Someone stole my email address

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I used [XXXX]@aol.com for many years. Now when I tried to check after many months, I find that someone has stolen my email address. I wrote to them and they replied that they didn’t steal it. I don’t trust them. Is there a way I can get my email address back?
Georgina Stein

I hate to break it to you but if you hadn’t logged in at AOL email for many months, the account was removed by the service. Also, the present owners didn’t steal your email address. They just went ahead and chose your username which had become available again because the account had expired.

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Your email address had expired

Yes, you read that correctly. Your email address had expired. That’s because you didn’t log in at least once in 3 months. AOL, you see, will delete the account and all associated data if they find no activity on it in a period of three months.

And since the account was removed, the username (the first part of your email address) became available. Unfortunately, in your case, the username was picked up by someone else.

So the present owners didn’t steal your address, they just found it available and chose your old username for their email. I am sorry to inform you, but it is your own fault.
So what can be done?

Is there a way to get back a stolen email address?

I suggest writing a polite message to the present owners explaining them your situation. But it is their prerogative. If they don’t want to part with the email address, you are out of luck. In all my years, I have known of only one case when an email address was transferred back to it’s previous owner and that involved money. So maybe you can coax them with a little cash!

If you do get back the ownership of the account, please change all the information associated with the account – cell phone number, security question and answers, personal details (birthdays and location), password. This is important because it would prevent someone from actually stealing your email address in future.

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What if the present owners refuse to part with the email address? Hmmm.
There is no option but to make a new AOL account. To put it bluntly, you didn’t care much about that account anyway. That’s the reason you didn’t sign in frequently. Anywho, even if you do get back the account, all the old data – messages and contacts information – wouldn’t be there because it was removed along with the account. So in conclusion, create a new account and start afresh.

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