Discord
January 1, 2022 2:17 PM Subscribe
I have never used Discord and have no recollection of signing up. Apparently, though, my email has a Discord account. So I clicked on "forgot password" in order to set a new password and got a very strange email that appears to be written in another language or code. Help please.
Or paste into Google Translate and see if it recognizes the language.
But to be clear: did you initially find this out because you were trying to set up a Discord account of your own initiative? Or did you get an email about "your" Discord account, with a "forgot password" link that you clicked? (I ask because in the second case it's not unlikely to be a phishing attempt.)
posted by trig at 2:28 PM on January 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
But to be clear: did you initially find this out because you were trying to set up a Discord account of your own initiative? Or did you get an email about "your" Discord account, with a "forgot password" link that you clicked? (I ask because in the second case it's not unlikely to be a phishing attempt.)
posted by trig at 2:28 PM on January 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks, kschang. New here so I'll figure out how to do that. It was on my initiative, trig.
posted by Scout405 at 2:47 PM on January 1, 2022
posted by Scout405 at 2:47 PM on January 1, 2022
Response by poster: Here's a link to a screenshot:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194715874@N03/51792953363/in/dateposted-public/
posted by Scout405 at 2:59 PM on January 1, 2022
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194715874@N03/51792953363/in/dateposted-public/
posted by Scout405 at 2:59 PM on January 1, 2022
Well, that's Thai, I believe. You might be able to just paste it into a web translator to get the gist of it.
posted by pipeski at 3:02 PM on January 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 3:02 PM on January 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Discord used to have a very lax policy for email verification for sign-ups, so it's possible someone just made an account with your email address. Assuming that the login takes you to a discord.com domain, resetting the password should be fine, though to be safe I'd give it a password that you don't use anywhere else.
Seconding that pasting the text into Google Translate should give you a good idea of what the email says.
posted by Aleyn at 3:12 PM on January 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Seconding that pasting the text into Google Translate should give you a good idea of what the email says.
posted by Aleyn at 3:12 PM on January 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Google Lens translates it as
"Hello, I love you Joke,
Your Discord password can be reset by clicking the button below. If you didn't request a new password, ignore this email.
reset password
Need help? Contact our support team. us or contact us via give us Twitter @discord"
Someone signed up with your email, and someone tried to reset the account's password, which triggered the email.
posted by BungaDunga at 3:29 PM on January 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
"Hello, I love you Joke,
Your Discord password can be reset by clicking the button below. If you didn't request a new password, ignore this email.
reset password
Need help? Contact our support team. us or contact us via give us Twitter @discord"
Someone signed up with your email, and someone tried to reset the account's password, which triggered the email.
posted by BungaDunga at 3:29 PM on January 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thank you so very much, BungaDunga. Clearly someone else used my email. Do you know if there's any way to reclaim it?
posted by Scout405 at 6:30 PM on January 1, 2022
posted by Scout405 at 6:30 PM on January 1, 2022
Quite probably whoever opened it doesn't remember their own password, so they're locked out anyway and can't use it, so you could just leave it be. I sometimes get password reset emails like this for accounts someone else made on dating websites etc and I've never bothered doing anything about it.
Or you can just click the "reset password" link and provide a new password, and now you have control over the Discord account, because you know the password and the owner doesn't.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:59 PM on January 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Or you can just click the "reset password" link and provide a new password, and now you have control over the Discord account, because you know the password and the owner doesn't.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:59 PM on January 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
And once you've reset and log in, log out again, and this time 'sign out of all devices'. Then log in again, that ought to do it, while you springclean your discord account, especially if it's an actively used account and they've had recent chats and server activity.
posted by cendawanita at 7:07 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 7:07 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you, cendawanita. I wouldn't have thought of that.
posted by Scout405 at 7:41 PM on January 1, 2022
posted by Scout405 at 7:41 PM on January 1, 2022
now you have control over the Discord account, because you know the password and the owner doesn't
This is one of several reasons why using an email address as an account identifier is an antipattern that nobody should ever design into their systems, though in 2022 almost everybody has.
The way I see it, if an account is identified with your email address, you've always been the owner whether the entity who initially set up the account knows it or not. Sometimes people's failure to get their own email addresses right just translates into creation of gift accounts.
The polite thing to do here would be to set up a completely new Discord account with a temporary email and make some attempt to use Discord messaging itself to refuse the gift by encouraging the account creator to switch it to their actual email address. But personally I would not be that polite.
posted by flabdablet at 11:40 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is one of several reasons why using an email address as an account identifier is an antipattern that nobody should ever design into their systems, though in 2022 almost everybody has.
The way I see it, if an account is identified with your email address, you've always been the owner whether the entity who initially set up the account knows it or not. Sometimes people's failure to get their own email addresses right just translates into creation of gift accounts.
The polite thing to do here would be to set up a completely new Discord account with a temporary email and make some attempt to use Discord messaging itself to refuse the gift by encouraging the account creator to switch it to their actual email address. But personally I would not be that polite.
posted by flabdablet at 11:40 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by kschang at 2:23 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]