I got a weird message from someone I don’t know on Instagram this morning, saying they needed help getting back into their account. They sent me a link that said, “Tap here to reset your password,” and wanted me to forward it to them. Normally I wouldn’t bother with answering back, but I was at the gym and peddling away on the recumbent bike, so I thought it might be entertaining to see how long I could string the scammer along and see if they got frustrated. Once I started, I felt a little invested in seeing how long I could stretch it out! (**If you fell for this scam, you can scroll to the bottom for info on getting your account back!)
We kept this going for six hours over the course of the day, and it all started with this message:
So then I got a suspicious reset link:
I wasn’t entirely sure how they are sending the link to my phone, but you can be sure I wasn’t clicking on that thing. A quick Google search came up with dozens of reports of a phishing scam that starts with a text that says “Tap to reset your Instagram password” along with a link that starts with https : //ig.me…and followed by a bunch of letters. The Instagram person wants me to forward them the link so they can verify their account. That just seemed really weird, so of course I had no intention of actually doing it.
I scribbled out a bit on the link so nobody actually tried it or sends it to someone. Out of curiosity, I went to Instagram and tried to log in under his username and pretend I forgot my password to see if it said he’d get a reset text. What it said was the account was locked due to suspicious activity and they’d send a reset link to the e-mail. I found it odd that it didn’t say anything about a text, only e-mail.
But that confirmed the Instagram account was most likely hacked, and this person was up to no good. By now we had gone back and forth a bit and he was getting desperate. And somehow, we have now become best friends! I decided to just keep us going in circles for a bit.
Here’s Your Link, Send Me a Selfie
So we went back and forth for a while. I think he sent me the link 5 or 6 times all together. So at one point, I decided to send him a link I had found online just to see what would happen. Surprise! It didn’t work and he didn’t seem too happy about it. But unfortunately, I am the only one he can trust right now. Even though I have never interacted with this person before and he apparently have over 2,000 other “friends” he can contact on Instagram.
Then I thought maybe I should challenge him to prove himself! I asked him to send a selfie. It took him a minute, but he sent me one back. A quick scroll through the person’s IG account showed the same selfie pic he supposedly just took was actually from over a year ago. One of the only non-cosplay pics on the guy’s account, so it took Mr. Scammer a while to find it. I put the black bar over the person’s face since it is his photo and I’m pretty sure he’s not the one who actually sent it. (the lower half is a mask)
Let’s see how long we can keep this going!
We went back and forth several more times, with me being extra helpful and offering to click on his link for him, contact Instagram and ask them for help on his behalf, and have him send me the link a few more times just for shits and giggles. By now I am really surprised he’s still chatting with me. He’s really got perseverance, and I’m wondering if I should just tell him I’m never going to send him the link. But then, I wouldn’t want to just drop my best friend like that, so I kept it going a bit longer. He sent me the link 12 times total before giving up!
This guy really really wanted me to send him that link! It’s too bad I never figured out how to make it work….lol. These texts are just a small sampling of our conversation over the course of the day, where I pretended to get increasingly confused about how links work, how to cut and paste and how to follow basic instructions.
While I was doing all this, I did take the time to report his account to Instagram to alert them it had been hacked. And somewhere along the way, I decided to start screenshotting because it was just too good not to share. And also, hopefully somebody will see this and not get scammed. I’m still not sure exactly what this scam accomplishes, but my guess is maybe that is a real reset link meant just for me and they will use it to reset my password. Or maybe it’s a special link and it will verify my phone number…I have no idea but best to play it safe. And in the end, after a full day of texting, he did finally give up.
I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has had someone request them to forward them a password reset link for Instagram. I’ve learned to just never click a link I’m not sure about, and not to trust people I don’t know online. I did that once and got my Facebook page stolen! That experience was terrible, and that scam is still going on. Pretty much not a day goes by without someone contacting me to advertise on my Facebook page and pay me big money. Don’t fall for that one! That’s a scam too unfortunately.
I’ve gotten several of these messages over the past month, all from people whose accounts have been stolen. Do not send anyone that reset link! If anyone sends you that message, report their account to Instagram.
UPDATE: How to Get Your Hacked Instagram Account Back
Instagram just added new feature specifically for hacked accounts! Just go to www.Instagram.com/hacked and it will take you to a support page that will walk you through the steps.
About the Author
Candy Keane is a digital content creator and long-time cosplayer, most well-known for being on the cover of the Star Wars documentary Jedi Junkies. After making costumes professionally for over a decade, she now writes about geek culture and mom life, and continues to cosplay for fun, while sharing her love of costumes on Instagram @SewGeekMama. Her first children’s book, I’m Going to My First Comic Convention, was published in 2020 and won a Story Monsters Approved award for Excellence in Literature.
Geek Mamas 
You really made him go through the whole nine yards haha!
But yes, I looked up the other guy — and I feel sad for him. I mean, he has a formidable online presence himself – and he even cosplays too! It’s just really sad that he needs to resort to doing these things.
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I did really test his patience! lol.
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This girl I know but am not close with sent me something similar 2 days ago she said
I’m trying to sign in my Instagram Backup account on my phone and Instagram don’t allow me they showed me 2 friends I can contact to help me receive a link, So Pls if you get the link, don’t click it, screenshot it and send it to me so I can login 🙏🙏
I was going to send it to her but it just didn’t sit right with me like why would I not be able to click it??
So today I googled it and I’m so glad
I did. Thank for this informative blog!!
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Thank you for the comment! Every time someone finds the article and doesn’t get scammed it makes me happy I wrote it 🙂
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This just happened to me, I thought it was so strange. Not sure what would have happened but I don’t have my number added to my account and I didn’t add it for them. Really curious to know what it’s about.
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If you send them the link, it allows them to reset your account and change the password! Then they steal your account and message all your followers with some cash app scam. I’ve seen it happen to several Instagram friends in the past month.
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Crap, if only I listened to my gut instead and found this article. I knew it was suspicious but I fell for it anyway. I just lost access to my insta account and I’m trying to see if I can recover it.
The thing that makes it hard is that who ever scams you that way, they set up two factor authentication if you don’t have it set up and it makes it difficult to recover access. I’m currently trying to regain access to my account by visual verification through instagram, so hopefully I get my account back that way.
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If you find out the secret to getting your account back, please share and I’ll update the post so maybe it will help people that got scammed. I know a couple people that still haven’t gotten their accounts back and had to create new ones.
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Got quite lucky that I was able to recover my account so quickly!
Quick recap of my situation: So I fell for the friend verification link scam and I got locked out of my account because the hacker set up two factor authentication and changed the password. They then removed my email and phone number from the account and on top of that changed my username slightly so that Instagram no longer could find an account under my username, number or email. Luckily I knew what the changed username was as my gf sent me a screenshot of it.
My solution: So I tried logging into my account but since it was no longer under my info, it would tell me to either try again or get help.
I selected the get help option where I chose the reset password option. From there, I could either send a code to my email or phone number. But since the hackers set up two factor authentication, I couldn’t complete the password reset.
If I remember correctly, there was a ‘more options’ choice. Clicking it gave three options, two of which were entering backup codes or report account as hacked.
That option then leads to two more options. If you have photos of yourself on your account, you submit a video selfie of yourself and they should get back within a day or two whether they verified your identity or not. If you don’t have photos of yourself on your account, you could submit information about how you set up your account and they’ll look into to verify if you’re you. I’m not sure how long that option takes but it could be longer than the video verification.
Since I had photos of myself on my account, I chose the video selfie option. The first one I sent in was in the morning and they got back to me by that evening verifying my identity and gave me four steps to take, and 8-digit code, and a reset password link. Sadly the reset link was broken, so I had to resubmit another video selfie in the morning.
This second one had some issues with giving me the video selfie instructions but I got through it and submitted it. They got back in the evening but this time couldn’t verify my identity with the video and requested I send in another one.
So I send in a third video selfie immediately and assumed it would take another 8-10 hours for them to respond but within 10 minutes, they got back to me and third times the charm, they verified my identity and the password reset link worked. I immediately followed the four steps and got back into my account.
The first thing I did was turn off two factor authentication and then turned it back on, this time setting up my own two factor authentication. I added my email and phone number again and unblocked those the hacker blocked after they confronted them for the bitcoin mining scam they were pushing. I did get a login request from the hacker but I obviously denied it and reset my password once more and had no more issues after that. I’m definitely going to be extra suspicious about these things going forward.
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Wow! You went through quite a lot to get it back! Thank you for sharing your story. Hopefully it will help others in the same situation.
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I hope it does help out others that got into the same situation as me.
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Same thing happened to me but slightly differently. It didn’t ask me to copy and send the link. They only asked to send reset passcode link to me. As a fool, I clicked on it by accident. Instantly got an email that my details have been changed. By the time I could even blink I was logged out from everywhere and couldn’t get in. My phone was changed on my Instagram account and my email address was supposedly sandyscott654@gmail.com Important to do immediately:
1. Don’t panic, don’t give up and start trying ways of getting back in again. The amount of time they have access to your account is imperative. If they have longer time in your account, they gather and record more of your information/data.
2. Always have a back up email.
3. Instagram won’t do anything if you message them. Not sure about Facebook and other platforms, so you are on your own. Don’t waste time contacting them and waiting
4. I actually managed to log back in again using the email sent to my email account (the email they used to hack me so to speak)
5. As soon as you log in back into your accounts, change all the passwords and just to be safe, block the person the scam came from
Hope that helps
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Thanks for the tips! It’s crazy how fast they start changing your info!
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My scam was set up a bit differently. Rather than it being a reset password link, it said Tap to access your Instagram account, followed by a link. I hope there is recourse for me to get my account back.
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There are several different versions, but they are all a bit similar. I’ve gotten the “tap to access Instagram” one as well! Hope you are able to get your account back soon.
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This just happened to a friend of mine and they sent the link to the requestor. When I found out I had them reset their password immediately. We checked login activity and it only shows the one device. Since they sent the link, is there anything else they need to be concerned about?
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I’m not sure exactly how the link allows them to reset the password, but changing it immediately is a smart idea. Tell them to be on alert for any request to add two-factor identification. I’ve heard this is one way they manage to lock people out of their accounts.
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I think the scam likely only works when you have your cell number connected with the account. Somehow they are able to get a rest/access link sent to your number, likely by requesting a password reset link to your number. Normally you’d be quite suspicious if you randomly got a link like that without any reason but they rely on social engineering by using a hacked account you’ll likely trust and try spinning a story to get you to send the link. In my case, it was for a supposed “friend verification link”.
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I suspected the same thing about requesting the reset link and it is automatically sent to the connected cell number. Mine was the “friend verification link” story as well.
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I just had this exact thing happened, received a well-worded DM about resetting a password via a third-party
Firstly, thank you for sharing your experience. This was the only information I could find about this. I knew it was going to be some sort of weird scam, because there was no official information from Instagram, but I was more surprised that there wasn’t much reported about it/ people posting about it.
Swiftly reporting this account and hopefully the random person this is, gets their account back.
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Glad to hear you were not taken in by this scam! It’s such an odd one that it is getting a lot of people.
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This just happened to me tonight. I actually google searched and found this article before I did anything. So glad you wrote about this.
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I am very glad to hear that this post is popping up and helping people! The first thing I did when I got the message was also to Google and I didn’t find anything. So I wanted to get the info out there 🙂
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This just happened to me and I just looked this up real fast because it seemed weird and thank god I did, now I’m just trolling the guy to see how long I could play the scammer for …my mistake …this is happening right now
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Glad you didn’t fall for it! I usually just mess with them a bit and then send them a link to my blog post, lol.
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I fell for it BUT I was able to reset my password and turn on turn step verification before it got worse. I got an email (legit from Instagram) saying someone from “Jacksonville, Florida” has logged into my account is this me? I clicked no and was able to reset my password. Then it said any devices logged in with the old password with be logged out. You’ve got to be fast because if not they’re going to do what they did to Vlad and delete your email, number, change the name and set up two factor verification. Thanks for writing this article it really explained what happened because I was confused. How could someone hack my Instagram but I’ve never gave my password?
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Glad to hear you caught it fast! A lot of people are falling for this one.
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Agree, you’ve got to be very fast.
I got similar thing and it was saying someone was logging in from Florida
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I don’t see the part on Instagram where I can take a picture to get my account back. Can you help me with that?
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I’m not sure where it’s at. I had to do it recently for Facebook and the request popped up when I tried to log in. Sorry I don’t have a better answer! They change things all the time.
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If I remember correctly, when you try to log in, click on the “get help” option and chose “password reset.” Then there is three options, two being the email and phone number code reset link and the third being a “more options’ or something like that. Click on that option and it’ll lead to some more options, one of which is an option to report hacked account. With that option, you can submit a video selfie if you have pictures of yourself or information about how you set your account up.
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Hi Vlad- I tried this- but still not able to get back into my account- did the more options and even wrote in with details to support.Just got back a link to reset my password- did that but still does not help me get int my account- know what I could do? Thank you!
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Hope you can get it fixed! They keep changing the process.
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All I can suggest is to try again because I also had the first reset link straight up fail and not let me do the reset. It took me three separate attempts over about a week to finally get back into my account and to set up a new 2-Factor Authentication.
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Thanks Vlad- I will try again but how do I know my account is not being misused and someone is not stealing personal information or DMing my contacts while I am locked out? Any way of finding out?
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The only way you’ll know is by checking the dm’s after you regain access and to check your blocked list because they may block those who call them out.
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I fell for it. This time they said my Instagram was hacked earlier. If you receive a text to reset your Instagram password, send me a screenshot. I’m reporting them to Instagram as they come in. By the time I realized something has happened… it was 8 hours too late. They changed all the login stuff plus deleted all my pictures and tags. Just a blank Instagram account with no username. Husband found “me” in his messages but it’s just a blank user. I’m so mad. I lost all those memories. I’m usually so smart. Grrr. Mom brain.
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oh no! That’s so terrible they erased the pictures!! Usually they leave them up and just impersonate the account. I’m sorry to hear they got you.
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What do you mean by impersonating the account Candy? If I can’t get into mine is it better to delete it or let it be?
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So I actually went on an account to see where to report it as an imposter and couldn’t find it anymore! Used to be the 3 little dots, then report, and now when you do that the Report options don’t seem to have it listed. I accidentally reported someone for spam while trying to figure it out, oops!
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For your delete or let it be question- you can’t delete the account yourself if you can’t get back into it. So if you can’t get it back, the best option would be trying to get it deleted by friends reporting it, but now I don’t know how to do that because the option is gone.
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Thank you so much for this! Unfortunately I fell for this yesterday- ugh, and now I am locked out thanks to the authentication bit- my account seems untouched- so far- username not changed, no pictures deleted, and no activity ( I even asked a friend to check if “I” am online- but there is not activity)- however, I cannot get inside the account. Any suggestions on what I could do? 😦
Will I just need to delete the account?
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I wish I could help! I know a lot of people who just gave up and started new accounts. You can have friends report it as an imposter account, but then they may just delete it instead of giving it back to you.
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What does the hacker get out this activity- why are people doing this? Is there a risk that I do not know of?
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It is done because the accounts they hijack have some sort of credibility to those that follow the account and makes it easier to scam them and continue the hijacking scam.
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They usually start DMing your contacts, posing as you, and asking them to help you get back into your account. They then have them send them a screenshot of a link, and then they can steal that person’s account. Or sometimes they are trying to scam money by having you sign up for a “new government program” for grants. There are so many scams people are trying to pull.
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Hi I received that message yesterday on my phone but I clicked on it n reset my password but Immediately and fast went inside my Instagram account and change the password again n 2 factor authentication , but I did it very quickly I guess more fast than the scammer. I have still my account.
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Good move on changing the password so fast!
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So I got this scam a little while ago and I unfortunately fell for it. I honestly feel a little stupid that I fell for it but we live and we learn.
What had happened was one of my buddies messaged me from a completely different account, but it was like a copy and paste from one of my friends so I didn’t question much about it. The new account had the same pictures on their feed like my friend, but upon closer inspection, there were no captions.
This supposed friend asked me for the verification code. And they seemed reeeeally eager to get it, to the point where they were just really annoying me. I don’t have my number connected to my account and they just kept asking me to do it.
I screenshot the text and send it to them, but ooooooh no. The link HAD to be copied and sent. Fine, so I did.
After that I got a message that said ‘Ok thanks’ and I was locked out of my account. I checked my email and surprise surprise, there was an unknown login from a different state! Also the email stated that my username had changed to have a few mixed letters on the end.
Luckily I acted just in time and managed to switch passwords and click the button that confirmed that wasn’t me. I’m honestly shocked at how I managed to be faster than the scammer.
After the initial shock, I got another message from the person that said it didn’t work. I blocked and reported them. The most they did was change my birth date, which I needed documents to help change my birthdate back to normal.
This all happened a little over 5 hours ago. I’m still a bit pissed, but I’m glad my account is okay!
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Wow! You must have been fast to get your account back before they did more damage. Good job on that! That was a close one.
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Ohh same i just got a scam like this and they said that they are tryna sign up to insta in their new phone and cant login need 2 friends i can contact to help send link, i was like ohh okk and went to google the instagram login link and sent it to him, i asked if he meant this and he said no. Honestly the fact that he couldn’t login was really weird to me so after that I asked him what link he meant and for him to confirm which “person name” he is cause i didn’t know which human he was. Anyways he left me on read so far so idk if he’ll send me the link.
I did send him that insta login link but i should be safe right as long as i dont click any random links or forward any link he send me to him right?
Also i was reading all the comments and actually i only have my phone number connected to my ig but now i added my email.
Basically the scammer will ask u to send them a verification code or link right? The ones that u get when u change pw or wotnot right?
Oh yeah i actually tested my account. Firstly i went to insta login page and said forgot my password, and typed in only my username. I got an email with 2 buttons that said log in as (my username) or reset ur password. For the first option idk how it works bur i was already logged in to my account in insta app, so it just brought me there. For second button when i clicked on it, it just send me to change password without any verification option? Not sure if there is one but i didnt see it. I realised if u hold on the button, u can get the link for it, which Im not sure if its what the scammer is going for. But it might be the link that they are asking for maybe.
My scammer hasnt continued the msgs after that but i took him out of my followers lists because it feels creepy to know that he can see my pictures on my account. The account he hacked was actually one of my old classmates account but i didnt talk to the person much so I have no idea if he lost his account or not, decided to whatsapp him but havent gotten a reply and not sure if he even changed his number.
Anyways this was my experience and just so glad i found this post or i might really have fallen for it too.
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You are fine as long as you didn’t send him a screenshot of the link they send you. If you did that, then change your password asap.
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