Closing old account and creating new one

[Dave_L]

I'm planning on creating a new spamcop email account, and will stop using my existing spamcop account.

Is the normal procedure to simply let the old account expire, or does JT prefer to be notified about this?

And will the email address for the old account be "retired", or will it become available for someone else to use?

[Farelf]

Hi Dave,

I take it you've found nothing in the SpamCop Email System & Accounts FAQs? Then we need to wait for someone with a better handle on these matters.

[Wazoo]

I'm planning on creating a new spamcop email account, and will stop using my existing spamcop account.

Is the normal procedure to simply let the old account expire, or does JT prefer to be notified about this?

Generally, folks would ask that the remaining / pro-rated 'value' of the existing account be applied / added to the 'new' account.

And will the email address for the old account be "retired", or will it become available for someone else to use?

In general, the address would be 'deleted' .... else the servers would continue to 'accept' new e-mail. So yes, it's likely that sometime in the future, someone could/would 'generate' the same address and find it accepted by the system.

[Dave_L]

Farelf:

If I had found the answers in the FAQ, I wouldn't be posting the questions here.

Wazoo:

I plan on opening the new account about a month prior to the expiration of my existing account. That will allow me time to update my email address with the various senders that use it, so that I don't lose legitimate email. I don't mind paying for the extra month.

Making the old email address immediately available to others seems like a dangerous policy. But it really works that way, I'll just have to ensure I notify any senders that use it.

Thanks.

[jefft]

I plan on opening the new account about a month prior to the expiration of my existing account. That will allow me time to update my email address with the various senders that use it, so that I don't lose legitimate email. I don't mind paying for the extra month.

Making the old email address immediately available to others seems like a dangerous policy. But it really works that way, I'll just have to ensure I notify any senders that use it.

Thanks.

That sounds like the right way to do it. If you want, I can move your whitelist/blacklist to the new account for you. Opening a new account like this is the only way to have two addresses active at once.

As far as "recycling" email addresses, once the old account expires it is no longer yours. However, the industry suggests waiting periods of at least 6-12 months before recycling an address. In our case, we have only ever recycled a tiny number of addresses and these were special cases. In virtually all cases, all addresses ever used are not available to be used again. That said, we will recycle addresses at some point in the future, but probably with something like a 2 year waiting period during which the mail bounces.

JT

[Telarin]

Thanks for the official and detailed response. Do you mind if we add that to the FAQ, as this seems like a reasonable question to have answered there.

[Dave_L]

Thanks, Jeff, that's exactly what I needed to know.

My whitelist and blacklist are small, so I can handle transferring those myself.