Scammed? Failure? Or a Lesson Learned?!
So, to get a little more personal with a blog, I’m going to tell you a story of me! About a month ago my account was hacked. My “cousin” (someone who stole the identity of my cousin) asked me to change my email on my Instagram in order to help her with her job, and when I did, my account was taken over and I freaked out! I mean I was so mad, I felt violated, and for about 2 days I was really mad, then sad, then I was like, what the heck can I do about this surely this has happened to someone else. So, I got on YouTube, and boom, a way to recover your account! But the thing was, chances are you have to submit a “selfie video” more than once, and I did it over and over again and I kept getting rejected, I started to feel hopeless, but remembered, it’s A.I. it’s not personal.
So, I was like, if I was a computer, what would I be looking for? I got it! I decided to wear clothes and hair styles in the selfie video that I knew would match my recent videos and photos. But then, suddenly, my account was gone! The link to my account was gone! I was like, dang I had reported the account, they took it down. And I didn’t check my email, and I gave up.
Well, a month later my best friend is like has your account been hacked? And I was like yeah it’s gone. She’s like no, it’s not. I looked back! I went to my email! My account had been approved! And the account was recovered, but b/c I didn’t take action the hacker stepped in and recovered the account!
I was like, are you serious?! I looked, I submitted my last the request Jan 30th 2022, and on Feb 1st 2022 I had been sent the link to recover my account! Holy crap, I missed it!
So, a flow of emotions ran through me and I proceeded to punch the crap out of my bed instead of going into a self-pity, self-bullying state. Then I felt better, then I laughed, and now I’m here, telling you about my journey. So, what was the lesson?
The lesson was, don’t quit too soon, and it’s not too late. Today, I resubmitted a selfie video, again wearing clothes on the tops of the pics of the account, and now I will not give up till I get my account back. The lesson was, don’t give up too soon, give it at least 5 business days. The lesson is, your friends got your back! The lesson is, even though you believe something is lost, maybe it is just being hidden for a little bit to be revealed again.
I know it’s just an Instagram account, but I was emotionally attached to it. I created it when I created this blog, I created it inspire people, I created it out of a dream, and suddenly I felt like someone had violated that dream. I was angry they were going after my friends and family, I was angry that they were attacking my love ones. I was embarrassed I was hacked and couldn’t do anything about it immediately, that there was no “quick fix”.
But this experience also has come in handy, b/c now I am super attentive to “weird” request. I was going to purchase something online, and the user asked me to buy “off the platform” of the website I was using, and I was like, “I see it, this is a scam! This person is trying to scam me!”. And they had a very compelling reason to why they couldn’t use the protected platform we were using, so much so, that for a second I felt bad for them. And then the following comments made me feel as if I had made a mistake and “missed out” on something. But the only I was missing out on was another scam!
Look, it’s not hard to get scammed, and it’s very frustrating, but it also makes you smarter if you learn the lesson. My programmer friends said they "caught my angle", and that was me thinking I was helping my family. I’m not saying don’t be mad, no I encourage you to be mad, but then, get you’re self together quickly. You can feel your emotions (maybe punch the bed like I did), but then let it go and make wiser decisions moving forward. Make mistakes, recover, and move forward!
So, what have you experienced? Have you ever been scammed but learned the lesson? Or made a, at the time, what seemed to be a terrible mistake, but it helped you tremendously in the future? I love hearing from you! Please comment and let me know! And remember, that you too can…
Bee The Change Over Time!
