Webkinz…

While I’ve been looking for a contact on the “inside” at Ganz, the makers of “Webkinz”, I sent this letter to their support email. My hope is that it finds someone that realizes the significance to a 9 year old girl:

Dear Webkinz,

My name is Shawn Powers, I’m an editor at Linux Journal, a Technology Director at a school district in Northern Michigan, and a father of 3 girls. I fully understand your account policy regarding forgotten passwords, but I’m hoping there is some way we can work together so my daughter can access her account again.

Last Sunday, my family lost our house to a fire while we were at church. While no one was home, unfortunately our dogs and cat were trapped inside and perished. To add additional pain to misery, when we were able to get laptops for the kids to use — our youngest was unable to log into her webkinz account. Apparently she had recently changed her password, but she remembered it incorrectly. Since the only way to recover a password is with a secret code, which burned in the fire, not only has Lizzie lost her real pets, but also her virtual ones.

I can provide every reference, recommendation, professional contact, identification, history, etc. that you might want. I just want to give my daughter a little bit of the “home” she lost. I realize it would go against your policy, but even if you can change her password back to what it was before her most recent change — that would likely do the trick.

Her login is: HIDDEN
She thought her password was: HIDDEN
She says the password before that was: HIDDEN

If her recollection of the animals in her account will help verify it’s really her, I can ask her to describe them to me.

Thank you for any help you can offer,
-Shawn Powers

If you know anyone at Ganz, please send ’em my way. 🙂

UPDATE: She got her account back! Thanks everyone!