How we reclaimed an already registered or inactive Twitter username

Published on Jul 16, 2012

A few months ago, I was using Twitter under my own name @jorishens but decided that it would be better to Tweet under my brand name GoodBytes. Unfortunately that account or username was already taken on Twitter by a friendly guy who wasn't really using the account for anything. On top of that, GoodBytes was just his nickname, not his business name so I kind of wanted to get my hands on my Twitter name. GoodBytes on Twitter If you are in the same position as me, I recommend you to follow the next few steps to reclaim your Twitter account.

1. Contact the owner of the account

The first thing I did when trying to reclaim my Twitter account was contacting the respective owner. You'd be amazed how friendly and helpful most Twitter users will be when you approach them in a correct way. I looked in Google to see who the owner was and I contacted him on Facebook, since he wasn't really active on Twitter. If the user is active on Twitter, you can send him or her a message but of course, an active account might be more difficult to get a hold of.

It turned out that the owner was a friendly guy from Denmark (thanks Christian!) who wanted to give me his Twitter account with no problem. So, he deleted the Twitter account @goodbytes and I could register it on my own name... or at least that's what I thought I could do. Unfortunately, Twitter doesn't just release disabled accounts for an unknown amount of time. This time, I contacted Twitter to ask if they could help me.

2. Create a placeholder account

Before you contact Twitter, make sure you have a placeholder account that you want to transfer to the Twitter account of your choice. Instead of just releasing the account you are asking for, Twitter will want to move an existing Twitter account to the one you are after. Ensure that the account has an official email address from the company's domain linked to it. For us this needed to be an @goodbytes.be email address.

3. Send an email to username@twitter.com

When you have a placeholder account ready, send an email to username@twitter.com and provide Twitter with the following information so that they can easily process your request:

  • Username of the violating account (or the URL to their profile page):
  • Company name:
  • Company Twitter account (if there is one):
  • Your First and Last Name:
  • Title:
  • Address:
  • Phone:
  • Fax:
  • Company domain address:
  • Your company domain email address:
  • Registration Trademark number:
  • Requested Action (for example, removal of infringing account, or transfer of trademarked username to an existing company account):

Don't worry if you don't own a real trademark on you brand name, just make sure you give enough prove that your business is using the brand name you are trying to get on Twitter.

4. If that fails, open a support ticket

In case you don't get a reply from Twitter in the next following days, you can open up a support ticket where you write about the account you wish to claim. Again, make sure you provide Twitter with as much information as possible like stated above.

5. Pray to the Twitter Gods

That's about it. Using the steps shown in this post, we were able to reclaim @goodbytes on Twitter in about a week or so. I guess everything went so smooth due to the fact that the original owner was willing to deactivate his own account, so thanks again Christian for doing so! Reclaim Twitter Username

Note

Frequent readers of my blog might ask why I've written this in English instead of the usual Dutch posts. Since some time I've been thinking about switching my portfolio site to English so that more people would be able to read my blog. I'll be measuring traffic and comments on English posts for the next few weeks or even month and after that I'll decide in what language to redesign or re-align my portfolio website. Let me know what you think: stick to Dutch or switch to English, because I've heard that's what the cool kids speak right?

No comments? But that’s like a Gin & Tonic without the ice?

I’ve removed the comments but you can shoot me a message on LinkedIn to keep the conversation going.