Man Down...Instagram Down!
This screenshot is from October 27th, 2021. I had just hit 3800 followers on my Instagram account which I was SO proud of and excited about. I've been working hard for the past 3+ years to grow this account. A few days later though, it all disappeared when Instagram decided to take my account down with no warning or reason except that I 'violated their terms of service.' I've read through all of their fine print and didn't see anything that I would have done to cause this to happen.
So I started appealing their decision. One time, two times, three times...I've lost count of how many times now. There is a link to appeal their decision when I try to log in to my account and I answer roughly 3 questions and then I get an email with a code that I have to write down on a piece of paper then take a picture of me holding it up by my face, with both hands, to verify my identity. Email it back and wait.
I never. ever. hear back. I am at my wits end and have been for months now. It is super frustrating and maddening. I've had quite a lot of scammer people reach out to me claiming they can get me my account back. Nope, not gonna go that route and just lose my hard earned money just to find out I still won't be able to log in. How about you fix my account first and then I will pay you? But none of these 'scammers' go for that of course and even if one of them was able to get my account back, there is no guarantee Instagram won't take it down again and delete it permanently for going this route. Which that route with a scammer is a dead end, for sure.
I've followed tips and tricks from researching on Google and talking to a friend or someone who knows someone who's gone through this experience. No luck. I am super bummed and a bit depressed even because that was my main platform that I could put down for experience with working with brands when applying for affiliate links or opportunities for my blog. Now it's all gone and brands are not going to care about a screen shot with what I once had. It's truly devastating to say the least.
The only thing I can think of that I did "wrong" in their eyes was unfollowing people who no longer followed me or hadn't posted in months, or for well over a year. I'm not sure why doing that is so wrong. I tried to do them 30-60 seconds apart so in my mind, that wasn't too fast, but apparently to Instagram, it was. They want their users to be interactive on the platform, or so I thought. So what good does it to me to follow dead accounts? It does me no good at all. Who knew they wouldn't like me doing some simple 'housekeeping' in my account.
Anyways, I'm truly not sure what will happen from here but their customer service is TERRIBLE. Truly blows but I will keep trying, keep researching, keep at it, in hopes something positive can change in 2022 with my account.
In the meantime, feel free to follow me over at
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Subscribe! to my email list which I tried to launch in December but sadly, no subscribers yet. That's a whole other topic for another day though.
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