Sometimes we receive requests from third parties, which may be from companies or individuals, asking us to close a Leanpub user's account.

Sometimes these requests are sent by bad actors looking to stalk, scam, or otherwise cause damage to a Leanpub user.

Here is an article we have written for Leanpub users on this important matter:

One way for a bad actor, such as stalker, to find out if someone has an account with us, is for them to contact us, citing the user's name and/or their email address or other personal information, and then ask us to close their account.

Since literally anybody with a user's name and email address can send us one of these emails, there are rules that a legitimate third-party request to close a Leanpub user's account must comply with.

Please note that a reply from us informing you that your third-party account closure request is not compliant is NOT an acknowledgment that such an account exists.

If you are trying to submit a compliant third-party request to us to close a Leanpub user's account, please read this entire article.

Here is what a normal compliant third-party account closure request looks like, sent from the user's email account, which matches the email account associated with the Leanpub account:

This email has a number of positive features that make it compliant:

- The email is from the email address associated with the Leanpub account (yes, legitimate third parties can be granted access to send emails from their client's email address)

- The email includes the user's full name

- The email displays knowledge of a specific detail only the account holder would know, in this case the date they received an email from us that indicated we had some of their personal data

- The email is polite, clear, and short, making no claims extraneous to the account closure request

This email also lacks the negative features of an illegitimate-looking third-party account closure request, some of which we set out in the next section of this article.

We understand that your request for us to close someone else's account may be well-intentioned, but we cannot know that unless you meet some specific conditions.

Here are some reasons why:

Sometimes scammers work hard to make sure their attempt to damage a person through the discovery or closure of their Leanpub account looks legitimate.

Here are some of the hallmarks of a scam or bad actor:

- Making a claim to possess the legal authority to act on the user's behalf without providing sufficient proof, or only promising to provide proof of legal authority in the future

- Providing no official proof of their own identity

- Sharing multiple email addresses in their account closure request, and asking us to figure out which one corresponds to a Leanpub account

- Attaching an official-looking PDF without a technical e-signature or digital signature, or other necessary signs of legal legitimacy (unsolicited PDF attachments are a conventional vector for cybercriminals)

- Showing no evidence that they know there is in fact a Leanpub account corresponding to the one they are asking us to close, such as the date the account was opened, or a purchase that was made with the account, or the date an email was received from us indicating that the user has an account with us

- Not emailing us from the email address supposedly associated with the account (again, legitimate third parties can be granted access to send emails from their client's email address)

- Various formatting, spelling, or other mistakes (In one example of a message that looked suspicious to us, the message said we could email the customer by clicking “reply all” to the email, but the customer was not in fact included on the email, and could not be included in the email thread by clicking "reply all".)

Here are some of the psychological tactics that scammers use:

- Threats or intimidating language

- Officious claims to specific rights that may not in fact exist, without referencing any relevant legislation

- The imposition of arbitrary time pressure, like "You must reply within X hours"

- Passive attempts to draw out our sympathy, like "Please reply so I can close my ticket"

If you can't email us with a request to close the account from the user's email address, then you may submit a third-party account closure request that includes the following:

1. Proof of Your Identity. This includes a government-issued photo ID or a digitally signed request using a verifiable corporate or legal authority email.

2. Proof of Your Legal Authority to Request the Deletion of the Account. This includes a declaration of Power of Attorney of Executorship with a digital signature that gives us sufficient confidence in its legitimacy.

As a final note, if we reject or already have rejected your third-party request to close a Leanpub account, a common-sense question to ask your team is:

Would you close your client's account or destroy any related data from your own company's records if you received a request to do so that looked like the one you sent to us?

If you have any questions or feedback for this article, please email the Leanpub Team at hello@leanpub.com.

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