A few years back I attempted to create a free Github account, which I needed for work. Everyone was supposed to have a Github account to access the mind bending array of Java packages used in our corporate database.
By mistake, somehow, I ended up not creating a free account but a paid account for which I was billed $4 a month. I said to myself, OK, well someday I might use that myself. It angered me that Github started billing me $4 a month for something I had thought was going to be free. But it wasn't a big deal compared with other issues I faced then, and I thought it might one day be useful.
Of course, I should have known that I could not use an account associated with my work email once my work email was expunged. But that possibility, of losing my job and work email, hadn't occurred to me then, 3 years ago.
I had been at the same organization for 23 years. 23 years ago, not everyone had a personal email account or internet provider. I pretty much used my work email address for everything. Every personal email address I created elsewhere was quickly overrun with spam. Since I had to read my work email anyway, I figured I'd just handle all the spam there and ignore all my other email accounts We had a policy that we could use our company email and internet access for personal purposes so long as it did not affect business. The main concern was people bogging down the computer systems. So far as I know, that never happened. That was the way it was for a long time, as impossibly utopian as it sounds now. By the time I created my Github account, that policy was perhaps not so much in force, but it had never been officially rescinded either, at least to my knowledge.
I'm not sure we actually used Github much. We used other similar services more.
At some point, not much later, the company decided to crack down on "Personal Dropbox" accounts, where people were using their company email for essentially personal accounts on Dropbox. Or using personal emails for a company oriented account. A very big deal was made about such accounts. I converted my Dropbox account (which was and still is free) which had been created using my work email address to a personal one using my personal email during a window of opportunity provided for that purpose.
The company never mentioned personal Github accounts, and so I did nothing about mine. I had never put anything there, but was still being billed, and I figured someday I would use it for myself.
Now, I still remember my Github password. But since Github is demanding Authentication, I cannot log in because it sends to authentication code to my now non-existent work email address.
This also means, or so it seems, that since I can't login, I have no way to delete the account.
I called the Github phone number listed by my credit card. It gives me 3 choices:
1) For HR or Employment Verification
2) For Github Account Support
3) Sales
Option #2 simply gives you a recorded message, information which is useless to me because I can't login to the account. Of course I can do nothing because I can't log into my account because it demands that I enter the code sent to my non-existent work email address.
I previously tried sending two messages to Github asking they change the email associated with my account.
They sent no response whatever.
Of course I see now they cannot do that. I could, in theory, be trying to use my work account to access some information at my previous employer that I am not authorized to access. The only thing I can do now is "delete" the account at which point it becomes owned by Ghost.
I still hoped that they might email me with a form message saying "they can't change account details." It might tell me that I can only delete the account, and give details on how I might do that. But no such friendly email ever arrived.
Now I left two messages at the Sales option on the voice menu for their phone number. I'm not optimistic I'll ever get a response.
I really detest when services like Github actually provide no "service." There's no way to get them to do anything without using online features after logging in. That's probably going to be the case this time.
But to satisfy my credit card company, I'll have wait another day to see if Github responds to the messages I left on their phone with the Sales option. They send me a warning whenever I try to use the Dispute process without trying to Contact The Merchant first.
Update: Github responded to my request to stop billing me in the same day. They said my credit card has been removed and I will no longer be billed. Apparently the secret is that you have to demand billing be stopped. If you can find the right portal to send them a message without logging in. I had also sent the last 4 digits of my credit card number and my now-inaccessible old email address.
