Client has no access to their account
A client is trying to get access to Cloudflare because their website is down. Hosting was initially setup through a freelancer who died last month. So, there's no way to get account information. The client does have a working email address for the same domain as his website. I was brought in to help him get his website up and running again.
I'm not positive that Cloudflare is the host, but looking at whois information for the domain I see:
- GABE.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
- HERA.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
Question: how does my client get access to Cloudflare so they can make changes to their hosting and get their website up again?
7 Replies
These links may help, but they only work when logged out. You can always use an Incognito Window or a Private Window to ensure you're logged out.
If you know the email: https://dash.cloudflare.com/forgot-password
If you know the email and have 2FA or email delivery issues: https://dash.cloudflare.com/login-help
If you don't know the email: https://dash.cloudflare.com/forgot-email
this one is going to be messy because they don't really own the account. what you're likely going to end up doing is making a new account, transferring the domain to that, and redoing the cloudflare config
don't expect to get access to the original account without a court order - it belongs to the freelancer currently
(and will be tied up in their estate, some probate court will be dealing with it, and that's probably way more work than just starting a new one)
@asuffield | Foundational Eng Thank you Andrew. I suspected this was going to be difficult. My client can prove he owns the domain name and has other documentation that he's the business owner. Is there anything in particular that would establish he co-owns the account or paid for services?
probably not. and there's likely not enough interesting config for it to be worth the effort compared to just making a new account and transferring the domain to it
these sort of accounts usually have very simple config that just isn't worth the hassle of trying to recover them
Is your client the person in this topic or another customer of the same deceased freelancer?
https://community.cloudflare.com/t/need-phone-number-to-contact-cloudflare-support/789934
That person does seem to have access to the Cloudflare account with the same nameservers.
Edited: My client isn't the person asking in this topic, but the website was also built by the same freelanceer Chris McMahon.
Thanks Andrew. I'll let them know.
Update, I found out that Cloudflare is not the host of the website, it's just a proxy. The actual website seems to be hosted on Google Cloud Platform.
yeah that's how it's typically used - which is why the config for these sites is very simple and you can just redo it