On the 6th January 17.35pm I was sent a message from my friend and neighbour Grace asking me to help her try and fix her account as she was having issues logging in to her FB. I sent a message back saying, are you ok and what do you need?
"Kev can you please send me the link I have just sent you on FB messenger, as I need this to access my account back". I said OK and waited for the link to arrive. It didn’t! So, I messaged her to say it didn’t come through and did she want to do it again. She said she was sorry, and she would try again. This time I saw the link and sent it to her. That’s the moment I realised what I had done…My entire Instagram account was gone…I had lost all access to my account within 30 seconds. I text her back asking what had happened why I was denied access and heard nothing. I called her on the phone, and when she answered, I realised she wasn’t even aware I had been HACKED!!!
"Grace I’ve just had a message from you and now I’ve lost my Instagram account"…”Oh Kev my account was hacked four weeks ago"…DAMN!!!
OK now to try and get my account back. I went through the procedures it describes on its very worded document, how to retrieve a hacked account, however at no point does it give you a link to your issue. It goes round in circles like a city full of roundabouts, but to resolve your issue is another story. I must have read the same document 30 times and still nowhere closer to gaining access to my account. My initial feeling was anger, I wanted my account back. I had worked 9 years to gain 8K followers who were loyal and supportive. My videos were gaining great views up to 70K per video and others up to 100K.
I was also in quarantine in Spain due to testing positive for Omicron and felt happy connecting with my followers to keep me going during these difficult times.
What I didn’t realise was the wrath of stress that was awaiting me.
The HACKER had not only gained access to my account, but they were now targeting my followers with messages directly from my account asking them to invest in Bitcoin. They were posting past videos of me to look like I still had the account and was encouraging my followers to do what I had done. I truly hadn’t taken this into consideration and knowing I have very vulnerable and disabled followers on my platform, this was getting serious and I needed to do something about it.
My messenger was crammed with messages from friends and followers asking me why Im encouraging them to invest with a lady called Laura_Owens_
One friend actually said to me she was really thankful that I had mentioned my friend Laura Owen's who she'd already had a correspondence with and was discussing the opportunity of investing £1000 next week, due to what I had done and how I'd made so much money. I immediately messaged her back to say I didn't know who Laura Owens was and please do not part with any of your income. She was absolutely shocked and believed it was me and not some hacker.
Over the last few days I have been messaged and called by numerous friends, family, and followers, asking me if I've been hacked?. Two friends of mine have also received links from their Facebook Messenger with a text saying please can you forward this to me as I need it to get back my access into Facebook. All of which are the hackers way of trying to gain access to your Instagram & Facebook.
I have emailed Instagram over 25 times asking them to put a stop to my account so that vulnerable people do not end up being victims to this terrible scam. Unfortunately a multi-Billion dollar company has no support system set up to help deal with these problems swiftly and urgently, to avoid others dealing with the same scenarios that I have. Just like Omicron variant, if you don’t deal with it swiftly you are going to open up pandoras box of nightmares that will affect the masses.
The online bot system they have in place does not work for an account you have lost. It has no way of knowing what information has been changed without a support system in place.
What I will say however is this. A programme like Instagram that has over 458 Million users, cannot seem to differentiate between a user accessing there account in one country and wanting to change their online credentials in another, at the same time. Surely with the amount of technology at their disposal, they would have had the system set up to identify that, this could be a scam?
At the time of writing this, I’m still locked out of my account, the hacker gained more access to other accounts, and as of last night 6 more victims have been added to the hackers list.
Fortunately a friend of mine has helped me send my ID to Instagram and my account is now blocked. The perpetrator was reposting old videos of mine to make it look like I had my account back. This is an intellectual property crime and one that needs to stop immediately.
Instagram is responsible for millions of people losing money to scammers & Hackers. They should be concerned about the safety of their users and how these hackers are gaining access to their accounts for weeks and months on end without any possible way of getting it back. Instagram is also responsible for mental health and anxiety amongst their users, as delaying opportunities to get your account back, creates incredible stress for those who has lost access.
This needs to stop now. Create better communication platforms for your users to talk to you. The whole reason you set up Instagram was for the simple way of connecting with others, yet it’s the one module you totally fail on yourselves.
Depending if it's reinstated or not, you will see a video of me screaming with pleasure.
Kev Orkian (Instagram Kev_Orkian) Blocked!.
