Hi everyone, Steve Webkinz here. Did you have an old Webkinz account that you were looking to get back? Well, read on and hopefully I can help!
Millions of Webkinz accounts have been created since we launched in 2005, and for various reasons, many of those accounts have since become inactive. Over time, that has added up to a huge amount of data that needs to be stored. In order to save space, we made the decision to “archive” these inactive accounts. This process basically compresses the data into as small a size as possible.
Under this previous system (before April 2, 2019), if a player returned to Webkinz World and tried to log in to their archived account, they would get a message telling them that their information was being retrieved. Within 24 hours of attempting to log back in, our system was designed to automatically find that account in our archives and restore it.
***UPDATE – APRIL 2, 2019: This automatic retrieval system has now changed. See details below***
More recently, new online privacy laws governing children’s websites have come into effect. Those laws prohibits companies from retaining account data for extended periods. For Webkinz this means that if you haven’t logged into your Webkinz account in 7 years, your account will have been deleted from our archives.
If it has been less than 7 years and you can’t remember your login information, you’ll need to contact Customer Support. You can reach them via email at:
PLEASE NOTE that the Customer Support team can only respond to emails during regular business hours: from Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm EST. They often get a high volume of requests for restoring accounts (especially over weekends), so please be patient. Response times vary, but can sometimes be upwards of around 10 business days. Sending repeated requests every few days will only add to the backlog.
If you can’t remember your username OR your password, it is still possible to recover your account, but you will need to send Customer Support some additional pieces of information to help identify that the account is yours—like your first name, any pet names on the account, or any of the registered pet codes.
If you don’t remember any of this information, or if your account was deleted, please understand when Customer Support says they can’t help. They want to do everything they can to help people reconnect with their Webkinz pets, but there is nothing that can be done once they get beyond these technical and legal restrictions.
Also remember that it is now FREE to start a new Webkinz account! Adopting additional Webkinz pets onto your free account will unlock Full Membership. If you want access to all of the features and fun in Webkinz World, you can purchase a subscription to Deluxe Membership. To learn more about the 3 different tiers of Webkinz membership, check out my earlier Special Report.
ACCOUNT ARCHIVING & RECOVERY POLICY UPDATE STARTING APRIL 2nd, 2019
Since we introduced the ability to have FREE Webkinz accounts a few years ago, even with the 7 year limit, the number of archived accounts has quickly continued to increase nearly beyond our storage capacity.
To address this, starting on April 2, 2019, we will be making the following changes to our User Agreement’s account retention policy:
1. All inactive FREE accounts will be deleted from our archives. Any paid account (that has ever registered a Webkinz pet Adoption Code, purchased Deluxe Membership, or purchased eStore Points) that is currently in our archive will still remain in our archives for up to 7 years from that player’s last log in.
2. Automatically retrieving inactive accounts from our archives (even if you remember your user name and password) will no longer be possible. To restore an inactive account, you will need to submit your request to our Customer Support team via email at: webkinzsupport@ganz.com, providing the information listed above.
3. Going forward we will no longer be archiving accounts. Your account will either be considered active, allowing you to directly log in, or it will be deleted. Free Accounts will be deleted after 6 months of inactivity. Paid accounts will be deleted after 24 months of inactivity. So to keep your account, you’ll need to log in at least once every two years – which considering how many fun events we do, shouldn’t be difficult.
This has been Steve Webkinz reporting for Webkinz Newz! What would you like me to report on next? Let me know in the comments below.
Does anyone have a extra plushie from the wheel of the month for March if so could you please send it to sam030507 thank you.
wow I totally get this & think it’s great you are giving the heads up to people. I once had an extra account deleted & have to believe the pets went to other families and found good homes ;) lego universe was not so kind–and their building is even more elaborate & believe me my son was devastated for some time (probably a feeling one never loses)…SO PEOPLE BE GRATEFUL WEBKINZ IS STILL AROUND & IF HAVEN’T USED YOUR ACCOUNT FOR 2 YEARS THAT’S ON YOU :) sorry for honesty but just be glad & do something about it in time!! best, k.
I think the new changes are needed with how many inactive accounts there are. It would free up a lot of their space to help make new things for us current members. Like Steve said, you just have to log in once every so often to keep your account which isn’t hard at all.. I have managed to keep my account active since 2007. If you’re not on for 24 months, I would expect your account to be deleted anyway – that is a long time. I can’t wait to see all the new things coming to Webkinz! Keep up the good work!
It is unfortunate that accounts will be deleted after inactivity after 24 months. Then again. if no one is using the account for 24 months, except for very unusal cases, they are very interested in it any more. If you don’t really use your account any more, consider passing it on to a younger sister or brother or other family member. That’s how I got my account. my older sis passed it along to me
Hmm.. I understand why you guys are doing this, and I mostly agree with it. But I kinda feel like 6 months for free accounts is too short and that the paid accounts should have 36 months. I dunno, I guess 6 months and 24 months is a while, but I just feel bad for people that might be inactive from Webkinz for a few years and want to come back, but can’t.. =(
24 months is too short. Look how many people have only recently rediscovered their Webkinz. People like to visit for nostalgia’s sake, they aren’t going to be thinking about having to maintain their Webkinz account so it doesn’t get deleted. I personally only started playing again recently after not logging in for maybe 5 years. So many people who play fairly infrequently will be so disappointed when they come back only to find everything gone, not to mention how much money they’ve invested in it. I get the whole issue with storage and data privacy, but it would be nice to have them still backed up somewhere.
A million webkinz accounts????? Wonder how many are still active today?
I hadn’t played for 5 years and couldn’t remember my password but my grandma puts sticky notes on her chalkboard with the account information.
No longer archiving eh? :( Six months is too short, if someone lost computer access in an earthquake or something, they would lose their Webkinz pet…
6 months is for free accts those free accts are so limited in what they can do it is easier to open a new any way.
I agree that six months isn’t long enough. Things happen- family issues, natural disaster, even mental health issues – that prevent people from being able to log in. I personally took a 1-2 year break from webkinz when my mental health was at its worst. I can’t even imagine how I would have reacted if I lost all of my accounts because of that. I now have six paid accounts and over 250 pets adopted on them, plus five free accounts with around 30 pets total. I think that they should offer the ability to combine accounts if they’re going to do this. Even if they can’t move the kinzcash/items over, I’m almost certain they have the ability to add pets to an account. Couldn’t they add the pets from your free account onto your paid account by adding the same type of pet with the same name? Then they would be free to delete the free account. To get our items, we could adopt a pet onto the free account so we could send them via kinzpost before merging the accounts. I’m sick of having so many accounts anyways, but it’s a lot worse now that I know I have to be active on my free ones or they might be deleted. I don’t want to lose my pets!
Wow, 24 months? So all you built, collected & spent on your account just disappears?
Hey, it’s better than the way it used to be before free accounts – if your membership ran out, boom. Yer’ done.