Hacked account recovered

Carita Mattos needs help with her compromised account on Twitter. But Twitter says it can’t find her account anymore. Did they look hard enough?

Q: I recently received an email warning me that I had a compromised account on Twitter. Twitter said someone was trying to access my account from a phone in Marisa, Indonesia.

After that, I could no longer log in to Twitter. I have an app linked to this account and it looks as if someone used the app to hack into the account.

Twitter won’t help me because it says it can’t find my account. Can you help me get my Twitter account back, please?

— Carita Mattos, Rio de Janeiro

A: I’m sorry someone hacked into your Twitter account. Criminals love to access social media accounts for any number of reasons. When they do, a company like Twitter should quickly help you access your account.

Twitter has a simple two-step process for recovering a hacked account. First, request a password reset. You can do that by accessing the password reset form on the site. Twitter recommends entering both your username and email address. Be sure to check for the reset email at the address associated with your Twitter account.

If that doesn’t work, Twitter recommends that you contact its support department. You can do that by submitting a support request through the site. Choose “hacked account” from the list of options. Include the email address you associated with the hacked Twitter account. Twitter says it will send additional information and instructions to that email address. Don’t forget to include your username and the date you last had access to your account.

You followed all those instructions but were still shut out. So, what went wrong?

Let’s start with the app you used, which stole your identity. Be extra careful when granting another app access to your social media accounts. If you’re not sure who has access to your Twitter account, just sign in to your account and go to the “apps and sessions” section of your account settings. You’ll see all the apps connected to your accounts. You can revoke any permissions that look suspicious.

I reviewed your correspondence with the company in which you asked for help with your compromised account on Twitter. It looks as if the company was looking for more information about you to verify your account. “We are having trouble locating the desired Twitter account with the information you provided us,” it said. But when you sent the information, it still couldn’t find you. That’s highly unusual, since your account was still online and active.

If you need help with a compromised account on Twitter, you can always reach out to someone higher than the customer support department. I list the names, number and email addresses of all the Twitter executives on my consumer advocacy site.

I contacted Twitter on your behalf. It agreed to look for your account again, found it and reset your password. In the future, please be careful about the apps you give access to your Twitter account.