Q: How can I get rid of a 'ghost' Apple ID?

sounds like it is your old apple id that was changed. there are multiple threads about it here with solution, but summary of that solution is

Go to appleid.apple.com on the computer

sign in to your new id

change it back temporary to old one

use next two minutes to sign in to your phantom account on the phone and delete that account

change it back to new one and verify.

If I was correct on assumption that it is your old apple id that you had renamed - your password is not old, but the same one that you used to login on the

website. Now if you want to try it again you would have to change it back and then again, like I mentioned you only have one or two minutes after change. Course if my assumption is wrong it will not help, so before you proceed think if you really just changed your user name on the same account (apple id email address)

P.S. I didn't get it from dunnit, but if that worked - cool.

Kudos. Just for other people reading that thread it (old if) does not have to be verified - as long as you fast and can delete account within few minutes. Then Apple server catches up and will not allow to do anything until verification.

I've tried to correct this problem on my Mac, iPhone and iPad.  They are all stuck using an old email address.  I don't have access to the email anymore and I can't verify the account.  I am also not able to delete the iCloud account because it wants me to put the password in for the old "unavailable" iCloud account name.  The iPad is stuck in a "loop" and does not even let me do anything at all.  It keeps having a window pop up asking for the password to the old, unused email address.  I keep looking through the threads for a solution, but so far nothing is working.

jprbeachland wrote:

I've tried to correct this problem on my Mac, iPhone and iPad.  They are all stuck using an old email address.  I don't have access to the email anymore and I can't verify the account.

Don't verify the account.

I am also not able to delete the iCloud account because it wants me to put the password in for the old "unavailable" iCloud account name.

It is the same account, just a different name.

Use your new password.

See this -> http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5223

I had the same problem and I was not able to fix it with any of the suggested options. I ended up typing in my 4 digit passcode incorrectly until my phone was disabled so that I could plug it in to iTunes and restore it to factory default.  http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1212 This link explains how to restore a disabled device in recovery mode. After restoring, I was able to use my current appleid in iCloud.

What happened to apple's "intuitive" way of doing things...there should be 1 apple account and if u change the details, it should change across the board. It can sync my grocery list but not my apple id? Then you have to fork out a bunch of money to talk to a service tech or weed through forums like this. I've been searching for these answers for the last 30 minutes! This is ridiculous! Now when I follow these steps which seems to be the only solution, I'm guessing im going to lose all my data from my old Apple i?!

robbox306 wrote:

Now when I follow these steps which seems to be the only solution, I'm guessing im going to lose all my data from my old Apple i?!

If by "old AppleID" you mean a completely different AppleID account, it will still be in iCloud.

If you mean you updated your "old AppleID" to a new email address, then you will not lose anything.