Anyone can lock you out of Instagram forever by logging in as you incorrectly

8 points by Andrenid ↗ HN
Discovered this by accident, and proceeded to get locked out of my Instagram account forever. There's zero recourse for support.

I got my password wrong a few times. Forgot I had changed it. It locked me out and asked for a verification/security code which they would email to me.. except they didn't.

The support FAQ said to try resetting my password, it let me, but then still wouldn't let me log in without the security code. I hit resend dozens of times over a week, never got one (but I DID get the password reset and other emails, so it's not my email end).

Some quick googling shows this has been the case for YEARS. Quora, google support, Instagram "support" (a Facebook page that ignores all messages) all have threads of people asking/begging Instagram to fix this going back for multiple years.

So basically.. anyone can go and purposely login wrong to another account a few times, and lock them out forever!

Instagram used to have a process for hacked accounts and a process for contacting them.. all of that has been replaced with a FAQ on Facebook.com that basically says "Having login issues? Reset your password!" and that's it. It doesn't even mention "security code" anywhere if you search.

More and more companies are going the Google route for support. If it's not in their FAQ, then post to a public support forum where fanboys will echo the exact same FAQ answers back at you (with a free dose of attitude added) and if your issue falls outside the FAQ, too bad, make a new account and lose all your (potentially YEARS of) contribution to that platform.

What's the point of using/contributing to ANY Google/Facebook platform when there's zero support, and you can lose EVERYTHING when you trigger some automated system with zero human oversight?

Is Facebook abandoning Instagram? Or are they really this arrogant?

5 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 22.3 ms ] thread
Do they have a bug bounty? This is a potential DOS attack.
(comment deleted)
I'll look into it, thanks. I'm sure someone else has already submitted it by now if so. According to Quora and Reddit threads this has been going for at least a few years.
Is there a way to link multiple email addresses to one single instagram account? Either through facebook or instagram directly? Looks like the security code service might be consuming a different email address. Maybe double check ALL your email accounts? Maybe you created an email account one day just to signup to FB/insta then forgot about it?
Catchall email on a dedicated domain for this particular account. It's why I was so annoyed to lose this account. I have <InstagramUsername>.com with a site on it relevant to the account, so now I have to find a new username with available .com, migrate the site, the content, and start a whole new Instagram feed.

All because I got the password wrong.

Plenty of people and businesses depend on Insta. In my searches for a solution I've seen support threads of major businesses with 10s of thousands of followers who lost it all due to a bad login.