Thread by @karmasjanitor

Hello, fellow randos! It's me, your old pal Dave Burge. You may remember me from such Twitter accounts as @iowahawkblog.

No, seriously. It's really iowahawk, communicating to you from the great Twitter beyond. Here is my verification code:

GRILLE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN 1949-50 FORDS

1949: 1 center bullet, F O R D emblem on hood
1950: 1 center bullet, Ford crest
1951: 2 bullets, Ford crest

*1949-51 Fords.

Please accept no cheap substitutes, such as "@iowahawkblog1" who I assure you is an imposter that has probably never once successfully crashed a pickup into a liquor store.

And please, do not bother following this account, which I only created to explain to you my ongoing difficulties in restoring and regaining access to my original account @iowahawkblog.

Here's the straight dope, from the actual dope:

First off, contrary to some speculation I've seen, I am neither banned nor suspended from Twitter. I am a largely harmless fart joke craftsman, and never once has Twitter ever asked me to remove a tweet for any reason.

What really happened: Sometime after 7 pm CDT on Sept 28, someone successfully hacked my Twitter account. I learned via some of your emails they changed the handle from @iowahawkblog to @barkbiteblog (not the account "barkbite" who is blameless in this AFAIK).

After changing the handle, either the hacker deleted my account, or possibly it was deleted by twitter after discovering the hack. I don't know.

Anyhoo, the hacker then apparently attempted to create a *new* account with the @iowahawkblog handle, tweeting once, "What happened?"

Afterwards that new imposter iowahawkblog account was deleted, perhaps because a good Samaritan reported it.

I didn't know any of this until the following day when I got a few text alerts from friends. When I attempted to sign into Twitter it didn't accept my password, and asked to send a verification code to a phone # ending in "51" (not my phone)

Incidentally, I also got alerts that both my email and Patreon accounts had suspicious login attempts, so I quickly changed passwords there, as well as PayPal, Amazon, etc.

After learning all this, I emailed Twitter Support about it, then was cautiously optimistic to see the account was kinda-sorta back up, with tweets between April 2020-May 2020 visible.

After a few hours though, the account restoration stopped.

And thus September 29 begat my numerous Groundhog Day attempts to get @TwitterSupport to figure out the dealio, which I will now illustrate with screen caps.

STEP 1: LOGIN TO TWITTER

What's this? Sounds nefarious! I will take action and change my password as you recommend in RED LETTERS, tout suite!

STEP 2: CHANGE PASSWORD

Well, looky here, it directs me to a convenient "reset my password" button that will reset my password as recommended!

STEP 3: STEP BACK AND ADMIRE THE CATCH-22

Huh. Turns out to login in I need to change my password, but to change my password I need to login; now that's what I call top notch site security design! And thus I am returned to the previous page, and try to enter my account id:

STEP 4: FILL IN THE FORM

Oh boy! *Now* we're getting somewhere! An official form to explain my problem to the thousands of customer-focused eager beavers at Twitter Support HQ, and looks like I have passed the daunting "not a robot" challenge!

Here's the text, sprinkled with a bit of Dave's patented charm to motivate whatever Twitter Support Rapid Action Task Force is assigned to get me out of this pickle.

STEP 5: SUBMIT FORM

You're Welcome!

STEP 6: WAIT FOR EMAIL

Yay! A reply email from Twitter Support! I always get a chuckle from their "If you can't log in, try resetting your password" running gag.

STEP 7: REPLY TO THE REPLY EMAIL

Once again, time to turn on the ol' Dave charm offensive for my wonderful pen pals at Twitter Support.

STEP 8: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENS

Oh well, guess I'll check back in 24-48 hours and go back to Step 1.

So this is basically where @iowahawkblog stands now:

1. Account hacked and deleted on 9/28
2. Partially back up, but only tweets between April and May 2020
3. Unable to login
4. Unable to capture the attention of @TwitterSupport to fix it

At this point I am going to stop pestering Twitter and give them a chance to figure out how to solve this. If they do, fine, I'll nuke this account and go back to the original. If not, fine, I'll vanish into the ether of my real life, which isn't half bad.

I have to say being off Twitter for a while has really let me catch up on my real interests: Mimerobics and restoring vintage Salad Shooters.

I'm not really mad about the situation, other than it looks like I may have permanently lost a couple thousand #DavesCarIDService posts, which I had planned to expand and edit into a book. Which is kind of a bummer.

Please note: I am in no way asking you to pester Twitter or Twitter Support on my behalf about this. But if you do, please be respectful and courteous. I'd like to have my account back up to normal, and you raging at Twitter about it is probably not helping.

So if you'll excuse me now, I have some vintage Salad Shooters that need restoration.

EXCELSIOR!