What you’re seeing
- A departed employee's Microsoft 365 or Google account is still active and able to sign in.
- Their mailbox still forwards to a personal address, or company messages still reach their phone.
- Files shared from their OneDrive or Google Drive are still reachable through old links, or they own folders others rely on.
- They still appear in VPN, remote desktop, line-of-business or SaaS application user lists.
- Shared passwords they knew, such as Wi-Fi, alarm codes, vendor portals or social media, have not changed.
Common causes
Every environment is different, but these are the causes our engineers find most often:
- There is no written offboarding checklist, so account removal depends on someone remembering every system.
- Access was disabled in one place, such as Active Directory, but not in cloud apps that use separate logins.
- Mail forwarding rules or delegated access set up during employment remained after the account was handed to a manager.
- Company data synced to a personal phone or laptop was never wiped because the device was not enrolled in management.
- Shared credentials for vendor portals and admin accounts were never rotated after the person left.
Why it matters
Lingering access gives a former employee, or anyone holding their credentials, a path into email, client files and financial systems. Even when the person means no harm, a dormant account that nobody monitors is a common target for credential-stuffing attacks. Disputes, a move to a competitor and data-privacy regulations all raise the stakes. Clients and auditors increasingly ask how quickly access is revoked when staff leave, and a lapse can undermine contracts, insurance coverage and trust.
How AskTechGurus fixes it
Skip the trial and error. A certified engineer works on your actual system, finds the root cause, and fixes it properly.
Tell us what’s happening
Submit a ticket in about two minutes. Paste the error, describe what changed, and pick your tier. No charge to submit.
A certified engineer diagnoses it
A vetted, US-based systems engineer claims your ticket, usually within minutes during business hours, and investigates over a secure remote session you can watch and end at any time.
Fixed and verified with you
The engineer resolves the root cause and confirms with you that it’s working. You don’t just get a workaround, and you get a plain-English summary of what was wrong.
Pay only when it’s resolved
Fixed price from $99, invoiced only after you approve the fix. If it isn’t resolved, you don’t pay.
Frequently asked questions
Will we lose their email and files if we shut the account off?
Not if it is handled properly. Mail and files can be preserved or transferred to a manager before access is removed, and we confirm what needs to be kept before changing anything.
Can we see whether they've logged in since leaving?
Usually yes, within the period your sign-in logs retain. An engineer can review recent activity and tell you in plain English what was accessed.
What about company data on their personal phone?
If the device was enrolled in mobile management, company data can often be removed without touching personal content. If it was not, the focus shifts to cutting off the account so the phone can no longer sync.