I’ve been delaying a bit about posting about this – not because I was questioning whether I should post about this, but I wanted to remove some of the knee-jerk reactive emotions around this situation.
I was hacked on one of my IG accounts.
The situation was stupid, and, really, I’m mostly mad at myself as I know better. But I had a crappy sleep that morning, wasn’t thinking clearly, and ignored that little voice in my head to block the person.
The problem was, we both followed each other, she was a fellow artist, and I’ve had those types of requests in the past when I was big in the Fitness industry – the “please vote for me” in whatever contest they were in. Happened all the time in fitness!
However, as soon as I clicked the link, I should have known it was a scam. It was so obvious! And, yet, my exhausted brain wasn’t connecting it and the persons pushiness, and they got access to my social media.
We fought back and forth, trying to get the upper hand. Password recoveries, changing the password, deleting the other profiles that managed to get attached… For 2 hours, it was back and forth with who controlled the profile. In the end, they were faster, and I lost my art page – and IG was useless! Though I reported they hacked my page, I had friends report they hacked my page, and in the end, IG refused to do anything as they “didn’t see them going against community guidelines”… so I took matters into my own hands.
I spammed the shit out of my own profile. They had made several posts in the financial nature which had the comments turned off, but the last post I did, I started commenting, calling them out – that they’re hackers, pieces of sh!t, what’s wrong with the world, etc. Bold caps, just screaming at them. In the end, they blocked me, then deleted the profile.
Before they blocked me, though, I did go through the profile and take screenshots of the artworks that I no longer had due to it being sold or gifted. Even though I’ve had the profile for 7 years, I’ve only really been posting on it consistently since the beginning of the year, and I still have everything. If it had been my personal IG profile – or FB where I have 15+ years of photos – I would have been WAY more upset with that! Losing my art page is a nuisance, but I didn’t mind. It gave me an opportunity to create a beautiful layout that showcases my current style.
The reason this whole situation pisses me off so much, and why I said they’re what’s wrong with the world, is that I genuinely thought I was helping someone. I had no real reason to question her – and because of that misplaced trust, I got burned and, now, I question everything and likely won’t help anyone in the future – no matter how genuine it is! And THAT’S what upsets me the most!
It’s people like that hacker that ruin a genuine need for assistance from honest people – and stops people like me from wanting to help.
And it sucks.
