> There have been instances in the past where Google has locked the account of a user
This happened to me recently (though I think for security concerns, not TOS violations), and was quite distressing. What steps can be taken to avoid this?
This happened to me recently (though I think for security concerns, not TOS violations), and was quite distressing. What steps can be taken to avoid this?
Trust me, there are a lot of bad actors out there,
The other poster had it right - 2FA is really the way to go, ideally with something like Google Authenticator or Yubikeys.
If you ever get locked out (e.g. account is suspected as compromised/hijacked), then:
https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery
is your one-stop shop to prove you're really you.
That’s what happened to me.
I had a Google account, abandoned since 2012, disabled. A few weeks ago I got an email telling me someone from russia was trying to log in, and this was prevented. The next day, another email – telling me that I successfully logged in from Russia, and had successfully changed the password.
Google offered no way to get the account back.
I had the creation date, a list of every email in the account, the used phone number (although it had since been shut down and recycled), the old password, and control over backup email.
This was not enough, Google left the account in control of the attacker.
I requested through a Google employee friend their internal form to handle this. Also, no success. Instead, they talked with the hijacker.
In the end, I managed to contact the new owner of the recycled phone number, and together with him, I managed to run the account reset procedure, and regain control.
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Google accounts have far more security options than most online banking platforms. There's no reason you should lose your google account as long as you listen to the notifications that tell you to review your account security and go through the steps.