As we’ve detailed in a previous post, on July 21 2009, StartupTrek’s Twitter account was hijacked. Someone — likely someone within a third-party Twitter service provider — seized control of our account and changed the email address, leaving us unable to use Twitter’s automated “password reset”. We need actual “human” tech support to fix this and recover our account, which is our brand name on Twitter – and our follower base.
We’ve tried over a dozen methods since the hijacking, to recover our brand name on Twitter. Including speaking with some of the VC’s who fund the company and set on it’s board; FedEx’ing a plea to co-founder Biz Stone, calling the company, emailing tech support, posting and querying 3rd-part Twitter support sites like Aardvark (and others), blogging about it, physically visiting the company in San Francisco, and more. In each and every case, Twitter has made absolutely no response. Their tech support email address support@twitter.com appears to be unstaffed; calls are not returned, letters are not answered, etc.
As noted in this blog post, “Twitter Support Paradox“:
“Twitter may change the way companies think about the way they support their customers, but when it comes to Twitter themselves, not only do they not use their own platform to give quick and personal answers, but they are far far behind from what the service could really offer.”
After a couple of months of this, a Professor at a leading California University suggested that perhaps the way to get this fixed, is to file a class action suit on behalf on all of the other (likely tens of thousands) of Twitter users who have been hijacked. Sure, Twitter is free, and has an iron-clad terms of service TOS. But it’s not really free, because Twitter is driven by the energy, enthusiasm, and work of loyal early-adopter/users like… myself. And no TOS is perfect. So our friend John Goodrich of Wilson-Sonsini-Goodrich fame introduced us to the most successful class action lawyer in Silicon Valley, Joe Cotchett. After a discussion, we fax’d Joe 15 pages of background information. Joe’s firm politely demured for unknown reasons, but he suggested that our case has merit and encouraged us to take up the case with another firm, so we are seeking class action representation at the current time.
Startup Trek has no real beef with Twitter, and hey – they’re busy! We greatly prefer a simple, friendly solution and now… (drum roll!) we have found a solid, reliable way to physically reach Twitter’s most senior management team member (adult supervision?). A professional colleague and friend, has a son who is an iPhone+Web entrepreneur. His son is also a personal friend of Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO. He has graciously offered to deliver my letter (previously FedEx’d to Biz Stone) to Evan. So we are waiting with baited breath for a response!
It has been suggested (see comment on the prior blog post) that we simple start over using a new login (just in case, we have signed up for the account Twitter.com/StartupTrekTV). But that would set us back six to nine months or more, to rebuild our follower base to ~750 followers; and we would lose our “brand name” StartupTrek to… a thief. All of this over a routine tech support issue that Twitter could fix in 10 minutes.
Do you have a better idea how we can recover our Twitter account?
Maybe we will need to start directing and producing videos like this one?
