April 2022

It happened when my husband and I were on our way to a Celebration of Life for a friend’s mother who had passed away in New Orleans. He was driving and I was looking at my Instagram. It had been a rough week.I had already been to two friends' funerals earlier in the week and a friend I had not seen in ages was at the last one. We hugged and tearfully promised to do a better job staying in touch.

So this was three days later when I received a message from him via Instagram. I was thrilled he was holding up his end of the promise. Little did I know his account had been hacked and it was a message from the devil himself.

First the demon hacker changed my password, then set up two factor authentication. Everytime I tried to get my account back, it was sending hackerdevil the message. Then much to my horror he started sending my 13K friends and followers messages to buy bitcoins and how to vote for me as an influencer. I sincerely hope that no one fell for it. It was so upsetting to see my account with the stunning pillow images as well as other gorgeous photos and then a big post about how this guy made me rich from bitcoins. Eventually he changed the name to @Brandon0823_ while still holding our beautiful photos hostage on his account. Finally he removed our images and just stole our followers. We have been desperately trying everything we can to get our account back and have gotten a case number. Everyone says that is a miracle but it doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere.

After talking to cyber security people I have learned a lot. One thing they all mentioned is that hackers prey on people around deaths and traumas. They look for people who might be frazzled from something heartbreaking going on in their lives. The morning of my dad’s funeral his Facebook account was hacked. I had put a copy of his obituary on it so his friends would know the funeral details. At the time, I just thought it was a weird coincidence. I now know hackers are even more evil than I could have imagined.

Starting over with a new Instagram account reminds me of the feelings I had when first starting my business from the middle of nowhere before the internet was around. It’s quite daunting but I do know it can be done.The big difference this time is I have a wonderful team of smart ladies who can get us back up and running.

The other take away from this frustrating experience on top of losing three friends is that no one has died from my account being hacked. It is another big important lesson in life. This is a fixable problem. I will miss my friends forever… and they would be so mad about the instagram hack because we shared a lot of fun things on Instagram.

So with Easter coming it is a good time to resurrect our Instagram account and remain grateful for our friends and family who are still with us. And also be grateful for the lives and memories of those we have lost. Happy Easter everyone and please follow our new Instagram!!!