If you have found this article, then you probably are in a state of panic because your Instagram account has been disabled, hacked, removed, or all of the above. I found myself in this situation a few months prior to writing this and it was extremely frustrating and disheartening. One day, I was loving my view from Corfu Island in Greece sharing a typical Instagram story when I was greeted with the window of death (from the picture below).
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Don’t worry, all hope is not lost. I went through the same crazy experience after my Instagram account was hacked and disabled by Instagram. It took me months of appealing with Instagram/Facebook, sending in countless “selfies” of myself posing with a verification code, filling out endless forms, and just really giving up on everything.
After many months of trying every method known to man, I was finally able to recover my account. It took four months in the end and what brought it back was actually quite easy and straight forward (Hint: Sending a ridiculous picture of you holding up an embarrassing piece of paper does absolutely nothing).
I thought I would never be able to post stories or share photos again. Thankfully, I got it back in time just before I had my multi-month trip through Thailand and my all time favorite, Bali.
to actually review your account. They say it will take up to 24 hours.
It definitely will take much longer than 24 hours and it’s likely you’ll never hear from INstagram again. Think about it, they have millions and millions of accounts and they provide a free service. How many resources do you think they’ve allocated to help review every single case of something questionable happening?
Once you get to this step, I compare it to sending your CV for a job application during a bad jobs market. You send your resume into the job and you have no idea where it goes, who reads it, or if is even read at all. You’re stuck there for days and weeks wondering if anyone saw it. Eventually, you are resigned to the fact that no one read it and you’ll not be getting the job.
After the thank you for providing your info message, you’ll then just be taken back to the standard INstagram login screen. You can try logging back into your account and you’ll get something like this:
This is unfortunately the first step you’ll see after your Instagram account disabled. Once you click learn more, you’ll come to the next page.
WHen it comes to no longer accessing your Instagram account, disabled and hacked are kind of the same thing. If your Instagram account has been hacked, the hacker isn’t going to leave you a nice note saying, sorry I hacked your account and you can’t use it now.
No, what happens is they will hack your account, and probably do a bunch of questionable things that violate Instagram policy. Instagram’s automatic controls will then ban your account because you’re caught doing sketchy things. In the end, you get to the same result where you’re asked to verify your account and then never hear from Instagram again.
What does NOT work to get your Instagram account back after it’s been disabled?
Once you click learn more about why your account is disabled. You will eventually reach a page where you can fill out a form to “dispute” your banning from Instagram. The link to restore a deactivated Instagram account is here.
You can fill out your form and you can write an essay for why you’re appealing the ban but in the end, you’ll end up at the same step as everyone else.
You’ll receive an email from Facebook like the below. It will ask you to take a picture of yourself holding up a piece of paper with handwritten text of the code they provide you, your Instagram handle, and your name.
This is their way of supposedly verifying that you are you. If your Instagram does not have photos of yourself, it’s fine, they just need to see someone holding the photos. I would not get too fancy with the photos and just do your best to look natural. This is what I did.
I sent this email out hoping they would come to their senses.
After waiting weeks upon weeks, I never heard anything from Instagram. I even emailed them back to follow up on my original email with my photo. I’ve read many blogs that say don’t do this as well as others that say do it. The blogs that don’t recommend it claim that every time you send an email to the support, it resets your place in line for someone to actually look at your request.
I’m not sure which is true or not but I can safely say that after 3 months of waiting, I heard not a single peep from Instagram.
I filled out other forms as well on Instagram like this one which actually asks for a photo of your Government ID. Here is the direct link. And here is a photo of what it looks like:
You might think that this form looks more legit but I can say that I filled out this form once (probably twice) and I still heard nothing.
This is not to say that it won’t work for you, but I’m saying from personal experience it was all hopeless. Not only did you feel like a total fool for sending ridiculous photos of yourself to a mailbox that I’m positive no one checks, but you got zero response.
Now that you’ve taken a ridiculous picture of yourself and realized it doesn’t work to get your INstagram account back, what does work? This is covered in the next section!
After months of frustration, I was ready to call it quits. I figured, I had already created another account with just a fraction of my previous followers. However, I never intended to use Instagram for anything more than just a place to post my pictures and memories. However, that account also got hacked and disabled!! I knew I had to do something.
Facebook owns Instagram as you already know and you would think for such a massive company, they would have better customer service than just sending a selfie with you holding a piece of paper.
It turns out that Facebook does have support, quite good support at that. You just need to pay for it. Yes, you’ll need to pay some money to get your Instagram account back.
Because the Facebook Support is meant specifically for those that advertise. Remember, Facebook’s a business, a huge one at that and they make their money from people paying to advertise. They are a publicly traded company and their first and most important goal is making money. No one cares about your personal Instagram account, that is until you start paying something for it. The support team is meant to deal with issues pertaining to actual advertising and business, but they just also happen to deal with disabled Instagram account.
I will walk you through everything step by step for the next steps. Note that this could change at any point so hopefully by the time you read this, Facebook support still helps people with their Instagram account. As of now, this is the only method that works in how to reactivate your Instagram account
Step 1: Create a business account on Facebook or Instagram
The first step after getting your Instagram account disabled is to create a business account on Facebook or Instagram. Since your Instagram account has been disabled, it’s probably easier to just create an account on Facebook to get this done.
I already had a Facebook Page (Johnny Africa obviously) where I had previously boosted ads before. You can find the URL for your Facebook Profile here. The first step is to create a new Facebook Page:
You’ll be redirected to a page like this where you can add your Page name, category, description etc. Add a few photos and just make it into something simple.
Now you’re done, you’ve officially created a new page. Now I would just simply post a few photos here on this page or even a link to a reputable news source.
