For over a year I watched an inactive Twitter account hold hostage the handle I wanted to use.  @NickLeRoy was held by someone named Nick McCoy and it’s obvious that he decided not to use the account after registering it.  He had a couple spam account followers, didn’t follow anyone, and I couldn’t see any tweets that he sent out since registering the account.  I was bummed, but quickly decided to register the account @SEONickLeRoy.   I tried sending the account a couple private message, even tracked the guys Facebook account too.  With many attempts to get a hold of the guy I finally gave up.  I figured it was a lost cause at this point… but its not!

Submit a ticket to Twitter.

What I tried next actually worked!  I went to Twitter and submitted a support ticket for impersonation.   I quickly explained that I have been watching the @NickLeRoy account for over a year and noticed that it hasn’t been active once.  I also noted that this was my legal name and that because it was inactive I would like to have ownership of it.  Sent out the ticket and poof that was it.  A couple days later I received an e-mail back from Twitter stating that the user name has been released and that it’s free to register.   Instantly, I jumped over to Twitter and changed my user name to the one I always wanted.

Hold on… I have one more trick.

Once you change your Twitter user name all your followers will convert over.  But what about any links you have pointing to your old account?  My trick is to go back and register the old account with another e-mail address.  Here you can place a small message for people being directed to your old user name explaining that you changed your user name.  This is great because you really get the best of both worlds, the user name you want and the visibility your old account offered you.  See the screen shots below to see what my old account looks like followed by my new account.

So there you go! Try this little trick and post below what your results are.  It worked for me so it just might work for you too!  While your at it give me a quick “follow” on Twitter at @NickLeRoy

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