Alright folks..

Sit down and hang on tight for the story of how I almost lost my Steemit account.

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Some huge, some minor...but it's going to happen. Live and learn, right? I sure learned a lot...never make important decisions or do anything regarding sensitive information when you're tired. Always triple check, then check it again! Moving on...

The day was March 12th, and we were getting ready to fly from Nashville, TN to Spokane, WA later that evening. After airports and layovers, we arrived back home around midnight. I had a post written up while we were flying, so I was ready to post it when we arrived to the house. After hellos, showers, and unpacking I put the post up and started browsing some other posts. I came across a link in a comment I clicked on...and remembering a lot of phishing scams are currently happening, I quickly closed the window and went to change my password. This is the first time I have changed my password ever. So, I went through with it and backed up my new password the same way I did my old ones, closed out of my backup program and closed the laptop for the night.

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Fast forward to the next morning when I tried to long on. Posting key: “incorrect password”....huh? Try again…”incorrect password”. I thought that was weird...I’ll just use my master key…”incorrect password”. I’ll go to my password manager and recopy it...that’ll work! “Incorrect password”... Oh sweet baby jesus...I didn’t click save on my password manager after saving my new password the night prior. NO!!! THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!!

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...it was happening. After a few moments of denial, I looked to @rigaronib for some assistance. He recommended I contact @guiltyparties to see what my next step should be. He was SUPER helpful and i’m glad I got to interact with him throughout the process. He told me to complete the “Stolen Account Recovery” that is seen in the drop down menu on the top right corner of the screen. The important thing that allowed me to do this was that I had all of my previous keys still. If I had lost my master, I would’ve been SOL.

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When I applied for the recovery, I was told it would take some extra time due to high volume of people like me. It normally takes a day or two from what I understand. ...I waited 12. Keep in mind beyond 30 days, the account can no longer be recovered. On day 13, I began searching Steemit and came across @someguy123 who runs AnonSteem. I have seen he can recover accounts that have signed up with that service, so I asked if he could do it even though I signed up via Steemit. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. However, he told me to get on steem.chat and get in contact with @drakos via the #help section.

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I did exactly that. I contacted @drakos with what had happened, and how long I had waited. After being sure I used the same email address I signed up with, he told me to get in contact with @andrarchy, however if he did not respond the next day he would personally deliver the message. The following night, I hadn’t received anything back so I got back in contact with @drakos and he told me he had relayed the message. Literally the next morning (3/26), I received an email “Your Steemit account recovery request has been approved”. WAIT, WHAAAAAAT?! I ran for my life Lord Jesus...I grabbed my laptop and I was sent to the page to put in my old password and a new one was generated. Before I left the page, I saved it 3 times and wrote it down just in case the unthinkable happened again. Afterwards, I tried to log in with my fingers crossed…...IT WORKED!

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I am super excited to be back in this wonderful community!
Also a HUGE shout out and thanks to @rigaronib, @guiltyparties, @someguy123, @drakos, and @andrarchy for the help!

I hope I was able to help some folks realize just how important your keys are, and that you should ALWAYS back them up somewhere safe incase this type of thing ever happens to you.

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