[United857]

These are not hackers but Meta employees/contractors who make money on the side by using their access to internal support tooling/channels. It's a fireable offense (it's only intended for actual friends/family) but still happens a lot.

[qingcharles]

There are plenty at Twitter and TikTok too.

Sadly I can't find anyone to pay off at Google yet to fix my gmail (I have the username, password, and everything is forwarded to the recovery email I own, I just lost access to the phone number and they enabled 2FA without asking).

Reddit also, I can't find anyone there to unban my friend's account that got locked (due to a server outage), even after speaking directly to spez about it.

One tip: if your IG/FB account get suspended, then it's way cheaper to get it unbanned via black hat routes than if you roll the dice and try to appeal it. Appeals often end in perma-bans that are much harder for Meta employees to undo.

[randycupertino]

I'm permabanned IP-banned from reddit and it is so aggravating. Appeal is auto-rejected. :( Wish I knew someone there to help me out!

[pogue]

Why not just use a VPN?

[pogue]

The only blackhat routes I came across were thousands of dollars...

[pogue]

Do you have proof of this though? Otherwise, we're just speculating it's a likely possibility.

[United857]

I am a Meta employee. Don't want to disclose any inside info or dox myself but there's been other articles written about this, e.g. https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/17/23464297/meta-allegedly-...

[pogue]

Gotcha. Don't suppose you could help me with my Instagram account? :)

If pogue972 on Instagram suddenly got a reset email or something, I definitely wouldn't ask any questions.

[jacobgkau]

To be fair, he just said it's a fireable offense-- presumably (and according to the article he linked) to use the tools for people you don't know at all, not just to take money for it. (It's probably easier for Meta to prove an employee used the recovery tool than to prove they received money for it.) I do hope you get your account back, though.

[pogue]

Oh, I thought maybe I'd made a friend... :'(

Tbh, I'd be curious if it's even recoverable and what triggered the ban. I just got an email out of the blue asking me to fill out a captcha, reply to an SMS and send a selfie. I did all that and just got a reply I had violated "community guidelines" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Since it was a private account I never posted anything on, I was racking my brain what could have possibly got me flagged. All I did was reply to pics of ppl's pets (and sometimes cute girlies). Definitely nothing abusive.

From what I've read, the SMS was used just to automatically block any new account you make.

[randycupertino]

There's this woman who slept with meta employees to get her account back:

https://www.newsweek.com/onlyfans-star-slept-meta-employees-...

> "So, I stalked them on Instagram through my backup but still slutty account," she said. "I managed to find a couple (employees), not from that department but still people that worked at Instagram in LA."

> She said she allegedly met up "with a couple" employees in the L>os Angeles area, adding that they know about her podcast.

> "We met up and I f*ked a couple of them and I was able to get my account back two-three times," Kitty Lixo said, recommending others with locked accounts to continue reaching out to the platform for eventual ban reversal.