
"I just kind of decided might as well just ditch it because Instagram isn't really helping me," Savannah said. After half a dozen attempts, she said she decided to start a new account.
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Unfortunately for Savannah, who did not post many selfies to her original art account, these automated verification methods did not work for her, and she's been unable to get direct human support from Instagram. This requires users to take many video selfies to get various angles of their face - up-down, and left to right - to match up with photos they've posted on their accounts. The recovery process can be straightforward, or a total dead endįortunately for Leeming, he was able to recover his account after three days using Instagram's facial verification method. Leeming said his hacker then quickly began DMing his friends with all kinds of soliciting attempts. They had sent him a link asking for help to help verify them for a sponsorship deal. Kenneth Leeming, 31, who's also from Orlando and follows Savannah on Instagram, had his account stolen recently through a DM from another friend.
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I made a successful withdrawal to my cash app and legit." It also linked to another Instagram account to follow and DM on how to "get started." One changed caption read: "All thanks to Bitcoin mining I just invested $500 in Bitcoin mining and I got $10,000 as profit in less than 2 hour. But they said their hackers had continued to ask for money to return the accounts - $300, in some cases - and are also posting Instagram stories and changing photo captions to get their followers to invest in cryptocurrency schemes. Three hacked users Insider spoke with said they had been able to sound the alarm to their friends and family on other platforms fast enough to prevent them from having their accounts compromised. Over the last few weeks, more and more tweets warning people about this kind of account takeover operation have cropped up. They told Insider some hackers had evolved to DMing the last people you'd been talking to so your closest friends were more inclined to help and respond. A Reddit user who posted hacking attempts they'd received has since been helping other users who were affected. Some people online are trying to spread awareness on other social platforms faster than these hackers can move on Instagram. She said she is still locked out, and had to start a new account from scratch. Her Instagram account was her main source to share and sell her art, and had a couple thousand followers before it was hacked. "I know a handful of people that have fallen for this," said Savannah, a 20-year-old student and artist from Orlando who wished to to identified only by her first name for privacy reasons.

The scheme is simple, but contagious: A hacker seizes control of a person's account, DMs all of their friends to try to steal more accounts, and extorts as many people as they can hack for money to return their accounts, or gets them to invest in shady crypto deals. Savannah is among a growing list of Instagram users who've recently become victims of a fast-moving Instagram hacking scheme. And both of them now had their accounts seized. She hadn't been messaging the owner of the account, but rather their hacker. It turns out the user she had this jarring interaction with had also fallen victim to the same scam she had just been ensnared by. Savannah wanted to be "helpful," she told Insider, so when the mutual sent a code, she entered her information.

The user said they had been locked out of their account, and needed a mutual connection to help them recover it. "Hey, can you help me?" the message read.

In late January, Savannah woke up to a DM on Instagram from an account she was following.

Some users said they were still locked out after Instagram verification processes failed to work.Hackers are impersonating people on Instagram and asking their closest friends to help them "verify" their accounts.
