She insisted she never got the passwords, but I was staring at them in my sent box from 2 weeks ago.
Ask your new web guy", I said
ARROGANTLY. "You guys hired him because he costs less, so deal with it now."
"YOU NEVER GAVE US THE PASSWORDS!!!!"
Her email exploded with rage.
"I'm calling the legal team now. You have 24 hours."
Those words slowly sank to the bottom of my stomach over the next 30 minutes as I tried and failed to gain access to her website.
"Password changed notification" - that was the email subject line that was
making me so mad. Obviously, someone was changing the passwords. None of my logins worked anymore.. except one. The server's root password.
I was able to login as root and change the WordPress administrator password. Right away I could see the problem.
There was a new user with admin credentials.The email address for this user belonged to a discount web design company.
The guy they hired had been messing with the backend of the website and that's why they couldn't log in.
They had locked themselves out.
They were desperate to get it fixed and to restore their access. Even though I wasn't on the project anymore and they had a new webguy, they blamed me for things not working. They said the downtime was affeting their business. Once I restored access, I sent them a screenshot of the user list,
highlighting the other guy's email address. I also sent them screenshots of the uptime monitor. During my watch, the site was up over 99% of the time.
Thankfully, I was able to prove they were the ones that caused the lockout. I never heard from them again. I don't know what
they think happened. Helpful advice: Use an uptime monitor. Document and organize all client communications by using a CRM or project management tool.
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