Your question holds the answer. It's very possible that any stolen account may not be returned to the owner. 1 letter accounts are worth 5 figure dollar amounts to people who are obsessed with online clout. Same goes for any other major social platform. IG, snap, Xbox, playstation network, etc. Most of the 1-2 letter and short "OG" accounts on IG are all either bought, traded, or stolen. Very, very few original owners exist in the space.
There are also techniques people use to boost the chances that the original owners never get their account back. On Xbox for example, support looks at a few specific pieces of account info and their previous entries that only the real owner would know. So people just flood the account over and over and over with filler info until all those original entries are gone and the original owners suddenly have no ground to prove that they owned it. It's a vicious game and I'll never understand why some people are so extremely desperate for internet fame but there's a whole community based around it.
What another commenter said is also spot on. A majority of these accounts are not owned by famous people, just random joes who got lucky or bought the accounts on forums. Unless you are famous, these platforms do not care about you. If you can't get your account back through the standard support options, there's no special options(usually) for you to get help like famous people have.
I’m a random joe who has one! I have a two letter twitter account that I’d gladly sell for 5 figures if that were true. I get daily hack attempts and blackmail threats often. Good times.
There are also techniques people use to boost the chances that the original owners never get their account back. On Xbox for example, support looks at a few specific pieces of account info and their previous entries that only the real owner would know. So people just flood the account over and over and over with filler info until all those original entries are gone and the original owners suddenly have no ground to prove that they owned it. It's a vicious game and I'll never understand why some people are so extremely desperate for internet fame but there's a whole community based around it.
What another commenter said is also spot on. A majority of these accounts are not owned by famous people, just random joes who got lucky or bought the accounts on forums. Unless you are famous, these platforms do not care about you. If you can't get your account back through the standard support options, there's no special options(usually) for you to get help like famous people have.