THE HACK
It all began on Thursday, April 17th. I was walking in the sun-drenched hills of Camps Bay, Cape Town, phone in hand, when I received a message from my old friend Martin. It simply said, “Can you help me real quick?” – along with a couple of hearts and what might have been a flower emoji.
Martin’s one of those people who only pops up sporadically, like a dog in a Zoom call. And while the emoji use was a bit odd, I was genuinely glad to hear from him after so long. He asked for my vote in what he described as an “ambassadorship related to women’s rights” – something that sounded exactly like something Martin would support.
His profile looked real: full timeline, familiar photos, loads of followers. I told him I’d help as soon as I got home – my battery was down to 6%. But he insisted, “It has to be now.” So I asked how.
“Just log in with your Hotmail.”
“I don’t have Hotmail,” I replied.
“Then just log in with Instagram.”
So I did.
My battery dropped to 3% as I quickly logged in my Instagram login – and seconds later, I was logged out. That’s when the first wave of dread hit.
The emails started arriving
Instagram Security notifying me that my email had been changed… then my phone number. To a number starting with +234. I Googled it. Nigeria.
That’s when I realized: I’d just been hacked. By a Nigerian scammer. And I was the one who handed over the keys. With a flower emoji.
HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?
I’m normally extremely cautious. I avoid shady links, verify sender addresses, and even help others spot scams. But this was different. It came from someone I knew – or thought I did – and at the worst possible time: 4% battery and a sunbaked brain.
So yes, I fell for it. Because I believed I was helping a friend.
THE FLOOD
Soon after, I started hearing from everyone. Old school friends. Listeners. Even my ex mother-in-law. Messages poured in across platforms, alerting me that my account was now sending out similar scam messages to my followers.
Not one. Not ten. Not fifty. Over four hundred messages were sent from my account in less than a day. And when I briefly managed to regain access, I saw it with my own eyes – including Stories posted with my face promoting fake crypto earnings.
NEEDING HUMAN HELP
I turned to Meta Support – or more accurately, what they call support.
I filed reports, attached screenshots, explained everything. I waited. And waited. And when I finally got a reply, it came from someone named Kitty.
“Hi Palle. Please initiate a chat for faster help.”
That was the problem. I couldn’t. The chat button was missing – gone. I’d sent screenshots showing this, explained it repeatedly, and every response was the same polite copy-paste.
I paid to become Meta Verified hoping that it would unlock real help. That’s the whole point, right? Priority support. Faster help. Real humans. But even after paying, there was still no chat. No direct access. Just more emails with the same broken advice.
And every time I replied with, “I can’t access chat – that’s the issue,” I got another variation of:
“We commend you for spending quality time with us.”
No joke. That’s a real line they sent me.
ON THE CHAT – IN MY DREAMS
After the hack, I went straight to Meta’s Business Portfolio page and opened a support case. To my surprise – and slight relief – a chat window popped up. I thought:
“Okay, this might actually work.”
At the top, it said:
“Average wait time: 20 minutes.”
Alright, maybe Meta Support wasn’t as bad as everyone says.
I waited. And waited. Had some dinner, still looking at my screen and still waiting. Twenty minutes turned into two hours. Two turned into six. At that point, it was close to midnight in Cape Town. I wrote in the chat:
“It’s getting late here, I’ll respond in the morning if someone joins. Or use my email or WhatsApp number.”
Then I went to bed.
At 1:16 AM – long after I’d fallen asleep – a support agent named Vivien finally appeared. And because I didn’t respond while sleeping, the chat was closed at 4:42 AM.
Case status: Resolved.
No call-back. No email follow-up. And since then, I’ve never been able to open a Meta chat window for this case again. It was like I got one single lifeline… and they cut it while I was dreaming of my face being used in a crypto scam.
Don’t just read – listen to the episode. Hit play.
GETTING ACCESS A BIT LONGER
At one point, I actually managed to get back into my hacked account and have a bit more than 10 seconds. Maybe because it was so early in the morning before he got to the office.
It felt like a small miracle.
My first thought was to change the password and lock the hacker out. But I couldn’t – not without confirming with their phone number and email address… the Nigerian number and the Gmail account that the hacker had added.
So I tried another way: I went into “Where you’re logged in” and attempted to log the hacker out from their devices. But again, Instagram asked for the current password before I could do that – the one only the hacker knew.
It was an incredibly frustrating catch-22
Still, I took screenshots of everything – the hacker’s contact details, the devices, and the messages they were sending to my followers using my name and face. I could see some of the people they contacted, including more than 400 followers (see below) who had received that same crypto scam message. And since then in the thousands.
I tried to act quickly. I clicked around, captured evidence, and made notes.
I managed to stay logged in for about half an hour before I was booted out again.
THE TURNING POINT
Eventually, I managed to start a new support case. And – plot twist – I finally spoke with someone human again: a support agent named Nick. He confirmed a call time. I responded, confirmed again, and waited. No call.
Then came Bobby. He asked for new time slots. I sent them.
Then Chris. Same request.
Then Yashu. Same drill.
And finally Nick again. “We’ll call you on Monday.”
Monday came. I was waiting – coffee in hand. Still no call.
That’s when I fixed the problem myself. My Danish phone provider had some settings that blocked foreign calls. I disabled that. Now, I was reachable. I just needed someone to actually call.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Over the two-week period, I heard from Kitty, Elaine, Sophie, Khan, Rosie, Moi, Jack, Prankul, Bobby, Chris, Yashu, Nick, Charlotte, Zoey, Julie, Joseph, Niknik, IU, Gel, Henry, and Vishesh.
And probably a few more I’ve forgotten. Each one promising help. Each one passing the baton. None of them delivering.
SPEAKING WITH A SCAMMER
One Saturday afternoon, I got a WhatsApp message from someone claiming to be “Patrick” from Meta’s Cyber Recovery Team.
Naturally, I was suspicious. I asked him:
“Are you really from Meta Support? How do I know you’re not a Nigerian scammer pretending to help me?”
He said:
“Yes, am Patrick. I am from the Meta Cyber Recovery Team. I am here to assist you.”
He sent a photo ID, a screenshot, and a diploma selfie – all stuff anyone could fake. And in fact, he had. The information he referenced came straight from my public Facebook post.
I asked him for a short video to prove his identity. He refused. So, I started recording and called him.
He answered, “Hello Radiovagabond,” not “Palle Bo.” Meta knows my name. He claimed he was in California and even got the local time right. But the accent? Clearly not American.
I asked for proof again. After a bit of guilt-tripping, he offered a video call “just for me.” On the call, he smiled into the camera and said nothing. It later turned out to be a YouTuber named Patrick – a stolen video from a cybersecurity tutorial.
Still unsure, I played along a bit longer, gave him some harmless info, and he came back with… what I can only describe as the worst Photoshop ever made. A picture of a keyboard, some blurry gibberish, and a screenshot of my hacked account pasted awkwardly in the corner.
THE PITCH
Then he offered the fix:
“We need to purchase and install a Python Bypass Software… It will reroute the recovery code and delete the hacker permanently.”
He wanted $760 for it.
I Googled “Python Bypass Software scam” and found exactly what I expected. Another scam.
So I texted: “Nice try, Patrick.”
Then blocked and reported him.
Sadly, he wasn’t the only one. Several scammers reached out pretending to help me. I reported them all. But where did those reports go?
Meta.
And we all know what they do with reports… Absolutely nothing.
ON MONDAY IT BECAME PERSONAL
Then Monday came. Day four after the hack. That’s when I got a message from someone I really care about – a dear friend in Colombia. She told me she’d been chatting with me for days. Or at least, who she thought was me.
The hacker had been impersonating me, using my name and face to persuade her to invest her hard-earned money in a crypto scam – thinking it was something I had recommended. She believed it… because she trusted me.
Thank God her bank said, “no no no.” That’s when it stopped being just frustrating. It became personal.
By then, I had submitted screenshots, face scans, recovery codes, polite replies, frustrated replies… And I had received 19 different email responses. All from a rotating cast of Meta agents politely reminding me to “initiate a chat” – one that didn’t even exist.
It was starting to feel less like tech support and more like a psychological experiment.
Then, a plot twist landed
By then I’ve sent them all the information, they needed to give metech support. Vidos proving my identity, face screens, and even a video with myself holding my passport. And suddenly, I got an email that surprised me:
“Hi Palle. Thank you for contacting Meta Pro Team. However, you’ve contacted the Ads team. We only handle advertising-related inquiries.”
Wait… what?
You only handle advertising??!?
Why wasn’t I told that by Meta Pro Team member number one when I clearly asked a tech question? Or number two? Or number five?
So you’re telling me that all 13 of you – Sophie, Kitty, Jack, Prankul, Bobby, Summer, Henry, Moi, Rosie, Niknik, Charlotte, Zoey, and Julie – who replied, asked questions, told me they’d help, thanked me for my patience, and sometimes even signed off with “Your satisfaction is our happiness”… were never supposed to be handling this at all?
I didn’t need a Facebook ad.
I needed someone to stop a proven scammer from pretending to be me.
But apparently, I’d spent days pouring my heart out, sending evidence, explaining the urgency… for no reason at all. This was like reporting a home burglary and having 14 friendly IKEA greeters show you where the doorknobs are.
At this point, I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or buy a Facebook ad just to speak to someone who could help. I actually asked them if that would help later in the week. They never answered that.
THE HACKER MOCKING ME
It gets better.
I had created the new Instagram account (@radiovagabond_new) to report the hack. I posted a video selfie, calmly explaining what happened and proving who I am.
That’s when the hacker found me. And commented on the video. He wrote:
“I wish you good luck”
It was like he knew what I was up against – like he was mocking not just me, but the whole support system. And honestly… he wasn’t wrong. The comment hit hard.
A GLIMMER OF HOPE?
Eventually, I did get access to the chat again. A support agent named Sophie finally responded and seemed… different. Kind. Empathetic. Human. She listened. She promised that my case wouldn’t be closed. She reassured me again and again:
“This chat will stay open.”
She even tried to call me – and when that didn’t work, I asked if we could call on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger (where we were chatting). You know Meta platforms. But she wasn’t allowed to.
ANOTHER SURPRISING TWIST
The next morning, something bizarre happened: My new account (@radiovagabond_new) was suddenly suspended by Meta. No warning. Just a message saying it didn’t follow “account integrity” guidelines. What could that be? I only posted a very real video with me telling what happened. When I clicked the appeal link, it said: “No user found.”
No way to appeal. No way to respond.
And the hacked account? Also invisible. But I still couldn’t create a new account with the same username. It was like I had been erased… but still punished.
GROUNDHOG DAY – THE LOOP
From here, the story just started repeating. Like a bad episode of Black Mirror mixed with Groundhog Day. I’d open a new case. Explain everything again. Get a message from a new person at Meta. Repeat the same info. Be told to “just start a chat” – the same chat I didn’t have access to. And then… silence.
Then another case. Another agent. Another promise of a call. Another missed appointment. And through it all, Meta kept asking me to verify things I’d already verified. They’d ask for time slots, ignore them, then ask again. It was a bureaucratic nightmare – and I was stuck in it.
MORAL SUPPORT – FROM YOU GUYS
One thing that genuinely helped me get through this madness was the incredible support from my listeners and followers. I started sharing the story publicly – posting on Facebook about what was happening, sometimes with a bit of humour, sometimes just venting.
And you responded. You shared the posts. You left comments. You sent me private messages. Some were funny, some were filled with rage on my behalf, and some just said: “Hang in there.”
That meant the world.
This whole saga was exhausting. I was tired, frustrated, and at times feeling completely helpless. But knowing that there were people out there following the story – rooting for me, laughing with me, even shaking their heads with me – helped me stay sane.
I want to say thank you to everyone who took time to engage with the story. You probably didn’t realize it, but your support really did help me keep going.
MORE THAN TWO WEEKS LATER
Now, more than two weeks later, I still don’t have my Instagram account back. The hacker might be locked out too… or not. I have no way of knowing.
The system failed. Not just for me – but for anyone who relies on Meta’s platforms and expects real support.
And yes, I know this is “just” a social media account. But when you build a brand, a voice, a community on these platforms – and you’re promised protection because you’re a verified subscriber – this matters.
I paid for verification, which should give me security and support. And in return? I got gaslit by a broken system, ignored by a parade of scripted emails, and mocked by the very person who hacked me.
But I’m getting on with my life now – a life without Instagram. I can live without the algorithm, the hashtags, the reels, and the lack of support from Meta.
What I can’t live with… is the idea that someone is out there using my name and face to scam people who trust me. That still keeps me up at night. Because even if the account is quiet now, it’s still under the hacker’s control. And any day, he could start again.
And if you ever need support from Meta:
Just start a chat.
My name is Palle Bo, and I gotta keep moving. See you.
I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Please tell me where are you and what are you doing as you listen to this episode? You can either send me an email on listener@theradiovagabond.com, go to TheRadioVagabond.com/Contact or send me a voice message by clicking on the banner.
Either way, I would love to hear from you. It’s so nice to know who’s on the other end of this.
SPONSOR
A special thank you to my sponsor, Hotels25.com, who always provide me with the best, most affordable accommodation wherever I am in the world.
Hotels25 scans for prices on the biggest and best travel sites (like Booking.com, Hotels.com, Agoda and Expedia) in seconds. It finds deals from across the web and put them in one place. Then you just compare your options for the same hotel, apartment, hostel or home and choose where you book.
When you book with Hotels25, you get access to 5,000,000 hotel deals. And it’s “best price guaranteed.”
PRODUCED BY RADIOGURU
The Radio Vagabond is produced by RadioGuru. Reach out if you need help with your podcast.
