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Could someone reopen my closed email account?

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Summary: After deleting an on-line account the ID is eventually made available for re-use. It's the same name but a different owner, and that can confuse people.

I have terminated my Yahoo account. There's a clause in the form that says that after 90 days my user ID can be made available to others. Does that mean that if someone then snaps up my old user name they could start impersonating me? Would he see everyone on my contact list? Would my old contacts see him and think I was back on-line?

Could that person try and impersonate you? Yes.

Will it be easy? Maybe.

This actually applies to all the services, not just Yahoo. The "90 days" part might change, but the basics would still apply.

When you close or abandon your account with any of the email or IM service providers, they typically do exactly what you've seen called out in the Yahoo text: after some period of time they make your abandoned user name available again. To anyone. All someone has to do it sign up and ask for it.

Now, exactly when it's returned to the available pool of names varies greatly. If you close your account with your ISP they could make your ID available again the next day if they wanted to. Most free services like Yahoo and others wait at least 30 days and most wait much more.

Typically, if you attempt to use your old name before time runs out it resets the clock. I mean, if you're successfully logging into it, you're clearly not "abandoning" it. Even if you go through a provider's steps to cancel an account, there's often a grace period after that where you can change your mind, login and "un-cancel" it.

Things get a little confusing when folks use two different services from the same provider, say email and instant messaging, that use the same ID. Using either one is usually enough to keep the other alive.

When your account is finally, really and completely closed by the provider, I believe several things happen:

  • Any email, files or other items stored in the account are irretrievably deleted.

  • Any contacts, friends or buddy lists are irretrievably deleted.

  • I hope that buddy lists maintained by the provider that reference your ID will remove you.

(Sometimes, as in the case of Hotmail, these things can actually happen well before the account is finally closed.)

The last point, however, is both incomplete and uncertain.

For example, I might have your account in my contacts in MSN Instant Messenger. When your account is finally truly deleted MSN could remove you from my list. I'd actually expect it to.

However these services can't remove you from lists that they don't manage. That means if someone adds you to an address book that's not part of the service, there's no way to remove that when your ID is deleted.

Even more likely are services that allow you to maintain a kind of combined address book, buddy and contact list where you can add information of your own to each contact. In these cases the services may not be able to just delete the entry, because they'd be deleting additional information that your old buddy may have entered. I know I'd be annoyed if the system just deleted the whole thing out from underneath me.

So in summary, if someone picks up your ID after it's been deleted:

  • Any data in your account is lost, so they will not see your contact list or old email.

  • It's possible that it might look like you "came back" to people who used to be your buddies. It depends on the service, and how your buddies kept track of your ID.

In the long run, if you're at all concerned and particularly for free accounts, I'd simply keep the account open so that someone else doesn't get it.

To be totally honest, it's one reason why I'm very confused by the number of people who are looking for ways to delete their account immediately. All they're really doing is making it possible for someone else to sign up and get their old ID that much sooner.

Important: sadly, since I know it will happen, I'll delete any comments to this article that are simply requests to delete an account.

Related:

Article 11378 | Posted April 9, 2007

Recent Comments
14 Comments

Hello,
I had a yahoo account that i closed 3 years ago. Trying to register with the same ID, i noticed that this ID is still not available. I did all the things to make sure this ID is not taken by someone else. So i guess yahoo had marked my ID and never let it free.
So my queston is:
Is it possible that yahoo can mark some ID's like unavailable forever (for security reasons or for other reasons), even if they are not taken?
Thanks.

Posted by: Go at August 27, 2007 2:45 AM

An easy way around this is to get yourself a domain name , set all your emails to be shown as from the domain and not the actual email address and set up the mail forwarding on the domain host to come to your actual inbox.

(It's often possible to download webmail using outlook express for these purposes).

Then when you move mail provider or change your account just change the address the domain host forwards your mail to, nobody will be any the wiser.

It's worked for me over 3 ISP changes and many many account changes.

Posted by: Paul at September 4, 2007 11:37 PM

Hello,how are you?A friend of mine is working on a large business consultant event, in which he wants to e-mail an invitation out to hundreds of people.His e-mail list is 18 pgs. long.How can he check these list to get rid of duplicate e-mails?And how can he batch them, so that no one else sees each others e-mail addresses?Can any of the two questions,I just asked about, be done by just changing the computer's settings?Is additional software needed to erase duplicates,sort and organize all those e-mails?He has Outlook on his PC.Thanks so much for your help.

Posted by: t johnson at September 20, 2007 12:16 PM

Hi,

I notice that recently yahoo's close my accounts just after few days not sign on to my email account.
This is something I've never seen for years since
I open my accounts with yahoo.

I tried to reopen my account but was unable to
do it. I guess yahoo's asking some info. I may
have not provide to them correctly base on their
database info.

Not sure if anyone out there who is experiencing
this and how to get back the old account.

Any tips or resolution to regain the closed
email account would appreciated.

CL.

Posted by: Canh Lam at November 15, 2007 8:42 PM

my friend told me that after 90 days she didnt sign on her yahoo messenger account.now she could not sign on to the account.but sometime i go online,her yahoo messenger online.it is possible if a new user still on my messenger list?how long before yahoo close your account if you dont use it?how long before your name available for someone else to register?please help me with this questions.thank you

Posted by: kevin at December 7, 2007 9:46 PM

Well i have a friend who has not operated his e-mail id since the last 2 and a half year?

Now due to certain reasons he wants some emails stored in the yahoo account.


So is it possible to excess the same account and retrive the emails stored 2 and a half years ago?

Posted by: Terence at December 31, 2007 4:08 AM

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No.

Leo


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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at December 31, 2007 3:08 PM

i yes this your ID will remove you now
bye

Posted by: SSIM at January 6, 2008 6:44 AM

How do you contact service providers? I deleted my account for yahoo today, and need it back just to delete my myspace account since my myspace was under that email account. Please help me, if you have the chance, thank you Leo.

Posted by: Rana at February 17, 2008 3:53 PM

how to reopen my closed yahoo email account?":

Posted by: raghu at June 16, 2008 2:01 AM

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