Stolen password
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Two weeks ago after adding a new post to my 7 year old blog I must have forgotten to logout. Shortly after I got out of the program, I received an email from WordPress telling me that someone requested to change my password, and asked if that was me, then said it it was me then just ignore. Since I had just gotten out a few minutes ago, I assumed that my 77 year old brain must have screwed up and it must have been me. Wrong! It was someone else and they got away with my Blog. They added numbers to the end of my User Name and then changed my password as well. I can’t get back into my own account. I have followed all suggestions offered online from WordPress, but I have changed stuff so many times I’m not sure about anything anymore. I need a human to go behind the scenes and help me. Will someone in the company please help me?
Contact me at (email visible only to moderators and staff) -
Hi there,
Two weeks ago after adding a new post to my 7 year old blog I must have forgotten to logout
Please can you confirm this blog was hosted by WordPress.com. Giving us a URL will help us verify this.
They added numbers to the end of my User Name and then changed my password as well.
Have you followed the Account Recovery process? This would grant you access back to your account provided you have the information listed, which is likely still available to you: https://en.support.wordpress.com/account-recovery/
I need a human to go behind the scenes and help me. Will someone in the company please help me?
I’ve tagged WordPress.com staff to help you with this issue. You’ll likely receive a response within a few hours from a staff member: https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question
In the future though, to prevent being hacked, please consider enabling 2 Step Authentication: https://en.support.wordpress.com/security/two-step-authentication/
Hope this gets resolved soon. :)
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Hi there,
As @torres126 mentioned already, can you please let us know your blog’s address so we can further assist in recovering access to it?
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1 – Please can you confirm this blog was hosted by WordPress.com. Giving us a URL will help us verify this?
https://gruehlin.wordpress.com
2 – Have you followed the recovery process?
I have changed PW and username so many times trying to recover it that I am lost about where I am
My picture was not changed and I would be glad to send you a picture of my driver’s license to prove I am who I say I am
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Hi there,
The account you’re using to post here, gruehlin337852008, is a brand new account, created only two weeks ago. This account has never owned any sites on WordPress.com, and the password changes you’ve been making are for this account.
The site, https://gruehlin.wordpress.com, belongs to a completely different account with the username, gruehlin. There has been no recent changes to that account, and the username for that account is still gruehlin.
I can see several password reset requests for that account in the past two days, and our logs show the reset emails are being delivered. To be clear, these are being sent to a different email address than the Gmail address you’re using for the gruehlin337852008 account, so please check any other email addresses you have for those.
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Thanks for your reply!
My original account that I used for 7 years was for George Ruehling,
email: (email visible only to moderators and staff)
URL: https://gruehlin.wordpress.com
User name: gruehlin
PW: was [ redacted ]
Now when I go to URL https:/gruehlin.wordpress.com it opens to what looks like my normal content but clicking on my avatar shows the username gruehlin337852008. The first part is my old username but I have no idea where the numbers 337852008 came from. Also, my old password, [redacted], no longer works.
In summary, I am unable to reclaim my original blog content. I can’t get back to my original account I listed at the front of this reply. I only have the one email account with Gmail that I use regularly, though I do have an unused Comcast email account, (email visible only to moderators and staff). If notifications were sent to another email account besides those two, it was not done by me.
So, I don’t know how to resolve this situation without sending you a copy of my drivers license to prove I am who I say I am, and ask you to reinstall the content, approximately 150 posts to my original account with my username, gruehlin and a different PW supplied by you, connected to my gmail email account and URL. -
Hi there,
We know that losing access to an account can be frustrating so let’s try to get the account recovered. While we cannot accept personal identification files such as a driver license as proof of ownership we do accept a few other forms of proof located here:
You mentioned that you’ve entered your email in the password reset form, please try any email address you may have used. Alternatively, enter your username and the link will be sent to the password on the account.
As for the double username, you may log out of your current account with the numbers by going to https://wordpress.com/me and clicking “signout” this will allow you to log back in as
gruehlinAs a reminder, staff will never ask for or need to see your password. As these are public forums I have removed your posted password from the thread we strongly encourage the change of the password once the account is recovered.
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Thanks for your reply!
I looked at your https://en.support.wordpress.com/account-recovery/ form but my account is 7 years old and I no longer have an transaction ID or an activation URL or key and I did not setup two factor authentication.
I tried my Comcast email but your system said it did not recognize it as having been used.
I tried your suggestion of using https://wordpress.com/me and clicking “signout” you noted that would allow me to log back in as gruehlin and drop all the numbers, “337852008” that someone added to my original username gruehlin, but since they changed my original PW to something that I do not have – I could not log in.
Yes, I am frustrated, but thanks for trying to help! -
you noted that would allow me to log back in as gruehlin and drop all the numbers, “337852008” that someone added to my original username gruehlin, but since they changed my original PW to something that I do not have
No one added those numbers to your username. The gruehlin username has not been changed in any way. gruehlin337852008 is a brand new account which you created only two weeks ago. You created it, not anyone else, and you created it using the Gmail address you provided above. That Gmail address has never been connected to any other WordPress.com account before you created this account two weeks ago.
The gruehlin account was created seven years ago using a completely different email address. That email has never been changed, and is still the original email with which the account was created, and the password reset emails are going to that address. These are being triggered when you type your username in the password reset form, so it’s not someone else sending them.
For security reasons we cannot tell you what that email is, however. But this will be an email account that’s at least as old as the WordPress.com account.
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to Kokkieh
I received your comprehensive answer dated Aug 9th, thank you!
Your suggestion to look for the original email with which the account was created 7 years ago has proven to be a tall order. At that time I had two Comcast accounts, one for same front end as my gmail and the other for same front end + g. In addition, I had a Bellsouth account with the same front end. When I tried to bring those email accounts up I found that none of the passwords that I had originally assigned was acceptable, that is, I can no longer login, so I am unable to access the password reset emails. The truth is, I thought at one time I had updated the email address to my gmail address, as such, I can’t understand why it sent the update emails to one of the earlier accounts.
Hopefully, there is another way to authenticate -
Can you try contacting Comcast and Bellsouth to see if you can reactivate those email addresses? It might be worth a try.
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To the sacred path
Thanks for your reply!
A few years ago, the old Bellsouth account transitioned through att.net and yahoo and I had no luck getting help -
Thanks to thesacredpath who suggested contacting Bellsouth and ask them to reactivate my old account. I did and they gave me a temporary PW so I could recover the email from WordPress that was sent to the account. That worked out well and led to my being able to ultimately recover my old WordPress account.
Thanks to all the staff who helped me along the way! -
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