Chapter 6 of 6 / it already went wrong
I have lost my recovery material
There is no version of this page that ends well, and pretending otherwise would be the same trick that fake support runs. What is worth writing down is what to try, why the answer is what it is, and what to do differently on the next account.
What to try, briefly
- Look properly first. A file you made months ago, a note in a password manager, a printed copy. People find these more often than they expect.
- Check whether you can still get in at all. If a session is live somewhere, generate new recovery material immediately.
- Try the account from a different address in the set, in case what you are hitting is an access problem rather than a recovery one.
- Then accept the answer. Past this point the effort is better spent on the next account.
Why there is no appeal
A process for restoring access to somebody who cannot prove they own an account is also a process for taking over accounts you do not own. There is no way to build one without building the other, and a market that offered it would be handing out other people accounts on request.
So the absence of an appeal is not indifference, it is the same property that stops somebody else doing this to you. It is small comfort and it is the actual reason.
What arrives next
This is the exact state that fake support exists to farm. Anybody who contacts you offering to restore an account is offering the one thing that cannot be done, and they know it. There is no channel outside the market, so the offer answers itself.
What it actually costs
| What | Recoverable | Note |
|---|---|---|
| The username | Gone, and not reusable | Pick a new one used nowhere else |
| Any balance in the account | Gone | This is why holding one is the real mistake |
| Order history and standing | Gone | Starts again from nothing |
| Open orders | Usually lost | Nothing to file against without access |
The second row is the one that decides how bad this is, and it was decided weeks earlier by whether you were leaving money in the account. A lockout with nothing in it is a bad afternoon and a new username.
The minute that prevents it
- Save the recovery material at setup, before closing the page. There is no second chance to see it.
- Keep it separate from the password. Both in one place is one secret wearing a costume.
- Do not keep the only copy on one device.
- Not as a screenshot. Photo libraries sync, get backed up, and are read by software that recognises text in images.
- Test once that you can produce it from a second place.
That minute happens months before it is needed, which is exactly why it gets skipped. It is the highest leverage minute anywhere on this site.