[Thunderwolfcrys]

Hey JN,

I'm new here, but definitely an old time Neopets player. I've come here to seek your advice on a topic that has become increasingly frustrating, as much of the issue is taking place outside of my hands. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Affected accounts: Thunderwolfcrys (main), Thunderwolfcries (side)
Status: not frozen, but both are attached to an email that is not able to receive any Neopets@neopets.com automated messages. My main's pass is lost and I cannot receive the email to regain access.


Details on why I cannot access my account:
I had recently changed my pass and unfortunately had forgotten it due to my account always being logged in. When I got logged out automatically by Neopets just 8-9 days ago, I realized that I couldn't remember my pass. I thought, "Alright I'll just have my pass sent to my email, no problem". I was, in fact, very wrong in that regard.

I requested my pass to be sent automatically to my email, which I can access perfectly fine. I waited. Nothing. Waited a whole 24 hours, still nothing. I thought I had been hacked, but when I got a grip of myself, worried like heck, I attempted to discover if there was some issue with Neopets contacting my valid (has never had a problem with Neo before) email address. I logged onto my side account, for which I thankfully remember the pass to; checked the email to make sure it was the same one tied to my main account (thunderwolfcrys). It was. Sent in a "lost username" and a "lost pass" request for my email address and both accounts. Nothing. This is when I knew it was my email being the source of the problem - not from being hacked.

I promptly sent in a help ticket for my main about requesting an email change so that I could request my password successfully. I described in the ticket that AOL had outdated my extension for my email account that had been tied to my username for a long, long time... so I was hoping to get an email change so I could request my pass successfully.
(Note: I have an incredible amount of "proof" information stored for my main, for which I have successfully proved to Neopets at least twice in the past that my account belongs to me - I do not think there will be an issue with proof, as much as it might be that they just won't provide an email change... for some odd reason)

My email service provider is AOL, and the email account I registered a long time ago, went under the extension @netscape.net. This is an extension owned by AOL Mail, and it was turning up mailer-daemon errors upon my other emails attempting to message it via the @netscape.net extension, versus the @aol.com extension. I contacted AOL support, and a kind moderator fixed it so that I could once again receive emails at the @netscape.net address. I was elated, and thought my problems were fixed!

Wrong. I requested my pass and username associated with that email, and received no messages from Neopets. I began to worry about where to go to for help, since I haven't gotten a reply to my help ticket yet... and a friend of mine said that a friend of theirs had the same issue with their AOL email a long time ago, and Neopets said that they couldn't help her at all. This was incredibly disheartening, but I am more than determined to beat the odds.

In an attempt to troubleshoot the issue, I sent a lost pass/username request for a different side account that was tied to a Gmail email address. Got the messages instantly, so there was clearly no trouble there. Then I logged into my side account tied to my troubled @netscape.net email. I changed my side account's email to my Gmail address successfully, then attempted to change it back to my @netscape.net email. After a few minutes, my side account got this neomail from TNT:

"A message you sent to [edited out]@netscape.net was not delivered. The message from the other server is 'This email address has bounced in the past'. Check http://www.neopets.com/faq.phtml to find out what you can do to fix the problem."

So they had verified my fears finally. The only thing Neopets states about emails not receiving their messages, is to "contact your email's service provider". I knew it was an AOL-side issue, so I went to support again. I am in the middle of corresponding with their support team, but they seem to be pointing the finger back at Neopets, saying that I have to ask Neopets to go to AOL's Postmaster (http://postmaster.info.aol.com/) to deal with the issue. Unfortunately, I am sure that there is little to no possible way Neopets would do that for me. I have explained this to AOL support, and am waiting on a response to see if they can do anything on their end. I am trying to remain hopeful, even though it sounds as if they're probably going to say, "Sorry we cannot help you, please contact Neopets for assistance".


This is where I open my case up to you...
I have literally no idea what to do. I have done as much correspondence with AOL as I could find available. I will continue to do so, but I'm afraid that it can only go so far. As far as dealing with Neopets, does anyone have advice on how to present this issue to staff?
Should I resend a help ticket explaining that Neopets.com has verified via neomail message that my email is bouncing their messages, and that I have received word from AOL to have them contact AOL Postmaster?
Do I send in separate help tickets for my two accounts (main and side) tied to the email that is bouncing all of Neopets' automated emails?
Do I have any hope for regaining access to my main?

These are all questions that I have been asking myself for the last 8-9 days, without answers for any of them. If you have any helpful advice or suggestions, please feel free to let me know. I am willing to go to great lengths to get my account back. My main is very important to me, and cannot bear to see it lost to a technical issue that is completely out of my hands.

Thanks,
~Thunderwolfcrys

This post has been edited by Thunderwolfcrys: 20 October 2011 - 01:31 AM

[Grog]

That really stinks :(

I would suggest Option #1 (wrapped because of length)

Spoiler

("Should I resend a help ticket explaining that Neopets.com has verified via neomail message that my email is bouncing their messages, and that I have received word from AOL to have them contact AOL Postmaster?")

.

Also, don't give up hope! snarkie from TNT comes round here to the Jellyneo forums occasionally and may be able to look in to this kind of thing for you (but that's unfortunately a big maybe).

If you do get access to you your main again, I would suggest changing your email to another provider (gmail or the like) ASAP!

Good luck!

Edit: AOL may be blocking email from certain Neopets addresses because of a "bad reputation": I checked the IPs on a couple of emails I got from TNT and one was rated "Neutral" (mailer2.mtvi.com from a forgotten password email, from address was "Neopets@neopets.com") and the other was rated "Bad" (neopets-customerupdates2.mms.neopets.com an email about Treasure Keepers on Facebook, from address was "news@mms.neopets.com").

[Thunderwolfcrys]

Thanks for the info!

Neopets@neopets.com is the current "lost password" email that Neo is using. I checked it recently with a side account that I have which is set up to send the emails to Gmail. Unfortunately, I've heard that several people in the past have had this same issue with AOL not receiving mail from Neopets... and then Neopets telling the user they can't do "anything" about the issue because it's a problem on AOL's side. Hopefully this isn't the case.

I can clearly prove to Neopets that I am the owner of my account, so I dont see why they couldn't allow for such a request. Or perhaps it would be better to just request my pass (in the help ticket), instead of requesting them to go through changing my email for me? I know they probably will deny me the email change without me being able to access my account, considering what I've heard. But requesting them to provide my lost password? That seems like a more likely avenue for which they would be willing to accommodate. Maybe? Hopefully someone can provide incite. I'd really like to know if Neo has ever agreed to reset someone's email to something new in the past, upon the event of a lost password and your email being deactivated/deleted/etc.

Anyway, here's to hoping that Snarkie may see my topic and help if she can. Thanks for the reply!

[User221]

I actually helped a person with a case just like yours however it was before the integration of the support of both sites. All he had to do was open a ticket to Petpet Park and they reset his password for them. However because the two supports are now merged (among other things) it's best to just open a ticket on the most-used-portion-of-the-account.

Just open a ticket explaining the situation and give it a few weeks.

[Raven Rose]

I had a problem with using an AOL email address for neopets. My main account was compromised and when I got it back, whoever took my account had changed the PIN but when I tried the get my PIN sent to me, the email bounced back. And I couldn't change the email without the PIN but I could get the PIN without changing the email. So basically the PIN function was protecting my account from me. But I was able to reopen my scammed ticket and told them the problem so they disabled the PIN function.
I was able to get emails from the support department sent to my AOL with no problem, I just couldn't get the ones that request PIN/password/username and other in-site emails.

But if you can prove the account is yours maybe TNT can reset the password and send the temporary one to your email, which is basically what they did for me after they unfroze my account. Then you can get into the account and change the password and email.

[Thunderwolfcrys]

Reply from AOL Mail Support: 59 minutes ago
"Thank you for taking the time and effort in writing all the information you've provided. I can see that you are very willing to cooperate in resolving the issue and I understand that you want to correct this as soon as possible. However, in as much as I would like to point you to our AOL Postmaster, it will not be very helpful because it is required that the domain administrator of the Neopets@neopets.com that must contact the AOL Postmaster.

Here is the link for the support request: http://postmaster.ao...portRequest.php

If you have any inquiries, please feel free to write back and we'll be more than happy to assist you.

Thank you for choosing AOL. Have a great day!

Sincerely,

Camille
AOL Email Support"



Edit: Ugh, just what I thought would happen. Pointing the finger to Neopets to contact them to solve the issue... yet Neopets is incredibly unlikely to follow through on this even if I request it. Bleh. And I just realized that the link she gave me is not a support request form that I can use. In fact, AOL Postmaster has no form for AOL users to request support from. Rubbish. I'm going back to the AOL community support/questions area. Will attempt to inquire about Postmaster and see if anyone /else/ has work-arounds to offer.



@User221
Thanks for sharing the experience, definitely boosts my morale on the issue knowing that this isn't such a lost cause. I know that a friend of mine had a friend fall victim to nearly the same issue, and she lost her battle to get her account back... very disheartening, but I'm still hopeful that this can be resolved.

I'll be sure to send in another ticket after about another week or so. I sent my first one in before having corresponded with AOL, so I shall resubmit my ticket then if I have not already gotten a ticket response.

@Raven Rose
Ah I see, thanks for sharing your experience. I guess the issues with AOL have been going on for quite some time. The only problem here that makes my situation more dire is that I cannot access my account at all due to a lost pass... so I cannot change my email or request anything at all. Quite frustrating. I know my PINs by heart, thankfully.

This post has been edited by Thunderwolfcrys: 21 October 2011 - 01:46 PM

[Raven Rose]

Thunderwolfcrys, on 21 October 2011 - 01:45 PM, said:

@Raven Rose
The only problem here that makes my situation more dire is that I cannot access my account at all due to a lost pass... so I cannot change my email or request anything at all. Quite frustrating. I know my PINs by heart, thankfully.

Are you saying you can't access your email account or your neopets account or both?
I don't know if I read it wrong but I thought you had access to your email account and the problem was the password for your neopets account.
So I was trying to say that TNT might reset the password for your neopets account and send the new password to your email, if you submit a "Passwords/Account Access Help" ticket. Do you know if your email will allow email from Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds Support, who deals with the tickets? My AOL does so yours might. I don't know if they would but you can try asking them to send it to a different email than the one on the account, you might need definite proof the neopets account is yours though.
And you don't have to be signed into the account in question to submit the ticket or any account for that matter but I think that it is more helpful if you send it from a side account so you have access to the ticket and can check the status or add info. The ticket asks what account the ticket is for.
Then once you get a new password, you can sign into the account and change the email.

Granted it might take a month or so before you get a response or any change in the ticket status, so you will have to be patient.