Paid account recovery services, and why none of them are real

Within hours of saying publicly that you have been hacked, somebody will offer to help. They will be polite, they will have testimonials, and some of them will have an entire website. It is worth understanding the single fact that makes all of them the same: Meta gives no third party any route into an account that you do not already have for free. There is nothing to sell. So everybody selling it is selling you something that does not exist.

Last checked: 15 August 2026. Every official Facebook, Instagram and Australian government link on this page was opened and confirmed working on that date. If you find one that no longer works, please tell us and we will fix it, because a dead link on a page like this is worse than no page at all.

How they find you

You do not go looking for them, they come to you, and the timing is not luck. Posting that your account has been hacked is a public signal, and it is monitored.

• A comment or reply on your post about being hacked, from an account that looks like an ordinary person, recommending someone who helped them.
• A direct message on Instagram, often within an hour, offering to help. This is the single most common route.
• A friend recommending them, where the friend's account has itself been taken over and the recommendation is not from your friend at all.
• An advertisement or search result for account recovery, which is a paid placement like any other and means nothing about legitimacy.
• A comment under a video about hacked accounts, thanking a particular person for their help, posted by the same operation.

What they are actually after

• An upfront fee, which is where it ends for most people. Payment by gift card, voucher or cryptocurrency is the clearest sign, because those cannot be reversed.
• Your password, requested so they can start work. This hands them the account outright.
• Your verification code, which is the actual prize. If they already have your password, the code is the only thing left in the way.
• Remote access to your computer, which gives them everything you are logged into, including banking.
• Your identity documents, on the pretext of verifying you. A photograph of your licence or passport is worth money on its own and can be used to open accounts in your name.

The ethical hacker line

A common version presents as a security researcher or ethical hacker who can get into anything. It is flattering to be taken seriously and it sounds plausible, particularly on Instagram where the aesthetic is convincing.

It is not a real service. Nobody can hack your account back for you, and the people advertising it are not security researchers. Even if such a person existed, consider what you would be doing: giving your account details, and often your identity documents, to somebody whose stated speciality is breaking into accounts.

The second wave, which is worse

If you pay once, expect to be contacted again, and this is the part people are least prepared for. Somebody will get in touch offering to recover the money you lost. They may claim to be from a recovery agency, a law firm, a government department, or your own bank's fraud team.

It is the same operation. Lists of people who have already paid are traded between groups precisely because somebody who paid once is considered likely to pay again, and somebody who is angry about being scammed is easier to move than somebody who is merely worried. No genuine agency charges a fee to recover scammed money. Your bank does not, the police do not, and Scamwatch does not.

The complete list of warning signs

• Anyone offering a phone number. There is no Meta support line. A number is the clearest single sign you are being scammed.
• Paid recovery agents. Services that promise to get your account back for a fee. They have no access Meta does not give you for free, and the usual outcome is that you pay and nothing happens.
• Anyone who messages you offering to help after you post that you have been hacked, especially on Instagram. Watching for those posts is exactly how they find people.
• Anyone asking for an upfront fee, a gift card, a voucher or a cryptocurrency payment. No legitimate service is paid this way.
• Anyone asking for your password or your two factor code. No real Meta process ever asks a person for these. Sharing the code is how the second theft happens.
• Anyone asking to remote control your computer to fix it for you, unless it is somebody you already know and trust.
• A friend asking you to receive a code for them. That friend has already been taken over, and the code is for your account.

What actually works, and costs nothing

If you are not sure which situation you are in, the recovery router will point you at the exact official page for your case.

What honest help looks like

Plenty of people will help you with this properly, including us, and it is worth knowing what that looks like so the difference is obvious.

• They never ask for your password. Not once, not for any reason.
• They never ask for a verification code.
• They do not take over the account. You type, on your own device.
• They do not charge a fee for the recovery itself, because the recovery is free and there is nothing to charge for.
• They tell you when it might not work, rather than promising a result nobody can promise.

That is how we work when we sit with somebody through this. We read the screen with you and explain what it is asking. You hold your own phone and type your own password. If the honest answer is that an account may not be recoverable, we say so, because the alternative is you paying somebody who says otherwise.

Related pages on this site

• There is no Facebook phone number .
• The recovery router , the free official route.
• If money has already gone .
• How to spot a scam .