My WhatsApp, social or email account was hacked

Someone else controls your account and is asking your contacts for money in your name, or you can no longer log in at all.

Do this now

Step 1.
Within 10 minutes
Reset the password from the linked email or number, log out of all sessions, and turn on two-step verification. For WhatsApp, log in again with the OTP on your own SIM and set a two-step verification PIN.
Step 2.
Within 20 minutes
Tell your contacts and family through another channel that the account is compromised and someone may ask them for money in your name.
Step 3.
Within 5 minutes
Call 1930 right now. It is the national cyber-crime helpline and runs 24 hours. The sooner the complaint is on record, the better the chance the bank can freeze the money — the first hour matters most.
Call 1930
Step 4.
Within 45 minutes
Audit the account's security settings — linked devices, email forwarding rules, recovery numbers and authorised apps. That is where the back door usually is.
Step 5.
Within the first hour
File a 'hacked account' report with the platform itself and keep the reference ID.
Step 6.
Within the first hour
File the written complaint at cybercrime.gov.in and save the acknowledgement number. The phone complaint lands on the same portal, but only you can add the written account and the documents.
File at cybercrime.gov.in
Step 7.
Within 24 hours
Go to the nearest police station or cyber cell, give a written complaint and take the acknowledgement. A cyber-crime FIR can be registered at any police station — you cannot be turned away on the ground that it is not their jurisdiction.

Do not pay anyone claiming to be an 'account recovery' service. Recovery only ever happens through the platform's own process, and it is free.
Never share an OTP, UPI PIN, CVV or password with anyone — including someone claiming to be from your bank, the police or a 'cyber cell'. No real official ever asks.
Do not delete the chat, call log, email or messages — not even out of anger. That is your evidence, and it does not come back.
Do not reuse that password anywhere else, and do not switch back to the old one.

Screenshot every screen with the date and time visible — the chat, the payment screen, the email, the profile.
The login-history or security-alert emails showing the unfamiliar device, time and location.
The sender's phone number, UPI ID, email address, WhatsApp profile, and the link to any social-media account they contacted you from.
The UTR or reference number of every transaction, the amount, the time, and the full details of the account or UPI ID the money went to.
Leave the original messages, mails and files exactly where they are — the original counts as evidence alongside the screenshot. Delete nothing.

No cases recorded in this category yet.

This is educational information, not legal advice. For anything serious, speak to an advocate.