How To Get Your HACKED IG Back ASAP

I was recently hacked and had my Instagram Account Lavenda’s Closet held for ransom by an internet Pirate! No Joke. You can read about the entire experience in my last blog post.

POST-HACK CHECKLIST

1. Locate the “change of email” notification from Instagram. Revoke access to the new email that they changed it to immediately.
2. Change ALL passwords including email, facebook, bank and other Instagram accounts immediately.
3. File a claim that your account had been hacked.
4. Check your browser history or recently opened emails for the fishing link and then make sure not to click that again.
5. Draft a response to your hacker. This can at least buy you some time.

If you’ve ever lost access to your account temporarily you may have experience the terrible automated “support system” loop provided by Instagram and Facebook that leads you to one dead end after another.

For less savvy hacks, some users may benefit from the system and get their account back quickly, but for businesses who are being extorted by highly experienced and professional hackers- you may never get your account back.

UNLESS YOU KNOW SOMEONE

I shared about my quest to track down someone inside facebook who could get my claim going more quickly internally in my previous blog post. This step is important, because the automated system is very limited and if you don’t have someone with the technical experience, who knows EXACTLY which info to provide, it will turn you away each and every time.

HOW I FOUND MY OWN HACK

I feel incredibly bless because I believe that God returned my account back to me through all the 100’s of people who were praying for me. I didn’t actually pray for my account to be returned, but simply prayed that God would walk me through whatever his plan was and help me accept the final outcome- no matter how difficult or stressful the journey.

What I did not expect, was to find myself a Columbian Saint who would recover my account out of the good of his own heart. Meet Juan Diego J Pelaez. Juan is a social media consultant and works in security for latin celebrities. I found him on at least three different chat rooms and groups as a resource to get my account back. One girl had screenshot his account after seeing a shout-out on a celebrity bloggers page. Another girl personally messaged me and urged me to follow up with him, because he had helped restore her account THAT SAME DAY!

Whaaaa!

THERE ARE TRULY GOOD PEOPLE OUT THERE

Juan is doing his life’s work as a believer himself and offered to help me restore my account without asking for a single thing in return. I had to offer him money literally a dozen times and even then he said it was not necessary. I know that the previous blogger didn’t pay him and he was happy to simply do a good deed for her. That was payment enough for him.

As a hard working free-lancer myself, I understand how wonderful it is to be paid for what you love to do, so of course I stretched my own budget and made sure to pay him for his kindness and energy. He spent hours talking me through the steps, answering my questions and then following up the next morning after making the final IG support claim. Juan then monitored my account to make sure that the hackers would not regain access. Again, all of this without expecting a dollar in return.

IF YOU NEED HELP REACH OUT TO HIM

Juan agreed to let me share his name and information here so that anyone else in need could reach out to him. You can DM him on Instagram here- Juanr325. He offers aid without expecting payment at the moment, but I imagine that with this growing issue and Instagrams slow and inefficient claims process- that users will be following up with him by the droves! I urge you to pay him for his time, since this is an invaluable skillset, he is quick and professional and most importantly, it’s the right thing to do if you have the resources. So get his help while you can babes. And good luck!