Reader Julian can’t figure out how to cancel his MySpace account.
He’s been trying for days with disappointing results:
I have tried 5-6 times in the last 3 days to cancel my MySpace account, and they don’t appear to be allowing me to do so. Are they that worried about losing people to Facebook?
On their website, I was able to go through the “cancel account” rigmarole, only to be told that they would send me an email in which I there would be a URL I had to click on, in order to confirm my desire to cancel. I have not received any such emails from them, despite repeated attempts — not in my In Box, not in my Spam folder, nowhere.
I have sent two messages to customer service; the first one I got back an automated message telling me to follow the steps on their website that I had already done, and the second time I got an automated message saying someone would get back to me. That was a couple days ago.
You know, Consumerist itself had this problem once. The solution? We (actually, it was Ben,) uploaded porn to our profile over and over again until MySpace finally deleted it. We win.
How Do I Delete My Account? [MySpace]
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Yeah, i was going to suggest the Porn thing, just be careful, dont get into legal, trouble. You can also try spamming every single person you can. Hopefully enough people will report you. and if nothing else works, just send a message to Tom.
Er…I wouldn’t suggest doing that for a couple of reasons, but the main reason was the big honkin’ story yesterday about MySpace cracking down on sex offenders, and not allowing them at ALL on the site. This might mean a more open line with the FBI as well, and given what just happened to the Atheist and Agnostic group, MySpace isn’t exactly giving itself a name in either customer service or healthy and practical enforcement of policy.
@pda_tech_guy: Tom doesn’t care. a 35000 member group just got deleted, about 200 people sent emails to MySpace AND to Tom about it, and the group got erased off the servers anyway.
The CAN-SPAM act requires an opt out link (that works), what law/agency regulates being able to get out of sites like this?
Can there be a less NSFW approach? Like deleting all content and making it white text on a white background wherever possible?
to get rid of my myspace account I just posted an image of porn as a comment on tom’s myspace page.
I just noticed on those referenced old posts it says that they were written by “Popkin.” I found that funny and yes, I’m bored at work today.
I accidentally entered an incorrect e-mail address that I don’t own or have access to when I first signed up for MySpace… it’s been almost three years and I have yet to be able to get them to change it to my real e-mail. Of course updating it means you have to click a confirmation link in an email that they send you… at the old address :[
I’ve tried every channel I could find and never was able to get through to anyone, just automated messages that someone would help me out later. I’m a bit worried because I don’t know who – if anyone – is getting all my MySpace emails. It’s really frustrating and ridiculously bad support, but I have to sympathize with them a bit because I can’t even imagine the number of drama-fueled bullshit tech requests they get flooded with every single day.
I haven’t tried to change it for a couple of months because I had just given up… I suppose I ought to try again when I get home since maybe they’ve changed something in the process. If anyone else has been able to get something like this done, help a brother out.
acutallly myspace lets you cancel, facebook on the other hand has held me hostage for the last 6 months even after repeated email requests to them, they will not delete me. They will deactivate me like, but all my friends can still see me as online.
Stupid shit.
It is amazing to me that such a poorly run, and horribly designed website like myspace can be worth over a billion dollars.
MySpace looks like a bad geocities page circa 1998.
I had the exact same problem. The first thing I did was delete absolutely everything in my account. Then each day for three days I canceled my account. On the fourth day, I tried to log into my account and it wasn’t there.
Maybe someone mistyped the date when it would send you e-mails, a la Microsoft, and 10 years from now, you’ll get it.
@suburbancowboy: agreed on every single point. i dont understand why people dont just use blogger or wordpress.com if they want their own free, easy, subdomained website. so frustrating. myspace is polluting the internet.
I had the same problem so I tried a different approach of changing the email account the profile to another one I use for BS stuff online (like when you just want to view a website but you have to register first – thats my dummy account). Once I changed the email address, I went to delete the account and that seemed to do the trick. I don’t know why it worked, but it did.
::shrugs::
just delete everything in the profile.
@FullFlava: I’ve had the same problem. Even sent one of those “salute” pics to them. Never heard anything back. Been trying for years, but to no avail.
@FullFlava: I tried to change my email on my myspace account. It took two months and multiple emails to customer service. I would put in the subject: change email address – FIFTH ATTEMPT. All I got were redirects to a page saying that they would send me a link to the old account which I no longer had access to. Finally, they got it and my email was changed. It took long enough though.
delete everything on your page, set it to private, and enable comment approval and never go back to it.
It may not go away, but you don’t have to deal with it.
Hmm–I deleted mine no problem last year.
@suburbancowboy: ROFL!!! Loved the comparison.
Also loved that Yahoo had great personal profiles back in the 1997-1999 day and then carved them up and deleted a bunch of sharing ability- interests,clubs,-later groups, links, most recently photos. Later the yehoos at yahoo would create the myspace wanna-be yahoo-360 (and that is after they bought geocities) which turned out to be junk…
I could report you and say you are 10 years old. …Just did that with several wanna-be “kool n sexy” 10 and 12 year old in my neighborhood who like to harass my 10 year old by taunting her with “I am gonna write on MySpace that you are a b**ch!”
Does MySpace check out these profiles at ALL?
Shockingy, they actually responded and deleted them.
Those kids had about 4 idiotic sites each…. and they had pictures of their 10 year old selves… and even said flat out what elementary school grade they are in!
Jeepers…. can’t they have someone at least glance at these things once in a while?
I can’t see what anyone that works for them would do other than sell ads.
If they won’t cancel your account you could always wipe everything off of there, change your screen name to something random, set your profile to private, etc. Might be a temporary fix anyway.
Didn’t have a problem with removing myspace account, got the e-mail bam done. usually the problem sits in front of the monitor.
why would anyone join MySpace or Facebook to begin with???
I am wondering why this is an issue. Although I have never really used myspace in favor of my real website, I was under the impression that it costs NOTHING to have a myspace page. Why not just remove everything and just leaving it a blank page?
What I’ve heard works the best for deleting your myspace is to use HTML to hide all of the adverts on your page. They typically hop on that pretty quickly. If you want, put something questionable on your myspace, and have someone report it to draw the devs to your page, they see the lack of adverts, and you’re out.
May I ask why not just remove everything and just log out and never sign in again?
Why does the account have to be “deleted”? If you are addicted and afraid that you might try to sign in again, just change your password to some random thing like h49dk2ndhl112
i have a different problem. I canceled my myspace account, and now receive multiple emails from them over and over that i cannot opt out of because you must be a member to opt out.
Myspace is so broken.
@FullFlava: I did the same thing. I just kept emailing support until they changed it for me. It was obvious it was my account and not something that I had hacked into. Shrug. Myspace is awful. I deleted it last week actually, with no problems.
I was able to delete my profile yesterday with no problems. I got the email with the link within minutes and was able to delete it.
I tried to get CS to change my login address to my current email address(the login is an address that was deleted a year ago by the ISP, and therefore is no longer accessible to me). After the experience I had I am now firmly convinced that MS is staffed by complete fucking idiots.
I had to send FIVE emails to them before they even UNDERSTOOD what I wanted them to do. Then they refused to do it even though I provided all my account info to them. They claimed the address I wanted them to change it to already had a profile associated with it, which I know it doesn’t.
Complete fucking idiots, I tell you.
Same here.
Someone started a MySpace account with my email address (which they thought was theirs), and MySpace emailed the password to me. Since I had no other recourse to the numerous “you’ve got a new message/friend request!” emails, I went and tried to cancel the account myself.
Same thing. Username/pass works, go to cancel, ask to get an email, never do.
I think eventually it worked, but it took multiple tries. I also think I sent an email to someone at MySpace to help me, but it took a long time to even find a contact.
I had the same thing happen to me. I just uploaded a bunch of porn and started spamming people. My account was gone in a few hours.
I find this extremely funny. My MySpace account was deleted and they could never tell me why or how to get it back.
Sounds like someone’s email isn’t getting to them. I cancelled my account last week and all went well, including me getting the email with the link in it to click on to confirm cancellation.
@suburbancowboy: LOL post of the day! They’re a step away from centering all of the HTML and having symmetrically placed “under construction” animated gifts on either side of a divider bar. And at the bottom there’s the “email me” animation where the envelope seals itself and flies off.
It would be hilarious if FULLFLAVA’s problem of signing up with an email address he didn’t own, and FUZZYCUFFS having someone sign up with his email were actually directly related stories.
To get them to delete my account, I added code to my profile to block out advertising and then sent a nice little message to Tom that said, “I’m blocking your ads, bitch! What are you gonna do about it?”
@fuzzycuffs:
Like a previous poster said, in Canada, unsolicited emails have to have an opt-out link to prevent you from getting more email from that sender. I’m pretty sure the US has a similar law (I’m assuming that you are American since most readers here seem to be) so why not report them in violation? That’d get their attention pretty quick. They’re sending you unsolicited emails and not allowing you to stop it.
Is Julian using Hotmail? Because half the time I never get the password reminders and cancellation links I get sent to my Hotmail address (the “dirty” one I keep just for signing up for things online).
Tempting… I’m considering cancelling mine. It would reduce alot of the spam in one of my gmail accounts…
For people who say they’ve had trouble getting CS to change their email address for their myspace, I don’t think you need CS to do it. I went to my “notifications” section and changed the email address there (the one they send emails about new messages, comments, etc to) and it automatically changed my log-in email, too. I didn’t actually want it to, but oh well. If you haven’t tried that, go for it.
@justseth: HA! that is a great solution!!!
Why not just grossly violate the MySpace TOS? Post gratuitous pornography on your page, spam out friend requests to a bunch strangers, and wait for MySpace to give you the boot?
Learn how to work, kid!
@tokenblackgirl:
I got rid of my Facebook account. They make you delete everything – wall posts, groups, friends, etc. Only then will they cancel your account. Send them an email saying that you want your account deleted, not deactivated. They will tell you to get rid of all your stuff. Once you do then they will delete your account. I tried logging on afterwards and I can’t get on. Good luck!
I never signed up. The “Myspace private photo viewer” removed any need for me to have an account.
Actually if you have a unique name I think it’s a good idea to “reserve” your name in various web entity forms.
My guess is that the email never gets through because it’s blocked on the server level by the ISP or webmail account. Mostly because most of us mark MYSpace emails as spam … because there’s no way to completely opt out from MySpace emails. Sure, you opt out … then they create new things to email you that you have to opt out from. I tried to change my email for eBay but just couldn’t seem to get the confirmation on the new email address. I reckon it’s the same issue.
(Trying to contact MySpace is a waste of time. I agree with the others, delete all posts and personal info, delete all friends, set the page to private, turn off all notifications and go on your merry way.)
@Papa Midnight: Isn’t it “horse and burning barn” at this point?
just delete all your friends and personal content. make some crap up about loving hootie and the blowfish and change the email and location associated with the account if you can. at least that way, theres none of your info or friends there.
anything owned by rupert turdoch is bound to be a trap.