My Apple Account was recently hijacked, and I no longer use it or have anything connected to it besides my name and email address. The person who took it over keeps changing the password, phone number, date of birth, and security questions, which are now in a foreign language. They also appear to be signing in from an iPad that is being identified as an iPhone.
I can sometimes reset the password, but after signing in I'm blocked by the altered security questions, so I can't regain full access. At this point, I mainly want the account deleted so my name and email aren't associated with anything the attacker might do, and I'm tired of receiving notifications about constant changes.
Is contacting Apple Support the only possible way to request deletion? Would they help with a compromised account, or is deletion impossible unless I can first complete account recovery?
4 Answers
If the attacker changed the trusted phone number, security questions, birth date, and password, the account may be effectively unrecoverable unless Apple’s recovery process can verify you another way. Support is unlikely to hand over access based only on the name and email address, since that could let someone take over another person’s account.
The practical lesson is to secure unused accounts before they become a problem: use a unique long password, keep trusted phone numbers and recovery details current, and enable two-factor authentication. Without successfully proving ownership, Apple generally won’t disable an account just because the original owner says it was taken over.
Keep trying Apple’s official account-recovery options and contact Support through its published channels, but be prepared for the possibility that they can’t restore or delete it. If recovery fails, secure the email account connected to it, change that email password, enable two-factor authentication, and watch for suspicious messages or login attempts. You can also stop the notification emails, though that won’t remove the compromised account.
Apple Support generally can’t simply delete an account on request or bypass the account-recovery protections. They can guide you through the official recovery process, but if you can’t verify ownership using the available methods, recovering or deleting the account may not be possible.
That may feel unfair, but strict verification is necessary. Claims of ownership are easy to make, so Apple has to rely on the recovery methods already attached to the account.