META (INSTAGRAM) SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE!
META (INSTAGRAM) SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE!
The Issue
INSTAGRAM HACKED
February 5, 2022
My name is Jayni Chana and I am the owner of Instagram Account, Jaynichana.beauty. At the time of opening this account, I registered my email address known as jxxxxxxx@hotmail.com along with my phone number.
Sometime in the morning of February 5, 2022, I received an Instagram direct message from a follower and friend which I will not disclose. He is a fellow Makeup Artist with whom I have worked with in the past.
The direct message stated that he needed help to retrieve his Instagram account password and because his account phone number had been wiped out, he needed me to send him the link that would be sent to my phone number. Immediately, I was surprised and said he can ask another friend as I was afraid of getting a virus. He responded saying it’s not virus and for me to trust him and I was the only one he knew would help him. Reluctantly I gave him my phone number and a link was texted to me from 351-207-4779.
At 1:18pm on February 5, 2022, I received an email to my account from Instagram Security stating that the phone number that was associated to my Instagram account jaynichana.beauty had been removed. Immediately, I clicked the link that was provided if no such action was made. The link took me to Instagram to reset my password to which my account could no longer be found. Within the same minute, another email from Instagram security was sent stating that my email associated with jaynichana.beauty had been changed to kevin14455561@gmail.com. Immediately I followed the links to secure my account as I did not request this change. Again, the link took me to a page that could not be found.
My Instagram account at this point had been compromised and taken over by a hacker. I followed the troubleshooting steps provided through Instagram’s app. I performed all the steps several times to no avail as the hacker removed my email address so that it could not be found by any Instagram automated retrieval processes. In fact, the reset link sent by Instagram was addressed to a different handle name, which is another account I used to own in the past. I followed the links to retrieve jaynichana.beauty but no such account could be found as the hacker at this point had changed my Instagram user ID to _jaynichhaana.beauty._
At 2:14pm of same date, I received an email from Instagram Security confirming receipt of my selfie video.
On February 6, 2022 at 1:59am, I received an automated email confirming receipt of my information that I submitted for me to follow the reset link and to enter the 8-digit security code to log back into my account. I followed the link and steps to fail once again as anytime I had to navigate from one app to another to cut and paste the code, the login screen would disappear and never be made available again unless you started the user/password security reset process again. I and my husband performed this process several times again including providing another facial recognition etc.
On February 7, 2022 at 5:51pm, I emailed Support at Facebook reporting to them of my hacked Instagram account including a snapshot of the hacked Instagram account that I no longer have access to. I also forwarded this email to Instagram Security on February 9, 2022 at 4:26pm. I have not received personalized responses from either Instagram or Facebook to my emails. Instead, I received another automated response from Instagram Security with another 8-digit security code, in which I responded that no such page was found as well as attaching a screenshot of the hacker sending private messages to my followers stating that I need help as my someone broke into my home.
On February 10, 2022, several emails from Instagram Security were sent to me as I made numerous attempts to regain ownership of my account. All links provided did not result in any re-entry to my account. At 11:50pm, I received an email from Facebook requesting me to confirm that I own said account by way of providing a selfie holding the 5-digit code in front of me. I completed this step as requested and emailed Facebook on February 11, 2022 at 10:52 am, attaching my selfie with code along with a snapshot of the selfie posted on my Instagram wearing the same shirt on March 27, 2020. Within this email, I also provided a report that one of my followers had become a victim of a money scam. The hacker had lured the follower to invest $1000 for a quick return of $15,000 within a month’s time.
What makes this process even more challenging is that Instagram provides an extra security measure requesting that the owner of the account enter a security code that has been texted to the phone number listed on file. Evidently as I have already stated, the hacker removed my phone number from this account by replacing it with his/her/their own. As such, the additional security code was texted to the hacker and not me. Once the hacker received the security code, he then went back into the account to reverse any efforts I made to regain ownership which brought be back to square one.
Since February 5, 2022, the hacker has posted several stories as well as the initial wall posting stating that I supposedly bought myself a Mercedes from investing in Bitcoin.
More importantly, the hacker has contacted hundreds of my followers who have been loyal and with whom I have earned trust. Some messages are desperate cries of help, supposedly asking them to assist me in as my home has been broken into or that my account requires their assistance in retrieving a pin code.
One of my followers fell victim to a phishing scam. Jane Doe (anonymous follower) engaged in a private conversation with the hacker, unbeknownst to her that it was a hacker impersonating me. He lured her into investing $1000.00 with the promise that she will gain an unbelievable amount. She contacted me through Facebook messenger to alert me and at this time I advised her to report the message and the profile known as @jcrvze.
To date, 11 days after the initial report of my account being hacked, Instagram and/or Facebook/Meta has NOT taken down or prevented the hacker from contacting my followers of jaynichana.beauty after several reports filed by myself and my followers that he is violating Instagram guidelines/rules and impersonating me. In fact, after hundreds of reporting submissions, Instagram provided feedback that they do not believe profile name @jcrvze has violated any Instagram Community Guidelines including impersonation, posting scam/fraud etc., therefore his posts and profile will remain active.
On February 13, 2022, hundreds of my followers have contacted me through text message advising me of click bait posts the hacker is curating. A contest in which the hacker asks followers to specify a word starts with “S” and ends with “T” at which point the contestant will win $800. The follower immediately responds, and the hacker requests an email to where an e-transfer can be made and conveying instructions for the contestant to change Instagram account details through the private messaging platform. Another tactic to violate someone’s privacy.
The hacker is making herculean efforts to invade and cyber-attack all my followers. Since being hacked on February 5, 2022, my account has understandably lost over 1000 followers. My followers are afraid of being hacked themselves and many blocked my account. This loyalty will be difficult to regain. More importantly however, many people’s privacy is at risk if not already compromised. My business is to provide beauty services for special occasions like weddings. Potential customers visit my Instagram account, and they are motivated to send me private messages through this platform to make event inquiries. My clients are being compromised as the hacker is requesting personal information including phone numbers and email addresses in which he will send a link to complete engagement. Many are being harassed by a barrage of messages from the hacker via email and text messages. The trust that I have tirelessly worked so hard to achieve for the last 10 years is being broken bit by bit every single day. Aside from my clients being harassed, I have also been inundated with constant text, email, WhatsApp, Facebook and phone calls by followers to advise that my account has been hacked. Since February 5, 2022, I taken every step to warn people through my personal Instagram and Facebook accounts that my Instagram, jaynichana.beauty has been hacked and is currently under attack. It is verifiably beyond my reach to inform every follower that my account has been hacked and currently under cyber-attack. My followers continue to inform me that their accounts have been invaded and now their banking and personal information have been compromised. I feel helpless in that I am unable to prevent this cyber warfare aside from notifying people through my Facebook platform.
The unfortunate position of this ordeal is that there are no viable options for account holders to remedy cyber-attacks. There is no human contact available at Instagram or Facebook. Automated trouble-shooting links do not work especially with these unique circumstances. Instagram’s automated system keeps spitting out instructions based on a fixed algorithm without recognizing that usernames/passwords/phone numbers have been changed. We are unable to call
a customer service representative to advise our unique scenario for them to say “ahhhhh, now we get it, here is what we can do...”. When an account has been reported several times, measures should take place to take the account down for further investigation to protect the public. Instagram confirms that they do not take any responsibility in preventing these crimes. Someone needs to be held accountable for not taking action after several attempts of filing reports, warnings and complaints. This situation invites a unique set of circumstances that there are professional "Hackers" on the market who will hack the hacker to get your account back. It is such a catch 22 in that you don't know how hackers do these things and the person you hire may hack you even further.
We should all take care and precaution when reading things that are too good to be true. When it sounds shady, do not engage and REPORT. But who should be held accountable for when countless reports of a crime have been made and the body in which you are reporting fails to take down the profile or conduct further investigation? INSTAGRAM is negligent given that it has NOT conducted any investigation to prevent further harm to the public. INSTAGRAM is negligent in that they assume a robot or a pre-set algorithm will prevent or identify major cyber crimes.
At the finality of this summary, Instagram has not removed my profile.
Thank you!
196
The Issue
INSTAGRAM HACKED
February 5, 2022
My name is Jayni Chana and I am the owner of Instagram Account, Jaynichana.beauty. At the time of opening this account, I registered my email address known as jxxxxxxx@hotmail.com along with my phone number.
Sometime in the morning of February 5, 2022, I received an Instagram direct message from a follower and friend which I will not disclose. He is a fellow Makeup Artist with whom I have worked with in the past.
The direct message stated that he needed help to retrieve his Instagram account password and because his account phone number had been wiped out, he needed me to send him the link that would be sent to my phone number. Immediately, I was surprised and said he can ask another friend as I was afraid of getting a virus. He responded saying it’s not virus and for me to trust him and I was the only one he knew would help him. Reluctantly I gave him my phone number and a link was texted to me from 351-207-4779.
At 1:18pm on February 5, 2022, I received an email to my account from Instagram Security stating that the phone number that was associated to my Instagram account jaynichana.beauty had been removed. Immediately, I clicked the link that was provided if no such action was made. The link took me to Instagram to reset my password to which my account could no longer be found. Within the same minute, another email from Instagram security was sent stating that my email associated with jaynichana.beauty had been changed to kevin14455561@gmail.com. Immediately I followed the links to secure my account as I did not request this change. Again, the link took me to a page that could not be found.
My Instagram account at this point had been compromised and taken over by a hacker. I followed the troubleshooting steps provided through Instagram’s app. I performed all the steps several times to no avail as the hacker removed my email address so that it could not be found by any Instagram automated retrieval processes. In fact, the reset link sent by Instagram was addressed to a different handle name, which is another account I used to own in the past. I followed the links to retrieve jaynichana.beauty but no such account could be found as the hacker at this point had changed my Instagram user ID to _jaynichhaana.beauty._
At 2:14pm of same date, I received an email from Instagram Security confirming receipt of my selfie video.
On February 6, 2022 at 1:59am, I received an automated email confirming receipt of my information that I submitted for me to follow the reset link and to enter the 8-digit security code to log back into my account. I followed the link and steps to fail once again as anytime I had to navigate from one app to another to cut and paste the code, the login screen would disappear and never be made available again unless you started the user/password security reset process again. I and my husband performed this process several times again including providing another facial recognition etc.
On February 7, 2022 at 5:51pm, I emailed Support at Facebook reporting to them of my hacked Instagram account including a snapshot of the hacked Instagram account that I no longer have access to. I also forwarded this email to Instagram Security on February 9, 2022 at 4:26pm. I have not received personalized responses from either Instagram or Facebook to my emails. Instead, I received another automated response from Instagram Security with another 8-digit security code, in which I responded that no such page was found as well as attaching a screenshot of the hacker sending private messages to my followers stating that I need help as my someone broke into my home.
On February 10, 2022, several emails from Instagram Security were sent to me as I made numerous attempts to regain ownership of my account. All links provided did not result in any re-entry to my account. At 11:50pm, I received an email from Facebook requesting me to confirm that I own said account by way of providing a selfie holding the 5-digit code in front of me. I completed this step as requested and emailed Facebook on February 11, 2022 at 10:52 am, attaching my selfie with code along with a snapshot of the selfie posted on my Instagram wearing the same shirt on March 27, 2020. Within this email, I also provided a report that one of my followers had become a victim of a money scam. The hacker had lured the follower to invest $1000 for a quick return of $15,000 within a month’s time.
What makes this process even more challenging is that Instagram provides an extra security measure requesting that the owner of the account enter a security code that has been texted to the phone number listed on file. Evidently as I have already stated, the hacker removed my phone number from this account by replacing it with his/her/their own. As such, the additional security code was texted to the hacker and not me. Once the hacker received the security code, he then went back into the account to reverse any efforts I made to regain ownership which brought be back to square one.
Since February 5, 2022, the hacker has posted several stories as well as the initial wall posting stating that I supposedly bought myself a Mercedes from investing in Bitcoin.
More importantly, the hacker has contacted hundreds of my followers who have been loyal and with whom I have earned trust. Some messages are desperate cries of help, supposedly asking them to assist me in as my home has been broken into or that my account requires their assistance in retrieving a pin code.
One of my followers fell victim to a phishing scam. Jane Doe (anonymous follower) engaged in a private conversation with the hacker, unbeknownst to her that it was a hacker impersonating me. He lured her into investing $1000.00 with the promise that she will gain an unbelievable amount. She contacted me through Facebook messenger to alert me and at this time I advised her to report the message and the profile known as @jcrvze.
To date, 11 days after the initial report of my account being hacked, Instagram and/or Facebook/Meta has NOT taken down or prevented the hacker from contacting my followers of jaynichana.beauty after several reports filed by myself and my followers that he is violating Instagram guidelines/rules and impersonating me. In fact, after hundreds of reporting submissions, Instagram provided feedback that they do not believe profile name @jcrvze has violated any Instagram Community Guidelines including impersonation, posting scam/fraud etc., therefore his posts and profile will remain active.
On February 13, 2022, hundreds of my followers have contacted me through text message advising me of click bait posts the hacker is curating. A contest in which the hacker asks followers to specify a word starts with “S” and ends with “T” at which point the contestant will win $800. The follower immediately responds, and the hacker requests an email to where an e-transfer can be made and conveying instructions for the contestant to change Instagram account details through the private messaging platform. Another tactic to violate someone’s privacy.
The hacker is making herculean efforts to invade and cyber-attack all my followers. Since being hacked on February 5, 2022, my account has understandably lost over 1000 followers. My followers are afraid of being hacked themselves and many blocked my account. This loyalty will be difficult to regain. More importantly however, many people’s privacy is at risk if not already compromised. My business is to provide beauty services for special occasions like weddings. Potential customers visit my Instagram account, and they are motivated to send me private messages through this platform to make event inquiries. My clients are being compromised as the hacker is requesting personal information including phone numbers and email addresses in which he will send a link to complete engagement. Many are being harassed by a barrage of messages from the hacker via email and text messages. The trust that I have tirelessly worked so hard to achieve for the last 10 years is being broken bit by bit every single day. Aside from my clients being harassed, I have also been inundated with constant text, email, WhatsApp, Facebook and phone calls by followers to advise that my account has been hacked. Since February 5, 2022, I taken every step to warn people through my personal Instagram and Facebook accounts that my Instagram, jaynichana.beauty has been hacked and is currently under attack. It is verifiably beyond my reach to inform every follower that my account has been hacked and currently under cyber-attack. My followers continue to inform me that their accounts have been invaded and now their banking and personal information have been compromised. I feel helpless in that I am unable to prevent this cyber warfare aside from notifying people through my Facebook platform.
The unfortunate position of this ordeal is that there are no viable options for account holders to remedy cyber-attacks. There is no human contact available at Instagram or Facebook. Automated trouble-shooting links do not work especially with these unique circumstances. Instagram’s automated system keeps spitting out instructions based on a fixed algorithm without recognizing that usernames/passwords/phone numbers have been changed. We are unable to call
a customer service representative to advise our unique scenario for them to say “ahhhhh, now we get it, here is what we can do...”. When an account has been reported several times, measures should take place to take the account down for further investigation to protect the public. Instagram confirms that they do not take any responsibility in preventing these crimes. Someone needs to be held accountable for not taking action after several attempts of filing reports, warnings and complaints. This situation invites a unique set of circumstances that there are professional "Hackers" on the market who will hack the hacker to get your account back. It is such a catch 22 in that you don't know how hackers do these things and the person you hire may hack you even further.
We should all take care and precaution when reading things that are too good to be true. When it sounds shady, do not engage and REPORT. But who should be held accountable for when countless reports of a crime have been made and the body in which you are reporting fails to take down the profile or conduct further investigation? INSTAGRAM is negligent given that it has NOT conducted any investigation to prevent further harm to the public. INSTAGRAM is negligent in that they assume a robot or a pre-set algorithm will prevent or identify major cyber crimes.
At the finality of this summary, Instagram has not removed my profile.
Thank you!
196
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Petition created on February 16, 2022