What is account recovery?
Account recovery is a last-resort way to get back into your WorkCampConnect account when every other path has failed. You’d reach this point if you've lost access to all of:
- Your password (and the reset link isn’t working)
- Your phone (so SMS codes are gone)
- Your Google sign-in
- Every device you’d previously checked “remember me” on
If you still have any of those paths, use the normal login options first — they’re much faster. Account recovery involves a 24-hour cooling-off period by design, to protect you from attackers.
How it works
- You open a ticket through our help form and pick the “Locked Out / Account Recovery” topic.
- Our admin reviews the request and verifies your identity. Depending on what you can confirm, we may ask one of your recovery contacts to read you a one-time code.
- Once we’re confident it’s really you, we approve the recovery. That starts a 24-hour delay, and the old email address on your account gets a “cancel this” link.
- After 24 hours with no cancel, your password is reset and we email you a fresh reset link. All active sessions are signed out.
- You set a new password and you’re back in.
Recovery contacts
The fastest way to make this work smoothly is to set up recovery contacts ahead of time. You can pick up to 3 people you trust — a spouse, travel partner, parent, long-time friend. They don’t need a WorkCampConnect account.
If the day ever comes where you need recovery help, our admin emails one of your contacts a 6-digit code. They read it to you however they normally reach you (phone call, text, in person), and you relay it back. A successful vouch is a very strong signal that you really are the account owner.
Set up your recovery contacts from Dashboard → My Account → Recovery Contacts.
If your account was hacked
If you think someone else took over your account — changed the email, locked you out — tell us in your recovery ticket. We treat compromised accounts differently: we freeze the account immediately while we investigate, and if we approve recovery, we also roll back email and phone changes to the most recent known-good values.
How long does it take?
From start to finish, 24–48 hours on a normal day. The 24-hour delay is mandatory — we can’t shorten it — because it gives the legitimate owner a chance to cancel a fraudulent request.
Why the delay?
If someone tricks our admin into starting a recovery for your account, the cancel link sent to your old email is your safety net. You’ll see the request start, click cancel, and nothing happens. Without the delay, an attacker could get into your account before you’d even notice.
Couples, Crews, and household accounts
When your partner verifies their email on a Couple account, we automatically enroll them as one of your recovery contacts. You can always see this on the Recovery Contacts page (they’ll be marked “Auto-enrolled (household)”) and you can remove them any time.
Crew / Family accounts don’t auto-enroll additional adults, since those can be grown children or friends. If you want a crew member as a recovery contact, add them manually from the Recovery Contacts page.
Still need help?
If you’re locked out right now, send us a message through the Help Form and pick “Locked Out / Account Recovery” from the topic list. We’ll take it from there.