Why cant you just help me?
Posted by NOCmancer@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 165 comments
Our receptionist got a phone call asking to be transferred to IT. Obviously it shouldn't have gone this long but I was dumbfounded. This is how the interaction went...
Me: "Good Afternoon its nocmancer with IT how can I assist you"
Him*: heavy breathing*
Me: "Hello? This is IT...."
Him: "yeah is this IT?"
Me: "Yes"
Him: "I'm a former employee who got furloughed and left the company during covid and I need your help with my sons fortnite account"
Me: "I can only assist curre-"
Him: "You guys need to give me access to my company email for 24-48 hours so I get get the code for have you guys forward the code to my sons fortnite account because i somehow accidentally signed up with my old company email"
Me: "I cannot do that you would have to contact fortnite support or something because I cant help you. Anything else?"
Him: "I ALREADY SPOKE TO THEM AND IVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR OVER 100 HOURS NOW WHY CANT YOU JUST GIVE ME ACCESS"
Me: "We cannot and will not forward any emails to a non-employee let alone give them access to an email"
Him: "WELL ILL JUST CALL *Name drops a specific employee* AND HE WILL GIVE ME THE ACCESS I NEED"
Me: "No he wont, Anything else I can help you with?"
HIM: "WHY CANT YOU JUST HELP ME WITH THIS I DON'T UNDERSTAND SO HIS FORTNITE ACCOUNT IS JUST GONE NOW?"
Me: "No, I'm going to put the phone down now"
*click*
Obviously blasted him in our IT teams chat and we all shit all over this dude. I don't know about you guys but I would never in my life consider making such a dumb phone call. Calling a prior employer for access to an email for your sons video game? Really? C'mon my guy.
ITrCool@reddit
Dumb mistake number one:
Using a WORK email address for personal things like game accounts. NEVER use that account for anything outside of work. You’re just asking for headaches.
justking1414@reddit
Same for my school email back in college. I realized way too late that a lot of my accounts were linked back to it. Spent an entire day transferring over everything I thought I needed. Then a month later I got locked out of Reddit and realized that it was also linked to my now closed student email. F me!
TWFM@reddit
Apparently I haven't been properly grateful that my dot-edu address from college (I graduated in 2019) is still mine and will be mine forever, as long as I'm using it or at least respond to a ping from them every six months to let them know I'm still alive. I never realized that so many college addresses disappear when the student leaves.
Ldfzm@reddit
I learned this working at the help desk in college; we used to get so many calls from people who didn't know they'd lose their school email address and we had to tell all of them that there was nothing we could do :/
Made sure I had everything elsewhere that I wanted to keep from my school email when I was graduating for this reason!
LordLandis@reddit
I don't get why they think they'd get to keep it though...
Loading_M_@reddit
Part of it is that many schools do let you keep it. Other than that, they don't think about the fact that the school owns the account, and assume they own it.
Optional-Failure@reddit
You forgot the most important reason, that could also apply to the OP: they flat out aren't thinking about it at all.
When you leave a college, similarly to when you unexpectedly leave a job, you have a lot of shit on your plate.
Thinking about what'll happen to your school email address and any accounts tied to it won't be particularly high on that list.
In fact, they likely won't be on the list at all. I certainly wouldn't have been thinking at graduation time "Oh shit, my Amazon account is tied to my school email for the discounted Prime, and I might lose access to it after I graduate".
I wouldn't be surprised if the guy in the OP took this long to realize because it literally took him this long to realize.
Final_Figure_2802@reddit
In college I knew someone who kept her high school email account, I didn't even know that high schools gave people email accounts
justking1414@reddit
My school gave me a healthy warning and a 6 month notice to clear everything out and forward myself the most important stuff
wilsonhammer@reddit
My university made that promise, but I never trusted them to keep their end of the bargain. Sure enough, 7 years after graduation, they're killing email for all grads a few months after they get their diploma.
Just a bad idea to tie so much to an account outside your control
highlord_fox@reddit
I graduated back in the aughts, and my school email still works. I think it was/is an alumni perk, that it will get held onto forever.
I moved everything important off of it ages ago, but it remains up.
justking1414@reddit
Congrats lol. That certainly would’ve saved me some headaches
Sky_Katrona@reddit
I can see why they would do it though. Some people just don't have a personal email account so they have to use their work one. It's actually a pretty common issue with pretty much everything requiring an email address now.
SanityInAnarchy@reddit
Have to? They're free...
I can almost understand using a work laptop because you don't have a personal one, but...
ericherr27@reddit
The problem being, these days it's almost mandatory for you to have an email account on your smartphone. My 66 year old mother who isnt tech or computer literate has an email address, and knows how to use it. Solely because she has a smartphone, and no computer. I feel anyone millennial onward really have no excuse not having a personal email address.
Sky_Katrona@reddit
Not everyone has a smartphone or tablet though. Some people prefer the older phones so they don't need a google or apple account. This is mostly going to be an issue with millennials and the older generations. We grew up without them so we don't necessarily need them. Sure most of us probably have them by now but there are still those that don't trust technology, don't use online services, and will always go to an office if we need something taken care of.
SeanBZA@reddit
Yes even if you do not set up one you will have a default email. Android it will be a Gmail account, most likely the IMIE at gmail, while Apple does a similar one, and then non Google forks also have their own emails set up by default. Which is why google has the biggest email numbers, as every android phone ever made has an account, and they you have the other accounts people made as well on top of it as well.
darkhelmet46@reddit
Dude. I had to terminate an employee who had been with the company for almost 10 years and had her email forwarded to me. I spent months unsubscribing from shit. All kinds of random ass newsletters, her mortgage company, her credit card company, stuff from her kids schools... If it looked important I'd forward it to her because I'm not a jerk, but damn. So fucking frustrating.
ITrCool@reddit
I never understood the “they don’t have a personal email address” excuse either. It literally takes five minutes to create one for free with multiple providers out there.
It’s not a big expensive complicated process that no one can afford.
kariohki@reddit
I always take a double look when I see people with personal bookmarks (kids sports things, shopping sites, etc.) on their browser bar, so I can't imagine using your work email for those sorts of things either.
ITrCool@reddit
This is why I’ve ALWAYS kept the worlds apart. Even phones. If work wants me to have Teams and Outlook on mobile, and a number to call for page outs, you can bet I’m demanding a work-paid phone.
Iwannahumpalittle@reddit
stinkmaster69@alumni.sarahlawrencecollege.edu
HighOnGoofballs@reddit
I would’ve assumed the email account just doesn’t exist anymore
fshannon3@reddit
Seriously...left during COVID? That's probably been 3 years now. We'll hang on to a user's email account for maybe 30 days (while in disabled status) before completely nuking it, unless otherwise requested by management.
SavvySillybug@reddit
Does it matter? You work at company3 and employee7 was there a few years ago. Account is long gone, but you can just... remake it. Make a brand new employee7@company3 and it'll work.
Fortnite doesn't care about your previous emails, it just sends to the email address it has on file and wants you to get the new email. As long as you can get the right name on the right address it is going to work just fine.
I wouldn't be dumb enough to register any accounts on a company email to begin with, but if I did, and I needed it... yeah I'd call the company and ask nicely. I wouldn't vent my 100 hours of frustration on the poor IT guy, I'd just ask nicely if they can temporarily remake the email address and forward me the code I need to change the email on the account. It's really not a big deal if IT has access to create an email address with a custom name.
Laughmasterb@reddit
Just because you can give someone who doesn't work you an email account indicating they do work for you doesn't mean you should. That's a fucking stupid statement if I've ever heard one. You have no idea if that person you're talking to is telling the truth about why they want their old email address back. You don't even have any idea you're actually talking to that person.
That can create legal issues which makes it, in fact, a Big Deal™
SavvySillybug@reddit
I never claimed they should do it.
I'm just saying, from a technological standpoint, it does not matter that the email account was deleted. You don't need the original account, which was previously implied.
I specifically said "forward the code I need" and not "give me full access to the corporate account" because it would obviously not be a good idea to just hand out email accounts to people who call you.
A big deal legally and a big deal technologically are two entirely separate things.
It's not the user's problem if it is a problem legally. That is for IT to know. You just have to know that they can remake the account and ask if they will do it for you. And if the answer is "yes we could do that, but we're not allowed to" then that's too bad. But you asked and it was worth asking.
You're answering this from IT's point of view while I'm explaining it from the user's point of view, and you're very much missing the point I am making by taking this misaligned point of view.
IT-Roadie@reddit
An email alias might also perform this function temporarily.
B0_SSMAN@reddit
I would quite simply not allow my child to create a Epic Games account with my work email address.
Fixes_Computers@reddit
While I agree, even now, with the presence of many free email providers, I still encounter people who use their work email for personal purposes.
Huecuva@reddit
Those people are fucking idiots. I don't even use ISP provided email accounts at all because what if I change ISPs? I don't even know why ISPs even provide email accounts. Maybe they don't anymore.
Fixes_Computers@reddit
It's been a while, but I think I remember when ISPs stopped providing Usenet. Probably because only geezers like myself were using it.
PE1NUT@reddit
It fell into disuse because the whole alt.binaries part exploded in size with all the digital content (CD rips, movies etc.) being published in violation of copyright rules, making it a headache for network providers both legally and in terms of the amount of server resources required. Furthermore, NNTP didn't really have any proper control mechanisms in place, so many newsgroups got overrun by spammers and other miscreants who had figured out how to bypass the simple controls that were available.
My provider still offered NNTP access to the groups without binaries for a while. But the death sentence came when Google did its embrace/extend/extinguish on it: What is now 'Google Groups' is that company adding a web-interface to Usenet news, then extending it by adding their own newsgroup hierarchy which was actually outside of NNTP, and finally, more or less making themselves the only partner in this formerly worldwide distributed network.
Fixes_Computers@reddit
I know binaries were my last primary use. I can't remember the last time I read, let alone posted on, a discussion group.
Even with that, I haven't used one in years. I still get ads for news servers, complete with their latest offers. They primarily hock binaries and long retention. I don't know how they do it. The number of bytes per day of new content posted must be unimaginable at this point.
SeanBZA@reddit
Storage is cheap, and Google is really, really, good at doing deduplication, so all those spam messages actually are not that much space, the metadata of where they are showing up likely is 10k times as much as the deduped data, and very likely they also run a spam filter to remove it regularly as well, getting all that back with very little actual processing, as they simply remove the metadata and the tiny amount of content, which is fast. Plus text only, so it compresses well.
SeanBZA@reddit
ISP's provide email as a lock in method, because changing an email address is a pain, in that you have hundreds of places you actually care about the email you get from them, and it might take a year or two to change over completely. Almost all though do have an option to pay for email alone, as they figure that losing a customer, but still getting money from them essentially for free, is worth it.
aussie_nub@reddit
I don't think anyone is denying that they're fucking idiots. We deal with fucking idiots all day though, so surely you understand that they exist.
MilkshakeBoy78@reddit
survival of the smartest.
ericherr27@reddit
This right here. I came to say exactly this. Second, I can understand limiting one's children's access to the internet for many reasons. But an email address is needed for the most basic of things these days.
SavvySillybug@reddit
Good idea! I'll just go back in time and undo that, and my problem is solved.
aussie_nub@reddit
His point was more around the technical. Yes it can be remade. It shouldn't, but it can.
I can understand the person's frustration and also the reason why OP is right in saying no. The bit I'll never understand is why people use work emails for anything but work. Sign up for a free email account somewhere or pay the small amount to do it yourself. It's far better than the hassle of dealing with this situation.
GermanBlackbot@reddit
The caller explicitly says "accidentally". If it's one of those BYOD situations I can see how this happens – one autocomplete at the wrong place, one "Well, I'll just change it later", damage done.
aussie_nub@reddit
How do you accidentally sign up with your work email? Oops, typed out like 30 characters accidentally then filled out the rest of the form and received spam emails at it for 2 years but did it completely accidentally!
androshalforc1@reddit
If your personal is something like (first initial).(last name)@hotmail.com and your professional is (first initial).(last name)@company.com it could be an easy mistake and if i get spam emails i just set up rules to delete them.
aussie_nub@reddit
That's not an easy mistake still. Do you accidentally click on the confirmation email too?
androshalforc1@reddit
if both email addresses are being forwarded to your phone i could see it happening
aussie_nub@reddit
And your company just failed the security test anyways that you've been trying to stop by refusing access to the email anyways.
sysadmin_420@reddit
Autocomplete
mailboy79@reddit
I'm stealing that for the future. Have an upvote.
ExtremelyBanana@reddit
even just assign an alias
joe_attaboy@reddit
Do you seriously think this doesn't matter?
Try calling the last place you worked and ask them to do this for you. No matter how "nicely" you asked someone, any tech support person or mail system admin who did this should be fired for a pretty basic security violation: providing access to a company system to someone with literally no current connection to the company, previous employment notwithstanding.
And anyone in upper management, short of a CEO, who permits this should be at best severely reprimanded and at worst, sacked.
The moron who made that call can deal with Fortnite support or create a new account, if possible, with the correct address.
MSPintheCornfield@reddit
I mean am I the only one missing the obvious line here? If I had the free time to take 5 minutes, I'd remake the email he asked for, log into it myself, have him send the password reset/account transfer from epic, then click the link myself, or give him the code from the email, then nuke the inbox again.... no security issues with someone outside the company accessing the box, the guy gets to fix his mistake, and doesn't have to suffer through a child having a meltdown.
joe_attaboy@reddit
You're making one major assumption: that you, as a support tech at whatever level, can just create a mail account and inbox on a company mail system.
I can't recall working anywhere (except my last job with the Navy, where I held domain over everything) where creating an email account and setting up a mailbox didn't require the assistance (at the very least) of someone at an administrative level, often specifically an email server administrator. I know I've been retired for a couple of years, but thing can't have changed that much in two years.
I think a lot of people are missing the main point here. The ex-employee doing the Fortnite setup fucked up in a big way by giving the Fortnite people his old work email address. I cannot imagine that he thought that email address wasn't going to have mail sent to it, especially in the initial setup process. Could he possibly have had so many different email addresses that he accidentally gave them a work address that he hadn't used in at least two years?
For me, as someone who spent a lot of time working with security issues at all levels, the idea of some tech support person "re-creating" a former employees mailbox so they can get one email for one of the most trivial reasons is just laughable. People responding here make it sound like "re-creating" the mail account (which is not the case here, it's now a new account) is just some trivial little act that any shlub with a company login can do, when anyone who's spent any time in admin knows this is likely not the case.
The more important thing, however, is this: are there companies of a size large enough to have a tech support team (in-house or by contract) that would allow this kind of thing to occur? This would indicate to me that there's a lack of seriousness in the design and implementation of overall security measures, and exposes a situation where, as with an inexperienced or shoot-from-the-hip technician, someone could very cleverly social engineer their way into "asking a favor" and ending up getting at least a toe in the door to breach some company system.
I get the idea that people just want to do the Fortnite moron a "favor." Sorry, go do favors on your systems at your house; you don't own the servers, the network or authority the access anything more than whatever you use on the helpdesk.
IceManiacGaming@reddit
Do you know what forwarding is? Bro you’re blowing up over something that is very easily achievable without any compromise to the company at all. Sure it would be pretty stupid of this guy to just setup the account without at least asking his boss if it’s ok to forward an email from an old account. Sure yeah if it was like Walmart you probably aren’t going to get that email forwarded but if someone asked me that from my company I wouldn’t say no. I would ask for permission and explain that I will just be forwarding an email to this person and depending on the circumstances of their departure we would 99 percent of the time help them because we’re human not robots with 0 feelings.
joe_attaboy@reddit
Yeah, I know what mail forwarding, FFS.
The only acceptaible thing for the tech to do in this case is say "no, sorry, have a nice day."
This has nothing to do with being human or having "feelings." Your "feelings" don't pay that guy's salary.
The whole situation would have been avoided if Dad setting up the game account wasn't such a moron.
IceManiacGaming@reddit
You’re wrong sorry mate.
SavvySillybug@reddit
The "matter" in this case is "the account is deleted", not "it's legally a bad idea to do this".
Alright. And they said no. Now what? I asked, it was worth asking, it would have saved me a lot of trouble if they'd done it, but they didn't, so now I can accept that the solution didn't pan out. Am I an idiot for asking? It cost me nothing but a few minutes of my time and politely asking and then accepting the answer is a perfectly fine thing to do.
I specifically said "forward me the code" and not "give me access to the company system". It's a reasonable request to ask for a Fortnite access code. It's not a reasonable request to ask for a whole account.
PXranger@reddit
It’s not a reasonable request.
This guy hasn’t been an employee for years. It’s no different than going to an old employer and asking for access to your old desk because you left Something behind, years ago. You can certainly ask, but it certainly is not a reasonable request.
SavvySillybug@reddit
I think your definition of reasonable is misaligned with the commonly understood meaning of the word.
And why wouldn't you get access to your old desk, provided it is, to fit the email example, a long abandoned desk dusting away in storage, instead of an active one in use by a new employee who'd have their own stuff in it now?
Get one guy to accompany you for 15 minutes as you look through the desk and be escorted back out, it's literally fine. And it's similarly fine to ask if they can access an email for you and give you the funny Fortnite login code from it.
anomalous_cowherd@reddit
No, this is like saying "I left a picture of my family on the wall of my old office. If it's still there could you send it to me please?
Nobody is asking for access to the account, just for a piece of information from it which is not company related.
It is still a bit dubious but it's nothing like asking for full email account access.
joe_attaboy@reddit
No, it's not reasonable. Sorry, but the man's inability to think logically and provide the correct information doesn't constitute a requirement by some random third party with no connection to the issue to provide a solution.
And the scenario you spelled out is not the same as the OP's caller. You at least have the good sense to ask the question and move on after being denied. That doesn't make you an idiot, it makes you reasonable. "Reasonable" and "sensible" is not how one would describe the original caller.
Having an email sent to a work email address that is no longer accessible or even in existence doesn't mean it doesn't access the company's system. The email will, at some point, enter their email system and get bounced or dropped into some "not found" bucket. But it still gets into their system. Once that email arrives on their server, it's their property.
Equivalent-Salary357@reddit
I didn't have an email address at the last place I worked (30-40 employees), but if I had asked the owner I'm 90% certain, they'd have their IT set up an email address and forward the code.
Larger places would probably be a different story.
paulcaar@reddit
If they're nice, they'd setup an alias for that mail address and forward the code to the former employee. No special access needed, no harm done. Just someone with enough rights to make aliases for their own account within the company domain.
I do understand why they don't, though.
aussie_nub@reddit
That's not true. If someone is socially engineering you to get access to that account then you've absolutely done harm to the account holder.
paulcaar@reddit
That is true, but let's be real. The story is about an Epic Games account where the mail address is inaccessible anyway. There is no other account to access.
He's also asking for a code, not a password reset, meaning that the password still needs to be known by the caller.
Snowenn_@reddit
Passwords can be gotten from breaches. Especially if the user reuses old passwords for various accounts. 2FA is supposed to protect you from that, but that only works as long as you won't let a criminal social engineer their way around it.
So they'd have to verify that this former employee is really who they say they are. Which is kind of wasting company time for a fortnite account that never should have been associated with the work email anyway.
paulcaar@reddit
Yeah, which is why I said that I get why they don't do it.
But also why I said that if they're being nice, there really wouldn't be any harm done. This isn't about a Microsoft account with devices to access. It's about an Epic Games Account.
midnitepremiere@reddit
If you were recently laid off or terminated and you realize you need something, sure. Calling years later? Come on. That's a bit much.
SavvySillybug@reddit
Why does that matter? You say that like that's just the natural conclusion of something.
Make the account, catch the email, give the code. That is the exact same effort recently or years later.
midnitepremiere@reddit
Because as an adult, you should have your shit together enough to not have things in your company email address years after you left the company. At some point personal responsibility starts to play a role here. It's unreasonable to expect a former employer to be that accommodating.
SavvySillybug@reddit
Bad decisions should always be punished forever, because you have Done The Bad Thing and that makes you a Bad Person Forever! The American dream.
midnitepremiere@reddit
I don't think that refusing to bend over backwards for someone is the same thing as punishing them, but clearly we have different levels of tolerance for the babying of adults, so we'll have to agree to disagree here.
WittyTiccyDavi@reddit
As many have explained here, there was no "bending over backwards" needed here. It's a scenario with a very common and very easy fix. You're just being obstinate.
WittyTiccyDavi@reddit
They were furloughed before being let go. There are places that don't let you access your email off-site. And if you planned to change over the account years ago before quitting, being fired, whatever, that chance was lost due to Covid and the decision to furlough some employees. It's like starting a roast in the oven, then remember you need something vital from the store, which you will still give you plenty of time to get back to take it out on time, only when you try to get back home, an accident has caused you to take a 15 mile stop-and -go detour through a construction zone, where you end up with 3 flat tires. So you call your roommate to please take the roast out before it becomes a cinder, and they say you should have thought of that before you put it in the oven, no can do, your chick is toast.
Yes, he made the bad decision initially, but everything else that happened was out of his control.
Snowenn_@reddit
You don't even need to recreate the email address. At least not in the company I work for. We have a domain @company.com, and anything sent to that will be accepted by our mail server. If user@company.com is an active mail box, it gets sent there. But if you send an email to blabla@company.com the mail server still accepts the email, but just doesn't place it in the blabla mailbox, because it doesn't exist. Instead, it goes into a catch-all sort of spam folder. And the admins can just look in there.
Though our company only has 6 employees, so there's a lot less spam and former-employee mails coming in than in a large company, which makes it easier to find if you're looking for a specific one.
It's important to have such a catch-all folder, because at some point someone will use administrator@company.com to sign up for something important, for example the certificates of our website. And if the email address doesn't exist anymore when the certificates need renewal, you don't want to have a problem.
That being said, I'd personally never sign up for something non work related with my work email, and I wouldn't send any information to a previous employee at all. Only if the CEO said it would be ok to forward the fortnite email.
Melbuf@reddit
Just because you can does not mean we will.
Hell we issue a new email for the same people if they leave and come back. Smithjd becomes smithjd2 if they leave and come back
We had some intern 3 times before getting hired and has had 4 diff emails
Ol_JanxSpirit@reddit
Yeah, we've had to do similar stuff. Just set up the old address as an alias to an existing one and boom.
We've had former employees realize they had their bank accounts tied to their company address the hard way.
xx123gamerxx@reddit
if the situation is as the other person discribed the email existing shouldnt matter too much as long as they can recreate the same email and recieve a code from epic
matthewami@reddit
Fuck, that was 3 years ago? I wanna go to bed now.
mccirus@reddit
I mean, help a guy out? Read him the code over the phone and tell him to change the email
SFHalfling@reddit
Cool, what happens when its not the account owner (which you have no way to verify) and you just helped someone steal an account with $25,000 worth of items on it?
Snowenn_@reddit
Very much this. The IT department has to make sure the caller is who they say they are. This is costing the company time and thus money, all for a Fortnite account.
Lv_InSaNe_vL@reddit
No, they are no longer an employee and they have no legal right to anything in there. In fact, as the IT guy if you gave him that code you could (and IMO, should) be fired. Once you make one exception you're going to be making them for the end of time and even one is way too sketchy for me.
Plus the fact that no business I have we've been apart of holds emails for 3 years after an employee has left the company unless theyre legally required too.
mccirus@reddit
No legal right of course, that’s what why I said help him out. It’s the nice thing to do, not the required thing.
Lv_InSaNe_vL@reddit
The "nice thing to do" in this case would risk your career, and possibly be a huge legal risk for the company.
I feel like people need to start realizing that like 80% of what IT does is just extensions of HR or legal.
It's not your fault that you signed up with a work email and not a personal one, but it would be when you breach the company's compliance requirements. As much as that sucks.
Mental_Cut8290@reddit
Probably, but that's not really the point.
I have the same issue with Facebook. Created the account with my .edu email, forgot my password, and now have no recovery email.
If I could just get the university to create that email address for one day, then I could update everything and they can delete it again, but there's no way anyone is doing that, just like OP.
LibraryGryffon@reddit
I worked for a large entertainment/hospitality company before covid, and left after we closed down in March of 2020. I was rehired for my old position last fall, after over 3 years away. When I got my email account, I still had all of my old tasks and calendars, which was useful, but not expected. I can only assume that with the downsizing that occurred, they didn't have the IT staff to go through and remove everybody who didn't come back after a year, and they also didn't need the server space either.
But...
The company only retains emails for 12 months unless you save them specially, which seems to be pretty typical in the corporate world, so even if this guy's email account still existed, I would be very surprised if any of the pre-covid emails still did.
Rathmun@reddit
So, he shouldn't have called you, but companies really need better recovery options when access to an email address is lost due to something like an employment change. Unless that email is literally the only thing they have on a user. But if the kid ever bought cosmetics in the game, there's a financial method of confirmation. Who's the name on the credit card? "I can prove I'm the one who bought this non-transferrable license, give me the login details."
So both the caller and Fortnight's IT are in the wrong here.
NOCmancer@reddit (OP)
I agree. Though to be honest he probably never even contacted Fortnite support for assistance so who knows. I mean there has go to be a way to confirm his identity and help him out on their end lol.
Rathmun@reddit
It should be possible, yes. But whether Fortnight's customer support is willing and/or empowered to do it may be another matter.
Elfalpha@reddit
Bit of a late reply, but I've been through the recovery process with Epic after the email provider I orignially signed up with shut down.
It took a lot of back and forth, every single detail and receipt of payment I could dig up, and a decent amount of heartfelt begging, but I got that account back.
And honestly? It was the heartfelt begging that worked in the end.
deeseearr@reddit
Epic's account recovery procedure does specifically say "If you've lost access to the email address currently associated with your Epic account, we recommend contacting your email service provider to try to recover access". Only after you have tried that will they consider taking other measures.
It didn't take me a hundred hours to figure that out but maybe I'm just really really good at reading things.
Rathmun@reddit
I've never actually looked at their account recovery procedure, but "Try the other way first" is fairly reasonable.
Sky_Katrona@reddit
I haven't had this specific issue with Fortnight so I don't know how well it would work with them but I do use my work address for bills and stuff on occasion (Active Duty US Navy and cant access personal email when deployed so I switch them to make sure bills are auto-paying and stuff). I have had to call companies three times in the last 17 years to get accounts switched to a new email and every time it has taken me less than 15 minutes.
Account Number? sure it's ....... or, i'm sorry, I cant access my statement to pull it up.
Name on the Account? First Middle Last
Address on file? Should be Apartment ..... or it might be my previous apartment at .....
Phone Number on file? Is ....
Card on file? Is .....
Social Security Number? Is .....
Bank, Utility, and I cant remember what the third one was but pretty much every time they will switch your information over without any issues as long as you can answer the basic security information you provided when you set up the account.
Final_Figure_2802@reddit
No one should be using an email address from their ISP either, it's amazing how some old people don't know that other email accounts exist
thoemse99@reddit
I strongly disagree here. In general, companies do have a good backup concept that fits their needs. Also for emails. There's no need to change this for some users who have the audacity to expect to profit of a company's infrastructure just because they are too lazy to deal with their private stuff by themselves.
Btw. I assume, it wasn't even necessary to make old mails available but just get his email working so he is able to reset his password. But though this would have been an effort of about 5 minutes, OP was right to deny this request.
Rathmun@reddit
That's not the point I'm trying to make. If you sign up for service A, with email B, and you lose access to email B, service A needs better recovery options.
Fortnight is a for-profit game. There's probably a credit card transaction or sixty associated with the account. "My name is on the credit card paying for this, I really am the account owner."
Ejigantor@reddit
The problem, however, is the need for the Service A Provider to balance ease of account recovery with account security - the easier it is for you to regain access to your account when you no longer have access to the registered means of contact, the easier it is for someone else to gain access to you account and yoink your shizz.
Rathmun@reddit
When you've paid money using a credit card or paypal, recovery via proving you're the one paying for it should be doable without much loss of security. "I paid for it, I can prove I paid for it. I can prove that I'm me. Is that enough?"
Leading-Force-2740@reddit
this is how i regained access to an email address that i had forgotten the password to, and lost access to the recovery email as well.
during the recovery process, they asked if i had used any of their paid services. fortunately i had paid for one year of 'premium' email service when they first started, i just had to quote the credit card number that i used, and i was back in. all without having to talk to anybody.
tldr: yes it can be done without compromising security, whether a service provider wants to make it that easy is another question entirely.
Ejigantor@reddit
Credit cards, it absolutely is. Paypal can be a little less clear.
The real stumbling block, though, is that these games and services all have gift cards, and plenty of accounts don't have a registered payment method on file even after making purchases, because they went to the local convenience store and paid cash for a GamerBuXXX card. (Which is also how I put money on my app store account, because I refuse to give them my credit card info, because I'm a paranoid and cynical bastard)
Rathmun@reddit
And in that case it's entirely valid to have only email as a method of proof. You've gone out of your way to avoid giving them anything else they could use, and that's entirely your choice.
Ejigantor@reddit
Yeah, sure. And most of the kids playing these games don't have credit cards on file either, and buy things using GamerBuXXX cards they receive as gifts or buy with their allowance and so on....
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
I had an interesting encounter with the bureaucracy a few years ago. Rang up some pointless government department (I know that's a tautology), Fought through the menu tree and endured the hold music (I passed the hold time by playing Medieval: Total War).
Finally talking to a real person, they asked me some questions to verify my identity.
Address. Correct. Date of Birth. Correct.
"Ummm. There's a problem. I need to ask you another question to properly verify your identity. But we don't have any more information I can ask you. And I can't add any more information until I've verified who you are. Ummm."
In the end I had to go in person so that I could prove who I was.
trip6s6i6x@reddit
Nah, employment is hardly ever guaranteed for life, no matter how important someone believes they are. As such, people should not be using their work email as contact for anything non-work-related. And this is why.
ghostlee13@reddit
^This.
megared17@reddit
People shouldn't use an employer-provided email account to sign up for non-work-related accounts or services.
ac8jo@reddit
Not just that, anything that can possibly have a "life" after an employment change (e.g. benefits like health insurance and 401k, professional organizations) should be treated similarly. The only time I use my company email is for project work and stuff like that.
Rathmun@reddit
Agree 100%, but there are other ways to lose an email address (e.g. provider incompetence). And there are also accounts where it's reasonable to sign up with a work email address, but then switch to a personal email address upon departure. Professional journals where the employer pays for a subscription for example. If an employee wishes to continue the subscription, that process should be clean and straightforward.
Fortnight is not a service that should ever be associated to a work account though. Except Epic employees I suppose.
Automatic_Mulberry@reddit
Absofuckinglutely. Work is work, home is home. I don't to my work stuff in gmail, and I sure as hell won't sign up for anything personal with my corporate email address. If I need another email address for some reason, it takes about two minutes to set one up.
Snowlandnts@reddit
This one weird trick might work at my previous job NGL.
Diminios@reddit
I dread the day my mom retires, because she kept making every single account that she ever uses on her company email. I keep reminding her to move her stuff over to a private email, but she can't be bothered.
Geminii27@reddit
Sounds like a social engineering attack, honestly.
upsidedownbackwards@reddit
Nah, I get old fucks doing this all the time. Usually people that owned or were high up in a company, they were active participants to selling out to a publicly traded company. Then they expect that the new company will think they are *SO* damn important that they'll be kept around forever as a consultant. At least for the 2 years they're contracted to keep doing work for the new company.
But they're never as critical as they think they are. New company has the 2 year contract in case they need information, but they tend to cut off all access 4-6 months after closing down the building. So I get Mr. Superimportant ex-executive calling me "I NEED ACCESS TO IT! MY CONTACTS ARE IN IT!". I have to shut them down because it's not my mail servers anymore, I'm not permitted to make any changes, and I'm certainly not going to try to extract information from their Outlook.
It's so pathetic to hear their little freakouts. "Well SOMEONE has to help me with this!". No, no they don't. You're not an executive anymore. You're a retiree. You traded control for money and it's so sweet for everyone else to see how you act when the world is out of your control and nobody is forced to care about/respect you anymore.
MyNameIs_Jesus_@reddit
I know I’m over a week late but we had a similar situation happen at our company. An exec left to be COO for a different company and was dumbfounded he lost access to his company accounts and said he would contact the CEO when we wouldn’t give him access. I guess he didn’t know was that the CEO contacted us originally to remove his access
Moneia@reddit
Especially with the "IT Employee X will do it"
IF that's the case why didn't you ask for them in the first place?
numbersthen0987431@reddit
"I've been spending 100 hours on this" is an interesting combination with "X employee will do this"
If that's the case, why didn't you start with that person?
cheesenuggets2003@reddit
If I were in this situation I would try to do everything in my power to not ask somebody to risk their job (and possibly legal consequences) over access to a video game account.
I also wouldn't be in this situation because Junior needs to be outside with a stick pretending to be a knight or something.
numbersthen0987431@reddit
I also wouldn't use my work email for my child's entertainment services, but some people are just special, lol
DoTheThingNow@reddit
This used to be WAY more common than you'd think, unfortunately.
I recall some VP that was retiring put in a request to convert his corporate email to a personal one and we were like... thats not how that works? He then got super mad and told us that he had been using his work email for everything for the past 15 years or so... This was probably 2011 when I had this conversation.
I think the company eventually ended up allowing him to keep access to only his email since he had been there for so long.
MikeLinPA@reddit
Yeah, that could never come back to bite them! /s
DoTheThingNow@reddit
I think it was because it was a different time. From the late 90s into the early-mid 2000s I think there were quite a few people that simply didn't use email until they had to for work. Since this was still the tech era of "Wild Wild West/Anything Goes" this sort of thing flew under the radar quite a bit.
This led to the situations seen in OPs post - I'd imagine there are still a very small set of holdouts like this (due to some businesses never changing technology/business processes ever).
Like there was a reason I was dealing with a retiring C-Level with this - that was probably one of the first email accounts that guy ever had so it ended up becoming his "Kitchen Sink" account.
BlueWater2323@reddit
Yep, I know a few people whose work email address was their only email address for a long time, because they didn't have a computer at home. (This was long before the days of smartphones and free email services.)
madpiano@reddit
Not really as he didn't specifically ask to have access to his email, just for them to forward the code so he can update the email address.
It sucks but some companies are just stupid when it comes to email addresses that no longer exist. It's like "we send you a code to the email address that's dead so you can update your details". And there is no alternative option (like SMS or something).
Qwirk@reddit
What? Literally right here.
MightyPitchfork@reddit
IIRC Fortnite is even worse. You don't even have to give them any contact details to sign up. And people spend years building their account up, and sometimes real money too. Then they get locked out of their account and have no way to regain control.
Potato_Lorde@reddit
I refuse to touch epic after they lost two accounts to sheer incompetence. Back when the data leaks were running wild I got a few old pws leaked which wouldn't be a problem if bots hadn't been trying to mass login to my acc and locking me out of it for what was essentially permanently until they fixed it a bit later.
Optimal_Law_4254@reddit
I had users that were that stupid so it could have been either.
ThePugnax@reddit
I never understand why people use work email for private things, things like this story is one of them.
XeonVega@reddit
Had a similar experience where a former employee that left on very bad terms keept calling to get help on his private devices / access to his old Company Laptop files.
Needless to say that this was the day I found out how to block a number withing our telecommunicationssystem.
Starfury_42@reddit
This is why I don't use my work or ISP email for anything personal.
VARTH_-DADER@reddit
Who tf makes their sons fortnite account using their work e-mail lol
sysdadministrator@reddit
RIP his fortnite account, it will be good character development for his son.
Optimal_Law_4254@reddit
What’s even worse is when the name drop is the local director and he tries to “make you” do it anyway.
OreoSoupIsBest@reddit
I have and would assist with requests like this. Honestly, it is pretty common for us. Once we verify identity, we just create an alias and assign it to the mailbox of the person who is handling the request and have them send the needed code. Give them the code, delete the alias and move on. The whole process takes a couple of minutes. Obviously, it needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and we wouldn't do it with anything that would be a security risk for us.
joe_attaboy@reddit
There isn't a reason on this planet for doing this that could not be considered a "security risk." Yes, your "solution" sound neat, simple and helpful. But it's still a security vulnerability.
Say some clown on the outside wants to breach your company's systems and calls you with this request. You set up some alias to send the mail to you or another tech. In the meantime, clown is really sending an email with some kind of malware, script or other payload. Say that inbound email sits in that inbox for an hour, or even a few minutes while you're busy taking care of real issues. Or, better yet, the clown on the outside sends a blind carbon copy to some other mailbox in your company. The person receiving that bcc sees it, wonders what it is and opens it, perhaps even clicks an attachment. Next thing you know, that payload has found its way into your company's LAN and you're screwed.
Yeah, an fairly unlikely scenario, perhaps. But are you going to be that nice guy in tech support who does someone a favor to help them out? For a freaking video game?
You may be Support Tech of the Year, but I'm sacking your ass if I found out.
OreoSoupIsBest@reddit
That's a whole lot of paranoia my man. There is an element of risk in anything, but not enough in helping out a VERIFIED user to not help out a fellow human.
I would absolutely sack your ass if I found out you behaved as OP did at my organization.
joe_attaboy@reddit
Well, I won't get into the OP's actions with his "customer." But 30+ years in IT, with the majority in all manner of admin and security (and most of that for the military), taught me, sometimes the hard way, that there isn't enough "paranoia" when it comes to protecting a network and its assets.
First of all, the person making the request was not a "verified" user. He claimed to be a former employee and was asking the OP to do something that was likely both a security violation (if he were able to do it himself) or not possible to do without admin intervention (which would likely be denied, if they're doing their job). Yeah, I know, the guy used to work there, blah blah blah. He was also, as the OP put it, "furloughed." We don't know why he was let go, and you can't assume it was due to COVID. For all we know, he was a major screw-up.
Second of all, this was to fix an issue with a video game. Sorry, whatever your opinion of Fortnight and it's level of importance in the rotation of the planet, that simply isn't important enough of a reason to give some random former employee any access to any account. "Helping out a fellow human" would be fine if his house was on fire or his kid needed to be rushed to the hospital or he hadn't eaten in a week -- that's helping out a human. Fix your access to a video game? Sorry, call Fortnite support. There is no way you can convince me they wouldn't help this guy fix his access issues, and if they didn't, he's talking to the wrong people.
Finally, how moronic could the guy be that he used an old work email address, from a job he hadn't been employed at for a couple of years at least, to do something like setting up access to a game? Why did he think they wanted an active email, to spam him? Hell, I retired from my last job in just under two years ago and I can barely remember my last work email address. Nor do I want to, frankly. His inability to act correctly is not a reason for the tech to jump through any hoops to help him out.
100 hours? That's over four days. Please, fool, spare me.
Being a nice guy is one thing. Manipulating the use of a network of computer systems that do not belong to you and for which you have no authority to do so is something different entirely.
MrMindor@reddit
I actually believe the 100 hours part. Not that any Epic employee(s) had legitimately spent 100 hours working on it, but that 100+ hours has passed since he contacted them.
Not Epic, but we had an ultimately fruitless experience attempting to recover one of our kids EA/Origin account (along with maybe $600 of Sims expansions) after they lost access to their gmail that was used to register. My wife tried for months. Hour after hour on hold and passed to another rep to explain the situation again and again and again....
Also, I wouldn't be too surprised about Epic not actually doing much to help the poor sob out: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckepic/comments/18d0v1u/does_epic_have_the_worst_customer_support_ever/
What makes you think he used an email address that he already didn't have access to when he signed up? My impression was he made the Fortnight account before getting laid off, and is now trying to recover the account.
Still dumb for using the work account for that purpose.
joe_attaboy@reddit
Everything you said makes sense.
But the bottom line is in your final sentence.
NOCmancer@reddit (OP)
A random phone call with a person claiming to work here 4 years ago and name drops an employee he could have pulled off linkedin is considered a verified user? And he wants email access for a MFA code?
Yeah I don't think I would get sacked. And my boss is on my side regarding this issue so respectfully pound sand.
Lurk3rAtTheThreshold@reddit
Lol, how does a new alias enable any of that? You're worried about a tech getting emailed a script and just running it? How does a different To address change that in any way?
Speijker@reddit
Awh man.
Had a similar issue that we did end up helping (he could log in once, at our desk, to forward some things): poor man went in retirement and was so rusted stuck in the company he used his workmail for everything. So he called after a few days because he couldn't access his insurance, his mortgage and his bank account because he used his workmail for that, since forever.
"Do you have a personal email account you can change everything too, maybe Gmail?" 'No, I've only ever had this email address'. Yikes
khobbits@reddit
I sometimes wonder if society would collapse if google ever decided that gmail wasn't generating enough money, and killed free accounts.
Sky_Katrona@reddit
Yep definitely happens. The only time my grandmother had an email address was when she had one at work. They don't have internet so no ISP email address and they don't have a smartphone so no Gmail or iMail (or whatever Apple's version is called). They finally got a tablet recently because their credit union was hounding them to provide an email address.
NotTheOnlyGamer@reddit
That's an HR problem that gets routed to IT, it's called offboarding.
NOCmancer@reddit (OP)
Okay for something that crazy I would have helped. I would genuinely feel for that guy.
Speijker@reddit
I'm just glad I'm at a place where we occasionally have time to go out of our way for people who ask nicely (unlike your example, sheesh). Lots of seamen á la Popeye who have never touched a laptop before in their lives; I take some extra time if I can. They look so lost when they have to their exams online now in these modern times.
Now, if only HR would stop making ridiculous requests to get access to rifle freely and unsupervised through mailboxes of people who have retired, been fired or just gotten ill... "We can put an out-of-office reply on that mailbox: that's all you're getting."
Wadsworth_McStumpy@reddit
Dude! That's no way to get out-of-scope IT help. You need to show up in person, with donuts and good coffee. Then start the conversation with "Hey, I did something really stupid. Can you maybe help me out?"
It still might not be possible, but if it is, at least IT will be on your side.
Aroenai@reddit
I'd have a serious discussion with HR if any receptionist allowed this person in the building because they "brought donuts and good coffee". Unless you leave on good terms and management asks a favor (and there's no reasonable way to avoid it), there's no way in hell a non-employee is getting access to email.
Xjph@reddit
For real. This can work, but there are definitely some non-negotiable prerequisites.
Even after all that, I'd never expect email access to be re-instated even temporarily for a non-employee. At best I can see the account being re-activated so that IT can just click the necessary "yes this is me" buttons or provide emailed one time codes to facilitate confirming the account and changing the email address to something else.
Sky_Katrona@reddit
Yep, one of the last steps when leaving anywhere with a "work email" is to set up an auto forward rule.
If addressed to me and not from @work.com then forward to personal email (or a secondary account used to screen random stuff)
You would be surprised how long these kinds of rules stick around in the system even after the account is suspended. Especially if your email system handles them server side instead of client side. (Pretty much any webmail or system not using a dedicated mail application)
knighthawk82@reddit
You used, YOUR WORK EMAIL, for a private gaming company, for your son?
GodOfUtopiaPlenitia@reddit
Don't sign up for personal shit with BUSINESS/PAID accounts? 🤷
techieguyjames@reddit
Why use a work email for personal use? By now thay work email has been deleted and is nonrecoverable.
Timmibal@reddit
*Click.*
And if some room-temperature IQ has an issue with that, answer "Our support scope is current employees, or are we wasting billable time on the general public now?"
carolineecouture@reddit
We have this on a pretty regular basis -- I left a year ago but now need files from. How does anyone think this works? Yeah, we will keep your files forever, no problem.
Ugh.
GMorPC@reddit
Depends upon how long they've been gone, but "30 days after your separation, unless there was a legal hold, your account was deleted and is no longer recoverable. Your only recourse is to reach out to Fortnite support and request that they assist you. Unless you have some legitimate business with this department, I am ending this call. Good day."
emmjaybeeyoukay@reddit
I've had the same situation but the ex employee was trying to get some vouchers that could only be sent to their work address because they'd used that to register the original voucher service years ago.
Staff are warned to not use their work address for personal reasons for exactly this reason.
We eventually compromised after they contacted their department's old director who called in a favour from the CIO.
We setup an alias in the mail system that routed the items onwards to a known internal account in IT. Then forwarded the user's mail and then scrapped the alias.
User was told never again.
JNSapakoh@reddit
Not long ago I had a previous employee ask for access to their old email because it was their Apple ID and they forgot their password.
They did not leave on good terms, since they left we migrated from o360 to Workspace, then we changed changed our domain/company name .... yet for some reason my boss said yeah, give her access for a couple weeks
A big part of me wanted to say "no, fuck her" but it was still technically possible, so I did it
ghostlee13@reddit
What an ID10T. I often get stuck with people trying to use personally owned devices to connect remotely. Most of the time, they don't follow instructions. Some of the time, they have some weird device that is non-compliant. And then they get upset because I can't resolve it. Best effort, not supposed to spend much time on these.
Eyejohn5@reddit
Sounded like a potential "social engineering" attempt at a data breech. Alternately it's a good example of why ex employee was let go. (Working around rules and regulations. Trying to get others to do same)
Wise-Reference-4818@reddit
Lesson learned: keep a personal email account and route all personal items there. Why is your employer responsible for handling a Fortnite account?
CostumingMom@reddit
When I got my first work email address, private emails weren't nearly as common, and the use of the work email for personal items was tolerated.
But that was long ago enough that that conversation now would be someone talking about their grandchild's account. There really is no excuse now.
(OK, I have one excuse - any personal accounts that I currently have that use my work email are ones I've not touched in over 10 15 years, and can probably die off anyways at this point. I hope.)
Side note - Now that I think about it, online accounts really should reach out to members about once a year or so to verify info. I've one gaming account that I know I've gone through at least three emails since I've started it, but that's an old user's rant.
K1yco@reddit
Telling me how long you've been working on something doesn't change how things work.