Update, 1/16/17: By the grace of God and Instagram, the account is back! I got an e-mail from Elliott at IG declaring the account as back in action as of this morning. What a scary two days that was! Yes, I know it’s just Instagram and I have been through worse, believe me, but it’s hard to lose something that has essentially become a big part of your business life in an instant.
Also, like I said below, I met a lot of great people through IG and I was sad it was all gone. But I am very, very thankful to be back!
To prevent this happening to others, I’m going to share some dos and don’ts of the Instagram account recovery process that I learned from this weird time.
DON’T Delete Or Disable Accounts From Your Phone. I logged into an old account to delete it and that’s how this mess started. IG then deleted all of my accounts, except for my personal account. Why? I have no clue. If you’re going to delete or disable anything, do it from a computer. Or just don’t do it at all — let the dead account just languish on its own. And don’t trust the multiple account function.
DO Contact Instagram Wherever You Can On The Internet. I contacted IG everywhere. I tweeted to them a lot. I tweeted the founder. I messaged them on IG and FB. I reported many, many problems and feedback through the new account on IG. I e-mailed with Elliott, who may or may not be a human. But I always used the word please and not a single curse word. Did this help? I have no idea. But I did notice that among my comments were other folks who had the same issue — they were locked out of their account, a hacker deleted their accounts and all their pics, or their account was deleted for no reason. I was not alone. It was scary to see that my situation was actually pretty common.
DON’T Call Instagram. Their real legit phone number doesn’t offer support and is just a recording. I called another number, where I reached a man named Justin who claimed to offer support for Instagram (he later changed it to just “social media”) and, long story short, he may have hacked my laptop and he definitely tried to scam me out of money, offering me “Instagram Pro” for $1.95 – a payment that would go to “charity.” Newsflash: There is no Instagram Pro.
Hope that helps anyone facing the same situation!
That being said, I’m going to follow my own advice. The former replacement account @couch.potato.cook is not gone — it’s now @couchpotatogreens, which will follow some nature/farming/art adventures! Come along if you feel like it.
Earlier: To say I had a rough Saturday is an understatement. Long story short, this blog’s Instagram account @couchpotatocook, which has been in existence since Oct. 19, 2014, was erroneously deleted by Instagram. I have contacted them many, many, many times today. I have not yet heard back. I even contacted a shady support number which I think may have hacked my computer. Welcome to my Saturday.
So if you’ve been looking for the account, that’s what happened. I have started up another Instagram account @couch.potato.cook, but it’s not the same — mostly because of the annoying periods in the name and the food posts have this existential crisis mixed in. This social media stuff may look easy, but it’s actually a lot of hard work and just like that, the two years of groundwork for this blog just vanished for me. Plus, I made a lot of acquaintances I enjoyed hearing from among my followers; I’m going to miss them the most.