Primary Email disabled and I can't recover my password
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I have a site that was brought across from live.com and I have not used it for years. Recently the primary email was deactivated before I could change my email on WordPress.com. I looked at the recovery form but do not have any of the three IDs required. If I try to get my password reset I am assuming the link is being sent to my old email and I don’t think that SMS was implemented on the site. Is there any way to get back access to my site?
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Hi dennislclark8,
What is the address of the site you are having trouble logging in to? If you let me know, I can take a look and point you in the right direction.
Thanks!
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https://awatchmanonthewall.wordpress.com/
My old email was (email visible only to moderators and staff) which was deactivated when I retired from QUT. -
Hi there,
Since you need access that email address to recover your account, I suggest contacting your university and ask them if it’s possible to reinstate that email address even for a short period of time.
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If they can’t do that is there any way to get the email address changed? What other information would prove that I am the owner of the blog.
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Hi dennislclark8,
What other information would prove that I am the owner of the blog.
We can only help recover a site if you have access to the account email address or proof of ownership:
For security reasons, we can only accept the information listed there. Contacting the university will be your best bet without any proof of ownership.
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This link shows the link between Dennis Clark and the email address (email visible only to moderators and staff).
http://archive.li/mNG9I -
@dennislclark8 sadly that still does not prove that you are the owner of that site. Someone could still conceivably gain access to that information and pretend to be the site owner.
This form includes every proof of ownership we can accept:
https://wordpress.com/wp-login.php?action=recoveryThe username is awatchmanonthewall. If you can remember the password, that will work. If you aren’t able to remember it, and the university IT department is unwilling to work with you, your best bet may be to set up a new site.
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I am still waiting to hear from the IT department. Do you understand that my site was brought over from http://awatchmanonthewall.spaces.live.com and therefore I never had any of the information required in https://wordpress.com/wp-login.php?action=recovery.
Also I want to retain my username AWatchmanOnTheWall but I assume if I had to create a new site I could not have that. -
Here is the communications with QUT and should prove that I am the owner of my web site and was the owner of (email visible only to moderators and staff).
Hi Dennis,
I’ve talked with Jaime in Collab and Comms and he’s advised that it isn’t something they can do for you sorry. I am happy for you to forward these emails to WordPress if that help you in your quest to unlock the access but I think that’s as far as I can go.
(redacted)
From: Dennis Clark <(email visible only to moderators and staff)>
Sent: Wednesday, 14 November 2018 8:07 AM
To: Tim Morris <(email visible only to moderators and staff)>
Subject: Re: Reactive EmailHi Tim,
I am doing OK but don’t feel retired yet. List of jobs is getting shorter.Maybe they could recreate (email visible only to moderators and staff) temporarily.
It is interesting that my WordPress account was originally brought over from spaces/live.com which I think was Microsoft. Now to recover an account without the email you have to have one of three items which never existed for me so they are insisting that the only way is to have the recovery link sent to the email associated with the account.
Regards,
DennisSent from my iPad
On 14 Nov 2018, at 7:48 am, Tim Morris <(email visible only to moderators and staff)> wrote:
Good morning Dennis,I hope you are well. I will need to check with the email guys if the account still exists as Microsoft decommission email for ex-staff after 14 days (although in reality it often takes a bit longer). I’ve attached the relevant MOPP passage below.
1.5.7 Decommissioning of email accounts
Student email accounts
Student access to email ceases the day after their notified graduation ceremony date (or alternative completion date for courses without a graduation ceremony), or as directed by the University Vice-President (Administration) and Registrar.
Staff email accounts
Staff access to email ceases 14 days after the staff member’s cessation of employment with the University, or as directed by the Director, Human Resources.
It is the responsibility of the head of department or school to ensure that email records of a staff member who has ceased employment with the University remain accessible and are retained for the period of time required by the University Sector Retention and Disposal Schedule and the Queensland State Archives General Retention and Disposal Schedule.(redacted)
—–Original Message—–
From: Dennis Clark <(email visible only to moderators and staff)>
Sent: Wednesday, 14 November 2018 6:27 AM
To: Tim Morris <(email visible only to moderators and staff)>
Subject: Reactive EmailHi Tim,
I sent this to Mark but have not had a response yet. He may be away or busy. Could you please see if you are able to authorise the IT Helpdesk to reactive it for a couple of days until I can get access to the website again.
Regards,
DennisHi Mark,
I have an account with WordPress for which I have forgotten the password.
Because I had not used it for a few years I had missed changing over the email before my QUT email was deactivated.
To gain access to my account I need to have the recovery process send an email to (email visible only to moderators and staff). The Helpdesk indicated that it can be reactivated for a short time if you can provide them with authorisation.
It you can’t or it can’t be done I will have to try and convince WordPress that I was the holder of that account.Regards,
DennisSent from my iPad
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Hi Dennis,
I appreciate you would like to move forward with this but as @supernovia mentioned, we can only accept the proof of ownership information listed here if the account email address is no longer active.
We are unable to accept forwarded emails but if QUT can temporarily reactivate the email address for just a little while, we can look at helping you accessing the site again (and updating the account email address).
Let us know if that will be possible and we’ll try and help you get this sorted as quickly as we can.
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Hi,
Can’t you see that QUT are verifying my previous ownership of that email account. They cannot activate the account. If you need to contact them yourselves and verify my ownership please do it. I want my AWatchmanOnTheWall account name and that is only possible if you change my email address and allow me to have access to my site. As far as the requirements that you mention they were never in place when I was given the account so how can you require them of me.
Regards,
Dennis -
You’re correct, you would not be able to use that username without recovering it first.
I’m noticing, for what it’s worth, that the emails are being accepted by their server. They may be just be going to a black hole, but if not, they could just forward the latest “[WordPress.com] Password Reset” email to you, and you could reset your password with that. You’d just want to update your email address right away of course.
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Hi there,
When you created your account, we never asked you who you are or asked you to provide any form of ID. So another person verifying that you are the person you say you are does not verify that you are the owner of a particular account.
The three forms of verification listed on our account recovery page are the only pieces of information that are entirely unique to an account, and except for the email address that only us and the account owner knows.
Because other people besides the account owner could potentially know what the email address is, simply telling us the email address also does not verify ownership – we need an actual email from that address to prove we’re dealing with the person who owns the email address.
We’ve asked our account recovery team if there are any other options in this case, but we don’t make exceptions to the verification requirement for giving account access.
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Would you agree that the owner of (email visible only to moderators and staff) is the owner of the account?
As I have said before, when my account was moved from spaces/live.com to WordPress I was not given any of the three items that you obviously provide people now for recovery. If you write to QUT, who is the provider of (email visible only to moderators and staff), and verify with them that I was the owner of (email visible only to moderators and staff) why is that not proof of ownership. I have had that email for over 22 years until I was made redundant and left QUT at the end of September. After two weeks that email was deleted.
It is crazy that you cannot accept that if QUT verify that I owned (email visible only to moderators and staff) that you can’t give me back access to my account. Do the right thing because I was never given what you are asking for and my only verification is QUT’s testimony which would be proof in any court. -
Transaction ID: My account is a free account and I have never purchased any upgrades therefore no Transaction ID.
Activation URL: My account was transferred from spaces/live.com and as I was not involved in its creation there was no WordPress Activation URL.
There was no two factor authentication either. -
@dennislclark8 do you remember changing the email address?
Also, if you are able to remember the password, be sure to update the email address and add backup verification methods.
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I managed to remember the password last night but could not change the email until the account which was using my email (which I have now deleted) expires after 30 days. It would help if that process could be sped up.
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Please reply to the account closure email we sent you when you deleted the other account, and request that we manually delete the email there. Once we’ve done that, you’ll be able to use the email for a different account.
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