# Recreating a customer in production **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [March 4, 2023, 9:01am UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818 "2023-03-04T09:01:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![allano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/dwolla/user_avatar/discuss.dwolla.com/allano/32/3652_2.png) [@allano](https://discuss.dwolla.com/u/allano)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2023, 9:01am UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818/1 "2023-03-04T09:01:03Z")
Hi, What are the best practice for recreating a customer in production? We are running into a client onboarding issue that is hard to replicate in the sandbox environment. We noticed that this only happens in production and are unsure why. Would it be okay for us to suspend the customer to recreate their account in production? Thank you for the help in advance. Best, Allan ---
**Author:** ![shreya](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/dwolla/user_avatar/discuss.dwolla.com/shreya/32/2154_2.png) [@shreya](https://discuss.dwolla.com/u/shreya)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 3:39pm UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818/2 "2023-03-06T15:39:47Z")
Hi @allano – Would you mind elaborating on the issue that you’re running into? When recreating a Customer account, are you creating a new Customer account for an existing Customer? If so, are you using all the same details for that customer including email? We use emails as unique identifiers so the API will reject the creation of a new Customer with a previously used email. To get around that, you can [deactivate](https://developers.dwolla.com/api-reference/customers/update#deactivate-a-customer) the old Customer account and create a new account for them again. Let me know if that doesn’t help! ---
**Author:** ![allano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/dwolla/user_avatar/discuss.dwolla.com/allano/32/3652_2.png) [@allano](https://discuss.dwolla.com/u/allano)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 4:37pm UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818/3 "2023-03-06T16:37:46Z")
@shreya, thank you for getting back to me. I haven’t attempted to create a new customer. I will deactivate the client’s old account and have them create it again. Since they will use the old email and info from the deactivated account, Will they encounter any issues? Thanks for the help again. ---
**Author:** ![shreya](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/dwolla/user_avatar/discuss.dwolla.com/shreya/32/2154_2.png) [@shreya](https://discuss.dwolla.com/u/shreya)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 5:27pm UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818/4 "2023-03-06T17:27:59Z")
Yup, that should work with no issues! Deactivating frees up the email address. After deactivating the old Customer account, you can also suspend it to further prevent accidental reactivation of that customer account. You’re welcome! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![allano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/dwolla/user_avatar/discuss.dwolla.com/allano/32/3652_2.png) [@allano](https://discuss.dwolla.com/u/allano)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 3:12am UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818/5 "2023-03-07T03:12:02Z")
Hi @shreya So I deactivated the customer like you said to free up their email address, but it seems not to allow the recreation of the customer. `A customer with the specified email already exists.` That is the error I see in the logs. Is there anything else I can programmatically do to free up the deactivated user’s email? Thanks in advance for the help. ---
**Author:** ![spencer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/dwolla/user_avatar/discuss.dwolla.com/spencer/32/2143_2.png) [@spencer](https://discuss.dwolla.com/u/spencer)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 4:18pm UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818/6 "2023-03-07T16:18:00Z")
Hi @allano , that’s strange, I wonder if something went wrong with the update to deactivate. Do you have the customer ID of the user you deactivated? ---
**Author:** ![allano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/dwolla/user_avatar/discuss.dwolla.com/allano/32/3652_2.png) [@allano](https://discuss.dwolla.com/u/allano)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 4:27pm UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818/7 "2023-03-07T16:27:25Z")
Yes, I will send it to you privately. It seems suspending a customer is insufficient to free up their email based on one of your colleague’s posts. > [@Suspended Customer unable to Re-create](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/suspended-customer-unable-to-re-create/7351/2): > > Hi @rajeevusa Because the email address is a unique identifier, you wouldn’t be able to use the same email to create a different account. Since this is in production you would have to contact support at [support@dwolla.com](mailto:support@dwolla.com) to have it deactivated to free up the email or un-suspended. Or you can create the new account using a different email. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/dwolla/original/2X/1/1b70808226fb9abeaaf7386224caffb453efb690.png) [@system](https://discuss.dwolla.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2024, 9:01am UTC](https://discuss.dwolla.com/t/recreating-a-customer-in-production/8818/8 "2024-03-03T09:01:03Z")
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