AR+ bugs out and i lost a shiny Pinsir. Has anyone ever received help from Niantic directly with bugs?

I was taking some nice pictures with AR+ enabled of my second shiny spawn (it was "safe" since i already caught one) but since throwing is really clunky in AR i decided to turn it off...but it bugged. All the buttons disappeared and i was left with a camera screen thst still moved but i was unable to do anything. Had to close the game and since it seems the Pinsir was an incense spawn it was nowhere to be found again. I got more shinies after it but i see this bug really pissing people since without a "showcase" feature in the pokedex the only way to take AR pictures is with wild spawns but it seems it's really a risk. My phone is an S7 so more than capable of handling AR but it seems Niantic dodgy programming strikes again.
Are there any known cases of Niantic restoring or gifting people pokemon? With the recent Shedinja/Moltres debacle i can see some people asking for that