For example, your Microsoft account is at once an email account, possibly your Skype account, your OneDrive account, and perhaps even your computer’s login account. Things get a little confusing when people use multiple services from the same provider. Even if you go through the provider’s steps to cancel an account, there’s often a grace period during which you can change your mind, log in, and “un-cancel” the account.
As if it had never been used before.Īll someone has to do is sign up and ask for it.įor most services, if you log in again before time runs out, it indicates you’re not “abandoning” the account, and resets the clock. When you close or abandon your account with any online service provider, they typically make your abandoned user name and email address available again after some time. It’s safer not to close or abandon email accounts, but rather check in just often enough to keep them from being reassigned. While they would not have access to the previous contents of your account, they would have access to email still being sent to that email address and could use it to try to impersonate you. When you close or abandon an email account, it’s possible that after some time your user ID or email address could become available for someone else to use.
