I would give you very long odds that no one at MC had a clue who I was before this story showed up on the front page of HN. My mailing list is very small (it's a very niche product) and I hardly use the MC account (which was the problem to begin with). I'm sure I just got caught in their process. I'm equally sure that their process was designed to thwart abuse, which is surely a major problem for them. (In fact, it surely the major problem for them!) But it just seems to me that they just didn't think it through. This whole unfortunate situation could have been avoided with a single automated email drawing my attention to the fact that my account was about to be closed for inactivity.