Online communitys - people remembering me from "before"

[Jeatyn]

I've ran in to a bit of a problem I never considered. Well I say a problem, it's not particularly significant compared to the problems a lot of us face but it's still an annoyance.

Bit embarassing..... but I play Neopets  I first joined when I was about 11 and was really in to it for years and years, but i lost interest about 4 years ago. Then after becoming a stay at home dad I had a lot of free time on my hands and I started playing again.

At first I made a whole new account but it just wasn't the same and I missed all my old stuff...so I went back to my original account

Now it's been four years, so I figured nobody would remember me from before and everything would be hunky dory

Apparently I was a lot more famous on there than I figured and a significant number of people have contacted me basically accusing me of stealing the account from my former female self who they remember.

People who I was actually friends with I had on facebook and met in real life and kept in contact with so they were all up to speed on my changes and were cool about keeping it quiet.

I didn't count on people who sort of knew me from afar. It's hard to explain to them what it is because it's a heavily censored site and talking about transsexuality would be an instant ban I reckon.

On the other hand though, if enough people are suspicious and enough reports are filed, I might be banned anyway for the apparent account stealing =/ They freeze accounts that are broken in to so it doesn't get damaged by the intruder and the original owner has to prove who they are to get it back.

Their customer service is TERRIBLE on top of this and I have no confidence in them getting my account back if I am mistakenly banned.

Has anyone else encountered something like this before? How did you handle it?

[spacial]

So, you've discovered that you're unforgetable. 

[Sabriel Facrin]

Wow, that's a pretty tough lock.  It's probably too late, but you can't try to pass as your original self?  I don't remember neopets having anything that forced you to verify your RL identity, and it's not like you're vastly different just because you found your true self, right?  I understand if you don't want to even if you could try, though...
You might just have to try to say the truth with the most nongraphical words possible. (remember not to use sex for physical gender, that'll probably trip a trigger)

[Da Monkey]

That's interesting. But I guess if people who I knew online from years ago somehow got a hold of me I would remember them all too. That's a unique situation since it's not something you can address one-on-one, and makes you look like a hacker. Maybe just change a bit of the information from your ... profile? and keep it basic or remove most of it.

[Jeatyn]

merely switching from female to male on my profile ( you have to pick one) was enough to trigger the mailings. If I switch back now they will definitely notice and be even more suspicious xD

My current solution is telling people I "took a strange potion" - which is an item on there that changes your pets gender 

So far it hasn't been too bad, most don't really care, they were just curious, or it was like "you know, call me crazy, but I'm sure you used to be a girl, what's up with that"

There's one user who used to have it out for me back then and she has taken to mailing random people "warning" them of the intruder in my account, I've caught a few of them and explained before it turned into a chinese whisper affect but I can't be sure who else she's mailed/will mail

Why is nothing ever simple!