The hacker changed my Instagram email and phone number
When somebody changes both the email address and the phone number on an Instagram account, there is nowhere left for a code to go, so recovery moves to proving that you are the person in the photographs. Instagram does this with a short video selfie, which sounds alarming and is genuinely how the system works. There is also a scam that imitates it almost exactly, so this page covers how to tell them apart.
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The reversal email is the fastest way back
Instagram notifies your original email address whenever the address on an account is changed, precisely so that a theft can be undone. That message contains a link that reverses the change. Search your email now, including junk and spam, for anything from Instagram about a changed email address.
The link is time limited. If you find it, use it immediately rather than finishing this page first.
If the link has gone
The official page for this situation:
https://help.instagram.com/374546259294234
The official route when the contact details on the account are no longer yours.
About the video selfie
For an account with photographs of you on it, Instagram commonly asks for a short video selfie, turning your head to each side, which it compares against the pictures already on the account. It feels intrusive, and it is a real part of the official process.
Here is the distinction that matters. The genuine check happens inside the Instagram app or on instagram.com, in a flow you started yourself. The scam version arrives as a message or an email asking you to send a video, a photograph of yourself, or a picture of your driver licence or passport to somebody. Instagram never asks for that in a message. If you did not start the process yourself from instagram.com, it is not Instagram.
What to expect
- It takes days, not minutes. There is no way to pay to speed it up because no such service exists.
- It sometimes fails, particularly on accounts with few or no photographs of your face. That is a real outcome and not something you did wrong.
- Repeating the request does not help and can confuse the review.
- Watch the email address you gave, junk folder included, because that is where the answer arrives.
The bigger problem to check
If somebody changed the email address on your Instagram, work out whether they got into your email account as well, because that is much more serious than the Instagram account. Whoever controls your email can reset the password on nearly everything else you own. Change that password from a device you trust, turn on two factor authentication, and look in the settings for forwarding rules or recovery addresses you did not add.
The offers of help you are about to receive
- 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.
Related pages on this site
- Start at the router , if this is not quite your situation.
- There is no Meta phone number , and what the numbers really are.
- Paid recovery services , why none of them are real.
- The full Instagram page .
- If the account has vanished .
Frequently asked questions
Can I get my Instagram back if the email and phone were both changed?
Often yes. First search your email including junk for Instagram's notice about the changed address, because it contains a link that reverses it and that is the quickest route by far. If the link has expired, use instagram.com/hacked and complete the identity check, which commonly takes several days and works best from the phone you normally use.Do not submit the request over and over, because that confuses the review rather than speeding it up.
Why is Instagram asking me to record a video of my face?
Because with the contact details gone it needs another way to confirm you are the person in the photographs on the account. It is a genuine part of the process, and it happens inside the Instagram app or on instagram.com in a flow you started yourself. Anybody asking for a video or your identity documents in a message is running the scam version of this.
Is the video selfie a scam?
The real one is not, but there is a scam that copies it closely, which is why the difference matters. Genuine checks only ever happen inside Instagram's own app or website, in a process you began yourself. If a message, an email or a person asks you to send a video, a selfie or a photograph of your licence or passport, that is the scam, every time.
What if the identity check does not work?
It does fail sometimes, particularly on accounts with few photographs of your face, and you deserve to know that rather than being strung along. If it does, the practical path is a new account, telling your followers what happened so they are not defrauded in your name, and reporting the old account for impersonation if it is being used that way.