My account was hacked before Fleece's, Jan 2024

Back in January, I woke up on a Saturday and my account was taken. I immediately contacted Niantic asking for help to recover my account. I got an answer from what I though to be a real person. The email said: "If you end up losing access to your account, we can assist in recovering it provided that:

• Your account was compromised no more than 72 hours ago.
• Your account has no previous or existing punishments for violating our Terms of Service.
• And you can provide evidence of ownership. As your account has a past punishment and does not meet the criteria, we cannot recover the account. You can continue playing by creating a new Pokémon GO account. Regards, --- I asked what was the past punishment cause I NEVER GOT ANY NOTIFICATION about it and they REFUSED to answer me. I sent daily emails requesting the information about the past punishment and they insisted they could not tell me what I did or what it was. I was back and forth on this BS for about 5 days, they kept sending the SAME ANSWER and refusing to help. Until one day I decided to email them asking to talk to a manager. I got an answer that said: "Trainer, this ticket cannot be escalated further and you're being helped by the right team. Your account has previous punishments. We cannot help you in recovering your account because of violating our Terms of Service. We cannot provide any more information regarding this." THIS was infuriating, I even read the entire terms and conditions to figure what I could possibly have done wrong, I never cheated, I don't try to level up fast, I play steady, it takes years to level up. I answered this email insisting I wanted a manager because this team was not helping at all. My friends on the game could see my avatar online, the hacker changed the name and did level up fast. I was in panic by this point and I wrote the email explaining everything that was happening to my account and how disappointed I was over Niantic's LACK OF HELP and repetition on their answers. I finally got a decent email after that, not sure if whoever answered me was a real person or a bot, they decided to help recovery. It was a week of hell, I was going through chemo, I wrote an entire email saying how the day before, I saw a friend request out of nowhere and I also saw a trade was done. I was in a rural area at the time, away from other players, didn't give my code to anyone, the avatar had a skull mask that I have never seen before. And how could I possibly do a trade when I am isolated? Niantic suspended the account and gave me instructions how to recover. I was worried it would not work out but it did. The hacker level up in 2 days what would take me at least 6 months or more. Also, hacker deleted about 1 thousand Pokémons out of my storage, I usually keep all shinnies I catch, many were gone from my storage when I checked. It was also half way into level 46, it was disappointing to see all of that but I was happy to get my account back. I was told to link the game with 2 factor authentication and my answer was: IT WAS ALREADY LINKED to the trainer club account. Until today I wonder how the hacker took my account like that. When it happened to Fleece, I could not believe it was happening to other users. I hope to never go thru this again, nobody needs to lose 8 years of game progress like that. If I had to start from zero I would probably just quit playing. Niantic wants us to play but when they refused to help, it was easily the most disappointing moment of this year. Until today I have no idea what was the past punishment, such a vague answer to give to someone who got hacked. I just wanted to share my experience and hope nobody else gets their accounts hacked but if you do, INSIST and don't give up! Niantic CAN help. BE SAFE OUT THERE EVERYONE -