Page 29 - ABF Newsletter April 2025

RESET A FRIEND’S PASSWORD?
95% of the time of course it’s your own account you want to reset the password for. But it doesn’t have to be! Suppose a friend wants theirs reset. You can’t ac- tually reset it for them without access to their email account. But what you can do is start the process by triggering the password reset email to be sent to them – simply key their email address in the above screen and click reset password.
I am frequently asked to do an admin password reset. There actually isn’t any such function. All I do is log myself out and do exactly the same as above – key in the player’s email address and click Reset Password!
WHAT IF THE RESET EMAIL DOESN’T ARRIVE (AND ISN’T IN YOUR SPAM FOLDER EITHER)?
There are two situations when the password reset email won’t arrive:
1. Your email address has been blocked within myABF (perhaps due to a previous bounce or at some point you may have flagged a myABF email as spam).
2. The email address in your myABF account doesn’t match the one you keyed in (either because you mistyped something or, more commonly, because the email is out of date).
If that happens, you may need to contact Sup- port. Things we can do are:
a) see whether a reset password email actually has been sent on your account;
b) check if there is a block on your email and remove it for you;
c) check whether the email actually in your ac- count is matching the one you use when you send us the support ticket. That’s by far the most common reason why a password reset doesn’t work.
OUT OF DATE EMAIL ADDRESSES – AND UPDATING THEM
An out of date email address can happen in two main ways:
1. You change your email but don’t update your myABF account.
2. Someone else originally set your myABF account up for you but they didn’t put your email ad- dress in it. This happens if, for example, a club or tournament organiser sets up accounts for some players. They might initially use a generic club or
tournament email address. But they leave that in the player’s account. A year later when the player is now familiar with myABF they want to reset their password and they naturally key in their own email address. But what’s in their myABF account is still that original generic one. If you do help other players set up their accounts then PLEASE make sure their email address lands up in their Profile not yours or a generic one. Doing that saves hassle for them and for us later!
You can always update your email address via your myABF profile page – which is accessed via the person icon at the top right of the screen on a computer or via the Account menu on a phone/tablet. There’s a new “How to” guide just published which explains this, and other things:
www.abf.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/ My-ABF-How-to-manage-your-email-address.pdf
DOES THE ABF KNOW YOUR PASSWORD?
Someone recently claimed, “The ABF has my pass- word”. This is categorically untrue. We absolutely do not have anyone’s password! They are all encrypted.
We do have an admin ability to see aspects of your account for support purposes, but we absolutely do not know (and cannot look up) anyone’s password. If you’ve forgotten it all we can do is trigger a pass- word reset (which is something you or anyone else can do anyway).
It’s the same as credit card details you might input to make a bridge credits payment (or save if you are setting up auto top-up). Those are all encrypted as well and handled by Stripe the online payment pro- vider. The ABF doesn’t store, or even see, any such details.
WHY DO WE HAVE PASSWORDS AT ALL?
Lastly – for those players who think it’s a waste of time myABF having passwords at all – consider this. Your myABF account includes access to your bridge credits, in which you can now deposit a fair bit of money.
At the time I am writing this, 6,814 players have a combined total bridge credits balance of $523,094. The largest individual balance is $3,440!
That’s why the accounts have to have password pro- tection. You wouldn’t expect your internet banking access to have no password would you?
Julian Foster myABF Manager julian.foster@abf.com.au
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: April 2025
Page: 29