"Shut out of my blog... what now?" Topic

Well, I haven't updated my blog in over a year. So I tried to go back today to play around with it, and of course the password I remember isn't the password that works.
No problem, right? Just use the password recovery feature and have it sent to my e-mail… and this is where it gets complicated.
The e-mail account under which the account was set up *no longer exists.* I created the blog under an old internet account with AT&T. I then upgraded to a better DSL service with AT&T, which required a new account and new e-mail… and the old account and old e-mail were completely shut down by AT&T. Why they couldn't transfer the accounts and keep the same e-mail, I don't know. Maybe they could have but didn't know how (or didn't care to bother), but that's the way it worked. But I could still log into my blog with the old account name, even though it wasn't a valid e-mail address, because my computer "remembered" my password and logged me in automatically.
But that computer died last February. And died as in everything's dead— logic board, hard drive, the works. Caputsky. So naturally, my new computer only has the passwords I've stored in it while getting myself all squared away again— the Blogspot account not being one of them. And, of course, I can't access the defunct e-mail account to recover the password. (Yes, I've tried contacting AT&T help. The person on the other end of the phone had no clue what I was talking about. So much for that conversation being any actual help.)
I've done Google's blogspot retriever thing, but it sends me a link to an unsecure page that looks like Google, and says they need my credit card info to cover the cost of recovering my account. Well, maybe, so, and the charge is minor ($1… but seriously, why bother charging a $1 USD? It's not worth the cost of the charge!). But I'm very hesitant to assume that the site is actually Google, especially coming out of a text-only e-mail link and being an insecure page too boot. Granted, the page itself doesn't have entry fields for information, but… well, I'm paranoid with regards to the Internet and my private financial info.

So, has anyone else experienced a similar situation with Google/Blogspot? Is the fee and credit card bit on the up and up? I would think it should be… but like I said, I'm paranoid.

"Internet Paranoia— because the Web really is out to get you."

If i can't get it done through the password retrieval system, I'd make a call instead. Is there a tech support line you can call? The credit card thing sounds fishy.

How about setting up a NEW blog?
Then going to your old blog as a guest, and copying & pasting the contents over to the new blog.

I have no idea if that's possible.
But I'd try it before I gave out the CC info.

Otherwise:
No blog for you!
You are now blogless. Without blog.
You have been de-bloggified.
The door to the blogosphere has been closed to you.
Due to your own blog-neglect, you now have blogger's remorse.

Did some checking. Looks like a valid set up, so I'm paying the $1. USD Seems a bit silly to charge for simple customer service, but whatever. It's a free blog, so not much point to complain. I'll just dun it from the IRS.

Must do a blog someday. Keep meaning to.

" Seems a bit silly to charge for simple customer service"

We have to make money somehow. Running all these 'free at the point of use' services costs us several billion dollars a quarter.

Thousands of people, millions of computers. Acres of airconned datacentres.

All of that to find cat pictures when people want them.

Well, my $1 USD got me absolutely no help at all. "Information did not match our records." Well, thanks for not actually looking at what I sent.

For the interested, here is the blog: howardshirley.blogspot.com
And here is my website, which is associated with the blog and mentioned on the blog profile (quite prominently) and which prominently links to the blog: howardshirleywriter.com
Same personal information on both.
Same writing style on both.
Same area of focus on both.
Both the website creator (me) and the blog's author (also me) live in the same town (mine) and the same zip code (mine) and talk about the same stuff and lo and behold the guy in this post: link
looks not dissimilar to the guy in this picture on the website: link
I'll bet they even live in the same house.

And Google's support team can't figure out that the guy contacting them who has the e-mail linked to on the website is the same guy who writes the blog (which refers contact requests to the website and the e-mail link there).

Pfft. Well, I guess I got a buck's worth of service out of 'em. "What do ya want for a dollar," eh?

Think I'll take The Tin Dictator's suggestion, create a new blog, transfer all the old data over, and change the website to reflect that. PITA, but what can ya do?

We have to make money somehow. Running all these 'free at the point of use' services costs us several billion dollars a quarter.

Thousands of people, millions of computers. Acres of airconned datacentres.

All of that to find cat pictures when people want them.

*cough* Advertising Sales *cough*

Hey, it's not my business model, but Google seems to do just fine on it. And the guy doing the customer service is sitting there being paid whether I send an e-mail or not. So I suspect it's a nuisance fee to discourage customer service requests more than anything else. Fair enough. Ya get what ya pay for.