A friend lost her password

A friend of mine who I recently introduced to SL has lost her password. OK, she created an alt account to log in but cannot access her main account's inventory and is unable to rez any objects on the land she rented. Details: she's based in the UK, her main account is a basic and she's not very techy. She's tried the thing where you're emailed a link but claims that didn't work (I have no reason to doubt her on that). What can she do to recover her main account? If anyone has a helpful suggestion I can pass on to her I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

If she has payment on file, which I assume she does if she's renting, maybe a call to billing would help? She *might* be able to get them to reset the password if she could verify her RL data, including credit card info.

Yeh, she went through the password reet thing a few weeks ago but I don't think she really understood how it worked and apparently kept turning it down for some reason. That's prolly her best option... I'll have to explain it to her... slowly.

Aside from that, she can log into the Support Portal as a guest and use the 'Special Questions' ticket type to try and get some help.

Hiyas Ann! She tried contacting those phone numbers from the UK but they failed. Here's a precis of what's been happening:

1) She completes the 'lost password' widget on the website login page.
2) Receives email with link.
3) Clicks on said link and goes back to website to answer the account verification questions and gets failed every time. She's certain that she answered the questions correctly.

*ALSO*

She tried the support centre and was unable to log in with her alt account even though she is able to log into SL with that account.

Normally I'd suggest that she forget the original account and go with her new alt account except that she has inventory, rented land etc., tied to that account. Now it may be very possible that she's missed something along the way but as we don't live in the same town it's not as if I can pop over to her house and make sure that she's doing everything correctly.

That all sound very odd...she tried the long distance number? 703-286-6277? The toll-free one is unfortunately just for the US and Canada.

I can only suggest again that she try logging into the Support Portal using the Guest Login, NOT her alt account.



She needs to use the 'Special Questions' ticket type or it will be ignored. None of the options quite fit, so I'd probably go with the 'My account has been shut off and I don't know why' one, then explain what actually happened.

What are the account verification questions? Are you supposed to answer more than one?

You only need to answer one of the questions...

1) Security Question (iirc)
2) Names of 3 in-world friends
3) Home location

Fairly easy to answer and seeing how she and I have the same home sim location getting the right answer is a no-brainer. At least I think she answered only 1. Maybe she answered all 3... I'll ask her tomorrow.

Last time I had to do it, they were based on some account info that presumably only you would know, like last names for 3 people on your friends list, but they didn't seem all that 'secure' to me. You just need to answer one, but you have to make sure you've clicked a radio button beside the one you choose to answer. Now that you mention it, I seem to remember a few people overlooking that button when LL made a bunch of us change ours not too long ago, so I sort of wonder if that was the issue here.

You could be right there, Ann. I'll run that past her tomoroow.

I remember this issue coming up when they first implemented the system. It's more secure than it seems -- the questions are only offered if you are connecting to the website from an IP that SL knows you've used in the past. If you are trying from another IP, I think you get something like "please contact our billing office" -- whatever the next step is *after* failing on the questions.

Of course, that was a few months ago -- it could very well be different now.

If she's got Skype, she can call the US Toll-Free support number for free from anywhere.

That's a brilliant suggestion, Buxton. Dunno if she has Skype but I'll suggest it to her.