Sadly it was an hour of being posted before I notified Gary what was going on. Plenty of people got scammed unfortunately. The hackers are now demanding $5,000 from his wife to get his account back ( they’re not doing that ). There’s no way to contact Instagram in any situation which fking blows. Truthfully can only hope IG team and algorithm picks up his account got hacked and recover it for him. They completely locked him out. I’ve seen first hand how fast a hacker can get into an Instagram - it’s scary. The hacker from that situation told me that it’s 10x harder for him to get into a Instagram page if the profile is private. If that’s of any help to anyone 
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It’s very upsetting - I hate it when these big companies have such crap customer service, like no contact number? or Web chat?
I think when this is all done and dusted trading on IG may be more difficult. It’s a shame the skillful hackers have infiltrated the once small and honest community.
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A friendly reminder to never click on suspicious links, create a password manager to store unique passwords, and have 2FA enabled. Older folks are extremely vulnerable to phishing as they are not in tune with tech. I recently taught my mother how to look out for phishing scams and assisted her with creating a password manager after her lending out her bank credentials.
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If a deal seems too good to be true it’s a scam.
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This sucks. Imagine being so low as to steal from people in the hobby, fucking pond scum.
Guys, ENABLE two factor authentication on everything that allows it, then bolster that by setting extra security with your mobile provider to prevent sim swap scams that could potentially steal your number. I’ve got close to a decade in the wireless business, you’d be shocked how often sim swap scams occur and the havoc they can cause.
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From help.instagram.com/149494825257596:
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:
On Android:
On the login screen, tap Get help logging in. below Log In.
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.
Tap Need more help? then follow the on-screen instructions.
Select either your email address or phone number, then tap Send Security Code.
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.
On iPhone:
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.
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
Verify your identity
Once you submit your support request, you should receive an auto-response email from the Support Team at Facebook asking you to help us verify your identity. You’ll be asked for one or both of the following:
A photo of yourself holding a paper with a handwritten code we’ve provided you.
The email address or phone number you signed up with and the type of device you used at the time of sign up (example: iPhone, Android, iPad, other).
Once you provide information to help us verify your identity, we’ll send you specific instructions to recover your account at the secure email address you provided.
If you’re still having trouble accessing your account, we’d like to hear more about your experience so we can continue to improve our support options.
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This is important.
99%+ of the time “hacked” simply means somebody literally used a leaked password. It doesn’t have to be the specific “hacked” platform that had a leak. When LinkedIn or some stupid website nobody checks on their accounts people take those same credentials over to eBay, Paypal, IG, Twitter, banking sites, etc. anywhere potentially of value.
Don’t repeat passwords people and since many will anyways at least don’t do it for important websites. Use google password or lastpass or something similar to store them if you have to.
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Facebook owns instagram, could contact facebook.
So, is the username now FakeKingPokemon?
How do we avoid sim swap scams, this appears to be very concerning, I have 2 factor authentication for everything but I didn’t know that scammers could trick networks to getting your messages
I’m getting quite concerned as this scammer saw part of my bank statement and my balance and knows that I have also traded in crypto. I just don’t know if there is anything I should do right now. I have 2 factor authentication for everything but I thought that was typically enough…
Steve called me from the Netherlands and has put his social media team on the case. So far I got this.
Hacker:
This is what the hacker got.
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Btw, thank you to everyone like DBruze, Scott and everyone who reposted Thuan’s warning and for the kind words. Warnings about the hacking have flooded the internet. Steve’s guy is working through the media portal now to hopefully get my account reinstated.
Even if ig’s customers are getting ripped off for 10s of thousands of dollars they still have no set up for a phone call or chat.
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@garyis2000 being a high-profile user my recommendation to you in future would be to use a dedicated email address for your social accounts which nobody else knows - and make sure that email address has two-factor authentication enabled.
I don’t know how it works in the US but in the UK there’s a security process whereby you have to explicitly request a 9-digit PAC code by sending a SMS to your provider so that you can then provide that to a telecom operator in order to complete a phone number switch; the operator themselves cannot do this.
This means that unless you have access to the SIM card already you can’t just socially engineer your way to swapping SIMs.
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Strange that a hacker would talk like this unless he is just trolling…
Does he have your AOL account too then? i guess he re-created your wifes old yahoo account since it was deleted for being inactive and reset your aol password to get access to that and then reset your insta password via AOL to gain access. Hope nothing else linked to your aol has been compromised either!
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I think we should all take some learning from this event. It’s highly concerning that reputable IG accounts can get hacked into and people can scam using cryptocurrency and possibly get away with it? Not sure on the amount of losses but had the hacker played his cards right oh this could have been an absolutely dire situation. I think we shouldn’t dismiss this event because hackers could easily get into other reputable IG accounts and had they perhaps been a bit smarter then post a story saying we are accepting crypto they could have potentially private DMed people with private deals with maybe a 10-20% discount rather then a 50% discount and caused significantly more damage.
There were too many red flags and I’m normally on the risk averse side but I know there are people who have this kind of money (60k) who are a lot more risk taking within the IG community. I don’t know the total losses but I just hope it wasn’t that bad.
I’m definitely upping my account security significantly and doing some further research because I always thought 2 factor authentication was secure but it doesn’t seem like this is the case. I’m almost always going to video call someone on a big deal to make sure it’s actually them regardless of the IG account and make sure it’s all in writing.
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@lowpopping, @pikachutcg, @pichufan,
Good comments. So that’s how he did it? It all started with one of my wife’s old email accounts?
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“I’ll just be nice and return it.”
Gee, what a guy!
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Well, we’re back in action. Long story but just glad it’s over.
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