,963
Boston, MA
He didn't get access back, but apparently the bitcoin hackers didn't post a new story today (and I'm told stories delete after 24 hours?).