Can’t update email in account settings on Kobo.com

[Cootey]

I ran into a problem updating my email address in account settings, but I found a solution. I’ll post it here in full detail just in case somebody else searches for this issue and took similar steps.

When I logged into Kobo.com with my Kobo account, then went to account settings, it showed a different email address than my login, and any attempt to change the email address gave me an error. Then I tried logging in with my Walmart account and it, too, showed a different email address. This time, attempting to update the address yielded a different error. I have been struggling with this issue for months.

Finally, I contacted online customer support and went through the usual PEBCAK approach most tech support offers. None of the suggestions he made fixed the problem. It was very frustrating.

However, I found out what the issue was where the tech couldn’t. When he couldn’t explain why logging in with my Kobo or Walmart account showed a different email in the email field in account settings, I noticed that my linked Rakuten account also used that email. I asked him if Rakuten was causing the issue, but he claimed the problem was that I had too many email addresses. He recommended that I change my email address on Kobo first next time instead of Walmart, even though I couldn’t change my email address on Kobo.

While he was offering to escalate the issue, I skipped over to Rakuten.com and updated the email, logged out of Kobo, and relogged back in with my Kobo ID. However, updating Rakuten caused no change on Kobo.com. It was likely the update hadn’t propagated to their servers yet, so I unlinked the Rakuten account. This did the trick. Suddenly, my Kobo email login was in the email field as it should have been in the first place.

Kobo’s website forced the linked Rakuten email login to populate the email field whether I logged in with Walmart or Kobo. It shouldn’t do that. This likely explained why I couldn’t change the email address since I didn’t log in with my Rakuten ID. The cgi script on their site wouldn’t have permissions to make the change.

I submitted feedback on Kobo.com that they might want to change this behavior since it’s confusing and gives customers useless error messages that don’t help resolve the problem. The linked Rakuten account shouldn’t be overriding the login ID.

If this issue has been frustrating you, now you know the simple fix.


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