[joao]

I'm among the first 6000 users of Instagram and my first name username was stolen a few years ago. Support for verified accounts acknowledged the issue, but couldn't do anything about it.

This turn was an AI exploit, in my case was an outsourcing support 'exploit', where someone paid for my username to be manually changed and given to another user. There will always be a way to get access to accounts if human accountable support doesn't exist, with criminal consequences for employees that violate it.

[qingcharles]

I had a Threads account banned recently because I liked five posts too quickly and they said my account was "inauthentic", even though the attached Instagram account is just fine. I tried to use the Meta Verified support and they told me I had used my full quota of support already (!?) and refused any requests.

[prism56]

Delete the accounts and move on... They don't deserve your time and business.

[Marsymars]

Can you delete your accounts if you've been banned?

[qingcharles]

There are only two buttons available to me:

- Download your data

- Log out

[xandrius]

Definitely yes, if you mention the magic words "GDPR".

[csomar]

Tell them you are now a EU resident and fall under GDPR.

[aurareturn]

Also, never ever use a VPN and log in with your Instagram account on the web. They're highly likely to flag you as spam immediately even if your account is 10 years old and legitimate.

You then will have to go through a process to remove the flag by taking a selfie with a paper written with some date and user name. Not guaranteed you'll get your account back.

This happened a few times to my account. On the last time it happened, I had to ask my friend who works at Meta to file an internal ticket to try to get my account back.

Meta's antispam seriously sucks. It's so primitive and so easy for a real user to get flagged.

[qingcharles]

I had an account in 2023 and it one day asked me to upload the selfie with the paper. Literally the second I hit submit it returned within a microsecond to say I was now permanently banned.

I was tempted to pay a Meta employee with this one, but the going rate is about $500-2000 right now. And it's too late because I took the gamble of trying to appeal it. Once you appeal and lose Meta employees can just use the internal ticket system to get it back. It's a more convoluted process and usually they want $5-10K to do it at that point.

[grishka]

Instagram is blocked in Russia so everyone here uses it through some sort of VPN. No one I know has ever got banned for that.

[thrdbndndn]

I lost my 10 years old account this way after being flagged about 2-3 times due to travel.

My account really isn't that important but still makes my blood boil at the time.

[cactusplant7374]

Can you sue? I assume there is a financial motive with this crime.

[jubilanti]

Sue who? Meta? You "consented" in the Terms of Service to waive your right to a trial and only get forced arbitration by an arbitrator of Meta's choosing.

Sue the anonymous person who stole your account and sold it to someone else, who is probably nowhere near your jurisdiction? Good luck.

[parable]

Meta has the capability to find out who authorized the change to this person's account. They log every change done in their administrator panel with a scary level of granularity, as far as I know, and they're able to take actions against employees who go behind Meta's back and take bribes (which, in joao's case, is what happened). This enforcement creates "waves" of account thefts described like so:

Suppose Mallory finds the contact information for Alice, an Instagram employee working overseas. Alice is paid next-to-nothing and wouldn't mind Mallory's extra cash. Mallory posts to their Telegram channel: "Instagram account takeovers for sale! Pay me $5,000+ and I'll take over ANY Instagram account". Mallory gets buyers lined up and promises to take over the accounts when Alice is working. The next day, when Alice signs on to the administrator tools, she sets each account's email address to the ones specified by Mallory, and Mallory pays her a percentage of what she charged. Mallory and Alice continue their scheme for about a week, when Meta finally investigates the situation, traces it to Alice's user account, bans or reverts every account Alice helped steal, and terminates her employment. However, no legal action takes place against Alice. Why? That part, I'm not so sure about. They're able to trace every action to Alice, and Alice is not anonymous, thus they have every ability to bring a case against her. Once Alice's employment is terminated, Mallory simply finds another employee willing to do their bidding. New hiring waves make this easy.

I'm happy to go into more detail about the underground Instagram account market. It's fascinating: people bragging about bribing employees and taking advantage of them, knowing their employment will be terminated, and actively showing off how much money they make. Meta has tried in the past to hit certain high-profile people with a cease & desist letter, but those are hard to enforce in certain jurisdictions.

[jubilanti]

> Meta has the capability to find out who authorized the change to this person's account.

When they want to. Not when YOU want them to.

[parable]

Correct, which is the problem here - they don't want to, and you can't force them to.

[kingleopold]

this needs to be done and spend $$$$ all for username change? META already knows these and does not act on it clearly?

[parable]

Meta's aware and tries their best to act on it, but the real solution is simply not hiring outsourced support workers. It's really that simple. They have the money to hire people in-house for good wages, which would solve the root issue: the outsourced workers are desperate for money and gladly will take bribes.

[pocksuppet]

Clickwrap terms of service are worth the paper they're printed on. You may still be able to sue.

[lynndotpy]

You are 100% able to sue, but, in the US, the result of that suit is 99.9% that you will be held to that arbitration clause anyways, with an arbitrator of Meta's choosing.

Arbitration clauses are very strong in the United States and have been getting stronger for years. Across both Democratic and Republican administrations, in state and federal courts, judges constantly reaffirm that these provisions are binding. Even literal shrinkwrap arbitration clauses on foods (Vital Proteins, Daily Harvest), etc. are upheld.

Exceptions are rare, such as unborn babies getting sick who never signed a clause such as with Daily Harvest, or when a case is public enough to draw backlash such as with the Disney+ trial arbitration clause being used to prevent a man whose wife died at a DisneyWorld restaurant from suing. Even parents suing on behalf of their pre-teenage children (e.g. against Snapchat in an Illinois court) find themselves blocked by arbitration.

There is no way merely having someones Instagram hacked and having "their username stolen" (not something possible, it's Meta's property) will make for such a rare scneario.

Per Instagram's ToS, if you sued instead of filing a Notice of Dispute (i.e. arbitration), you would be forfeiting the provision where Meta pays for your arbitration and other fees for claims less than $75,000. You would also be risking a decision from the arbitrator (AAA, who you should expect to be biased to favor Meta) that you would also need to pay Meta's legal fees.

If you try to sue, your lawyer will tell you all this.

Not expecting to win a dime from Meta, your lawyer would only represent you if you have pockets deep enough to fight a losing fight.

[lenerdenator]

At which point you are going to be competing in court with a company that has a current market capitalization of $1.6 trillion dollars.

[lynndotpy]

Only up until the point the judge says, "Meta files a motion to compel arbitration and it looks like you're bound to that arbitration clause. You didn't send a letter during the provided 30 day window. It all checks out, good luck to you both."

Then you will be competing in an American Arbitration Asssociation's 'Alternative Dispute Resolution', which is even less favorable for the consumer :D

[cactusplant7374]

At least sue to get it back. Isn't holding stolen goods a crime?

[lynndotpy]

You shouldn't be getting downvoted, you're right.

[chasebank]

ive had rappers offer me $10k for my ig username. i'm holding out for the bank to buy it.

[parable]

It's against Meta's terms to buy and sell accounts, thus the bank would never do such a deal unless you structured it a certain way: create a business, the account becomes property of the business, then Chase buys the business and thus the account. This is how certain Twitter accounts were sold a long time ago. $10k for @chasebank (which is what I assume your handle is) is quite good regardless, though.

[dnnddidiej]

Just make sure to keep satiritizing chase bank there.

[beej71]

Can you ask the AI to reset it back to you? Knk

[stronglikedan]

> with criminal consequences for employees that violate it

lol, no. The day someone is criminally charged with "stealing" a username is the day that humanity has lost

[simonw]

The good usernames generally are valued at thousands of dollars or more. Surely stealing something worth that much money should be a crime.

[parable]

You might be interested in reading the court case against Eric Meiggs and Declan Harrington, which includes charges against the two involving extortion and SIM swapping for usernames. See page 10: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.215...

While it isn't directly "stealing", the government has brought charges against people in the past for username-related crimes. There are several similar cases, but this is the first one that came to mind.

[xandrius]

People are criminally charged for stealing food to feed themselves. I'd argue that's more a sign of lost humanity than stealing something which has a non-negligible economic value.