Rugeley woman receives apology from Instagram after it disabled her accounts
A woman has received an apology off Instagram after her accounts were wrongly disabled over false claims she was trying to sell "counterfeit goods".
Katie Sammons, who lives in Rugeley, was locked out of her account – KSammonsStyle – in October last year after amassing around 4,600 followers.
It was disabled less than 24 hours after she promoted a bag strap from a small business she partnered with on her account, saying it had "Gucci vibes".
She was told she had breached community guidelines regarding counterfeit goods, which led her to set up another account which was also shut down.
But now Mrs Sammons has seen her accounts reinstated and has received an apology from Instagram after the issue was raised by the Express & Star.
She said: "It's very, very surreal. It's lovely because I can just chat with people and the brands I've got to know – I've already been getting messages.
"I knew I hadn't done anything wrong but then you start to doubt yourself."
The 45-year-old, who is originally from Great Barr, has Crohn's disease – something she has battled since her early teens – and set up her original account in 2020 during lockdown after undergoing her second bowel resection in November 2019.
She said being without the account had knocked her confidence and described it as being "more than just a hobby" – and that initial appeals to Instagram had failed and they "weren't interested".
Her first account KSammonsStyle was shut down, prompting her to start from scratch with KSammonsStyle45 which was disabled as well, before she set up a third again to get around the restrictions.
A spokesman for Instagram confirmed the accounts had been reinstated and they apologised for the "inconvenience".
