Creating an account that already exists

Has this happened to anyone else, where someone is able to create an account (not character) that has already been created.

For example, i create "account 1" then someone else also creates "account 1" thus resulting in me losing the account.|||How long in between were these accounts created? In years past it seemed that accounts would stay forever, just characters would expire. Then in the past few years they changed it to so that an expired character could be revived so long as the name was not taken.

Just recently I encountered the joy of multiple accounts expiring (my best and only guess). The log on error tells me that if I did not log in within 90 days to create a new account. I don't remember ever seeing that before. I can absolutely 110% guarantee that the accounts were not closed due to some hacks or the like. So my one and only assumption is that they are setting a timer to not just characters, but accounts as well.

So, is it possible then you made "account1", and did not log into it for over 90 days, to which somebody else made one using that same name?

Sucks kind of, considering I lost tons of good equipment I had collected over the years. I was in the process of making different variety of characters (Faith Zon, Freeze Zon, JavaZon, SpearZon, FireZon, etc..). Now that is gone I have to start from scratch kind of. While my main characters remain, the mules that had all the equipment to use are gone. Sucks to be me today.|||I can't remember when the account was created but i've had it for a few months at least, with it last being used last week on tuesday.

Was just going though my trade mules picking up any payments that had been left, when i noticed i couldn't login to one account. I later discovered that another trade partner had sent me payment via this account which he says he created.

Could it be some kind of server error which either deleted my account or flagged it as available.