A Long Beach fitness instructor is searching for the person who hacked her business’s Instagram.

Colette Lee Morales works at Core 95 and depends on the social media app to advertise her classes, several charities, coat drives and her hairstyling business.

Morales says she clicked on a link Tuesday evening and knew instantly she was hacked.

She says she lost all of her contacts and control over Instagram.

Morales went as far as to FaceTime and record the hacker and pleaded with him to give up her account.

“You need to give us our stuff back sir, there’s no reason for this,” Morales told the hacker.

She says it’s violation of someone’s privacy.

“I’m not a big influencer but my network is important to me,” Morales says. “I have a lot of great contacts and do a lot of good things with it.”

Morales say the hacker said he would give her the account back only if she paid him $500 in Bitcoin.

Morales’ friend Buddy Caimano, of Point Lookout, was also hacked.

“It was just a friend who said, ‘All I need you do is copy and paste that and send it,’” Casimano says. “And I said ‘OK,’ I knew in my gut, my gut was telling me. That’s what I would tell people, follow your gut.”

Cybersecurity expert Adam Schwam, of Sandwire, says people can use a two-factor authentication, change their password often and don't use the same password for social media and for shopping to avoid becoming victims of hackers.

“Don’t open nepharious emails that you don’t know the sender from,” Schwarm says. “Don’t give out personal information for anyone who asks you for anything that you are completely unaware of.”

Morales says she hopes her story will have people be more careful with their accounts

“Don’t want this to happen to another person who uses this for their businesses…because it can really throw them off,” she says.

Morales says she tried to negotiate by having her friend give the hacker $50 in Bitcoin, but still has not received her account back.