Instagram’s Security Features Are Broken (And They Won’t Do Anything About It)
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TLDR:
1. Instagram recommends 2FA
2. Instagram often locks accounts due to “suspicious activity”
3. Instagram requires a PIN to unlock the accounts affected by this
4. Instagram never sends you the PIN required to unlock the accounts
5. Users are locked of their own accounts indefinitely because Instagram won’t fix this.
My Story
I run a couple different businesses, but one of them — Ultimate Paleo Guide recently got locked out of it’s Instagram account.
For a long time, our sole focus was content and search, but while we’ve spent 5-figures on Instagram & facebook ads, earlier this month we decided to ramp up our social media presence and try to focus on it a bit more.
Unfortunately, when it comes to Instagram, we couldn’t access anything.
The passwords we were using didn’t work, so I reset the password (this turned out to be useful to know that we at least had the right email on file). The pw reset email came as normal to our inbox and we reset the password like any other normal service.
Then, I went to login and I got this message:
I hit “verify by email” — and I waited…
It never showed up.
The next day, I did the same thing. Still no email.
After trying this 3–4 times, I realized that the email was never going to show up and that I was to be stuck in Instagram purgatory forever.
So, you can’t use the app until you verify it, but we won’t send you the code to even do that. Seems secure to me!
I was even able to add the account and link it to our Facebook page (by putting in our now correct credentials) — but if I try to login online or in the app — I still don’t have access.
Their security features are so secure, they’ve locked me out entirely.
And it doesn’t seem to be an isolated issue with just me.
This Bug Is Everywhere
I thought “maybe it’s just me”, but as I looked around, it seemed everyone is running into this problem.
Facebook’s Forums
The Facebook “community” forums are littered with this issue — with no actual instances of being resolved.
There are dozens of threads like this on Facebook + Instagram’s support forum — none of them are resolved.
Friends on Twitter Have The Same Problem
A short sampling of my twitter followers have experienced the same issue…
Another had the same issue. Was able to get around it, but doesn’t remember how.
Friends Who Run Big Ad Agencies Have This Issue
I have several friends in a couple different private communities that have this issue both with their own accounts and with client accounts. It’s a known issue and Facebook & Instagram aren’t doing anything about it.
Bottom Line For Instagram: It’s Costing Instagram Money
I would be spending 4–5 figures a month on ads across Facebook + Instagram ads if we could actually access our own accounts and while Facebook would let us link the accounts without “suspicion”, the app pin feature is fundamentally broken and it seems pretty futile to be able to run ads without actually being able to access the accounts.
Bottom Line For Users: Users Are Being Locked Out For No Reason
The worst part is that there is no reason for this. It seems like someone just missed something in the behemoth that is Facebook — and unfortunately for a company that is focused on “connecting the world” — there’s no easy way to “connect to Facebook” to let them know about this!
Whether or not people want 2FA setup, Instagram is pushing it hard. When it IS setup, then it’s not even functioning properly. For something that’s supposed to add more “security”, it seems like this is really just broken.
