Tell HN: Locked Google account reopened after two years

Two years ago I used just about everything Google and had done so since Gmail first came out. My Android phone was googlefi. Internet was google. Gmail. DNS. SSO to pretty much everything.

One day out of the blue my Google Pay account was marked as fraud and locked down. I couldn't update/add/change any of my payment information. I have no idea why. I don't remember when/how I even found out it was locked down, I wasn't really sure at that point what stopped working, if anything. I didn't have anything TELL me that it wasn't working so I thought this was just an isolated event that would get resolved quickly and wasn't affecting anything important.

Then throughout that week I started to notice what wasn't working. I could log into gmail (IIRC) but I wasn't getting any email. My custom domains that forwarded to gmail stopped resolving. My cell phone wouldn't make calls anymore. I never had a problem with SSO logins, thankfully.

The credit card I was using for all of my Google services was coming up on its expiration and I desperately needed my 15+ year old gmail to work. I'm pretty sure I was in the middle of selling a house when this was going on. I have so much mail in the inbox that it won't accept mail without paying for the service. Google has this form you fill out and attach a picture of your drivers license to so that they can investigate the "fraud." Over that month I sent in my DL at least 3 times. I never received any response.

I was without a phone for a week because they had no customer service to even speak to, not that I could even make any outbound calls. I wound up getting another phone plan elsewhere because that was the most critical thing to me. I was so pissed at Google I switched to an iPhone.

I was getting no response from Google and days/weeks were going by so finally I bit the bullet and de-googled everything I could. I migrated all of my 15 years of email to Fastmail. I moved all of my DNS records. Changed my ISP. It was infuriating.

It's been about 2 years since I did that, I've still never heard from Google about anything. But now all of my accounts are unlocked.

I will never, ever trust my important accounts to Google again.

Lesson here is to not put all your eggs in one basket. I try to make sure there is no one vendor service that can become mission critical in my life, specially not likes of Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple.

Also, ensure your suppliers have a helpdesk where you can place a ticket that a real person who is paid by them will have to look at. Lesson learned on a bookkeeping service recently - I went for lowest price, and they had NO customer support, it was all crowd sourced :(

Phone number, email, and banking should be separate. These are basically the pillars of your digital life. Then for the rest of Google services, you can just download a monthly data dump on Google Takeout which you can restore to any other service at your own leisure.

You don't have to switch to Apple though. It's a bit like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Apple has an even stronger hold on your digital life if you decide to fully invest into its ecosystem. It's much better to stay on Android, but de-google it, and avoiding the use of your Google account

Moving to Apple isn't necessary but it isn't a trap either for OP. A main lesson they learned was "digital diversity". If they get locked out of their phone now it would be an inconvenience instead of a life altering event.

The swap to iPhone is just another "fuck you" to Google, which they earned there.

I swapped to an iPhone last year. After using Android exclusively.

I’ve been extremely happy with my iPhone. Apple has all of the little polish and cross connections that make it a wonderful experience. I think Android made sense while the smartphone market was growing, but all of the platforms are mature now. Android fragments further and Apple polishes more.

Yeah I've been very happy. Carplay is light years better than Android Auto. That was one of the biggest worries I had as I used AA a LOT.

The incentives are more aligned with apple so this is less of a problem, they also have a lot more support and help available when there are problems.

Sure, but if Apple decides to lock your account (a much more rare phenomenon if sampling Hacker News comments) you can have someone on the phone with you in minutes, or even walk to a store where they will help you.

Apple isn't perfect, but they're generally pretty reasonable and will work to help you, even if it takes multiple tries. My experience with Google has been the exact opposite. Everything they touch results in Kafka-esque psychological torture.

Almost like paying the "apple tax" for the hardware means that you're the customer, instead of just being entirely the product like you are with Google.

When I look at reviews for businesses, I don't look at the 5 star reviews. I look at the 1-2 star reviews, and I look exclusively for reviews that describe _how the business responded to the problem_.

I was looking for somewhere to leave my dog for a few weeks while I was out of country. There's a lower rated place where the negative reviews that match this are things like "One of the other dogs scratched my dog! They got her to the vet and paid the bills, but they shouldn't have let that happen!". There's another with a better overall rating where the reviews are "This staff at this place are phenomenal and really love the pets but the owner is an absolute ass. If anything happens, don't even bother asking for a refund or trying to complain."

I sent my dog to the first place.

Accidents, mistakes, and general "life doesn't go according to plan" things _will_ happen. I'm less interested in the best case scenario, and more interested in how they handle this stuff. That tells me what the worst case scenario looks like. If my worst case hotel scenario is "mildly inconvenienced", that's a damn sight better than "left out on the street at 1AM with nowhere to go".

So on that note... yeah, that's pretty much why I have an iPhone.

At some point it suddenly stopped accepting one of my credit cards and refused to let me re-add it. Apple literally has a `/contact/` page on their site where the 800 number is easily discoverable. I called and was connected almost immediately. They asked if I could use another card and I told them I could, but only if I _had_ to, I prefer to use this one for all my recurring charges. "No problem." They spent about 40 minutes on the phone with me (including calling me back immediately when my signal dropped and we got disconnected) and resolved the problem. This is support in relation to a ~$800 one time device purchase and a $0.99/mo subscription.

When I was paying Google over a million dollars a year I couldn't get answers out of them or get my issue resolved.

Even ignoring all the other anecdotes I see online... no way in hell I'm trusting Google with anything I care about.

> When I look at reviews for businesses, I don't look at the 5 star reviews. I look at the 1-2 star reviews, and I look exclusively for reviews that describe _how the business responded to the problem_.

This is why it is so valuable to post negative reviews on your competitors. People actually believe this s...[0]

> They got her to the vet and paid the bills

Doesn't sound fake, it doesn't even need to be. You post a few more reviews 1) They paid my vet bill too! 2) Mine is scared of everything after going there. 3) etc

With google it is different tho, their bad reviews aren't anecdotal. It's stunning that law makes haven't touched the subject.

For extra irony, google is running what seems to me the biggest business review scheme in the world. It isn't even legal[1] but if they had any sense or decency they would build their own customer verification system without law makers demanding they do so.

Everyone suffering their fake reviews would love to provide their customers with a link and a review token. Then, even if you've screwed up horrendously you can express how you regret things went that way and apologize. Responding like that to fake reviews is out of the question. Your best case scenario is if you can pay the fake reviewer to stop.

You can buy google ads tho.

[0] - https://www.wdbj7.com/2022/10/17/five-star-fakes-small-busin...

[1] - https://www.softwarefair.de/en/2022/06/02/google-fails-to-im...

What constitutes a real review though? There's a small restaurant I used to go to. The last two times I left after 5-10 minutes of all waiters doing the "if i don't look over there i don't have to work" trick. Each time I went on to Google to write a review. Is this not a legitimate review?

It might be true but if there is no evidence it ever happened it never happened.

What value would you get from reading such a review?

This is way too complicated. Even reviews by people who made a real purchase are suspect. Amazon is full of such reviews where customers are offered a discount or a gift if they submit a positive review.

I guess in a scenario similar to mine, you'd look for patterns. The same guy saying the same specific thing makes me think of a grudge too. However if it is multiple sources complaining about similar things, then it's a pattern. You'd also get to decide whether what matters to them matters to you. I think a sister comment was saying something similar. For example, it is routine where I live for people to complain about pizza joints that "do not even send ketchup" with delivery orders. This I am not too hung up on. :)

the most trustworthy of evidence

To me, this is the critical difference. Google is so large that if you end up in some tiny edge case, that "tiny" still includes tens of thousands of people yet Google is so large and impermeable that there exists no person that you can call. The only success stories involve people who personally know Google employees or who have social media accounts that get so much attention that it brings embarrassment to corporate Google. Google is too big to be allowed to exist.

GP mentions nothing of Apple. Did you mean to reply to a sibling?

>But now all of my accounts are unlocked.

But your accounts are unlocked isn't it?

I recently decided to trust Apple with my emails after witnessing a friend lose access to his free account due to some mistakes on his part. After he reached out to Apple's customer service, I was genuinely impressed by the helpful and knowledgeable support team. They escalated the issue efficiently through multiple levels, involving several phone calls over a short span of one or two days. What stood out the most was their unwavering dedication to resolving his issue, despite him only utilizing a free 5Gb account. Maybe hardware investments marks you as paying customer?

Knowing that if an issue arises there'll be a team of humans eager to help is quite reassuring.

[Another feature I value is Apple's "Hide My Email" (unique to paid accounts). While other services offer similar redirect/disposable email, Apple uses its @icloud.com domain, so the services you subscribe can't just ban the domain, they have to accept it].

My only issue with iCloud these days is the excessive amount of legitimate emails ending up in the spam folder, but I've noticed this problem persistently with Gmail as well.

Full disclosure: I am not the CEO of Apple, just a (mostly) satisfied customer.

I remember a boss telling me about his personal experience at Nordstroms, with a lady irate about a set of defective tires she bought. She didn't have a receipt, but the sales clerk said that he was fine with taking them as a return if she could say how much she spent on them.

It's worth noting for people who are unfamiliar with the store - while they do sell some home goods in addition to clothing and beauty/jewelry, they do not sell tires. When asked afterward, the clerk said he did not know/recognize the woman.

Some companies just recognize how vital points of contact are with people and try to empower their employees to help customers and more generally people, because they consider it a priority to maintain a positive perception.

AppleCare support has historically tended to be very open, covering phone/online technical support for all of your Apple devices and services if any of them are actively covered.

There are certainly parts of interactions with Apple that _are_ frustrating, such as certain classes of device repairs where they gate the ability to e.g. get a battery replacement based on the results from a diagnostic tool.

Employees and even managers appear to have very limited capability to override those processes, presumably because you could otherwise ask for a battery replacement for a devices with a damaged screen and back panel, and pay an order of magnitude less than a repair on the damaged display and back.

FWIW the tire story is a legend from decades ago: https://press.nordstrom.com/news-releases/news-release-detai...

"(...) Nordstrom never sold tires. But in 1975, it purchased three stores from a company that did –Northern Commercial of Alaska. (...) When Nordstrom took over the locations, it narrowed the merchandise mix to apparel and shoes."

Ok now it makes more sense!

>presumably because you could otherwise ask for a battery replacement for a devices with a damaged screen and back panel, and pay an order of magnitude less than a repair on the damaged display and back.

So there's no way to get a battery replaced on a device with a damaged display?

> So there's no way to get a battery replaced on a device with a damaged display?

Replacing the battery on most iPhones involves removing the display. If the display is already damaged, it's likely that removing it will damage it further, possibly to the extent of making it stop working entirely. Apple is, understandably, hesitant to either 1) potentially return a device to a customer in worse shape than they got it, or 2) eat the cost of replacing the display when servicing batteries.

This is shit design.

I think there may be a difference between the support you get in countries with an Apple presence and in countries without it. In Denmark where I live we have 3rd party support, and it’s very, very, terrible from my anecdotal experience. Even for things that are entirely digital.

I’m pretty sure it’s better than Google’s automated no-support, but it’s certainly nothing to praise.

As someone who interacts a lot with customer support on many levels across industries, I assert your friend was lucky to get someone who genuinely cared. However extrapolating this attitude to general company behaviour would be a mistake.

In current state of affairs support largely relies on individuals who are knowledgeable and capable. Those are 1% by most optimistic expectations. Everyone else is giving BS responses just to get you off the line. Apple is no different - in my recent case support was little bit less that terrible.

Sometimes I think what happens when those people eventually leave and new generation will take their place. Would be a sad state of affairs.

I have the exact polar opposite experience (as I'm sure many do) - as a prior iPhone user (because at the time Android was pretty awful) I obviously had an apple ID and icloud account, fast forward a few years and my remaining Apple device dies, I forgot the number of the temporary sim I had in it etc etc, Apple are still refusing to either change the phone number on my account or erase it (as required by law) without me giving them the full temporary number I had on my last device, which obviously I don't have this far down the line. Apple "support" make no attempt to help they just say no number no deal, so at this point I've had to resort to pointing out their obligations under the law for removing any data and history, still waiting to see what they'll do though.

Even while I was an Apple user their support was variable at best, some issues just would not be resolved (like keychain issues etc, "we don't understand why it's broken sorry, case closed") and would not be escalated.

It's funny, I have an old Gmail account that I haven't logged in in years. That account had my current account listed as a recovery email. One day I received an email to my current account from Google saying that it had blocked a suspicious attempt to log in to that old account. So I tried to log in to that old account to change the password but Google wouldn't let me, just saying something like somethings seemed wrong with your login attempt. There was no recovery option available. So despite having the correct password AND having access to the recovery email, I'm still locked out of that old account today. Maybe I'll give it a try later today though.

Seemingly without notifying us, google has turned off recovering accounts using the recovery email. Since a few years back they will only ever except phone numbers for this.

It's unbelievably stupid.

> It's unbelievably stupid.

In other words, they now force you to give them your phone number, which is incredibly valuable to them.

It’s unbelievably smart on their part.

It's not smart if you can't given them your phone number because they started requiring your phone number to login before you can give them your phone number.

Is this what's going on? I have an account with a maiden name I check now and then. I tried to get into it when they announced the policy change around inactive accounts, but was presented with an error saying I had no recovery information. I swore there was a recovery email and could see the security alerts being forwarded to other accounts, but can't do anything.

With so many people centralizing on gmail over the years, this really feels like another blow to the usefulness of email overall. It has me thinking more critically around recovery workflows I've built or assumptions that people will have records of previously sent messages.

If they are doing this intentionally then it's possibly because they announced they'd be deleting inactive accounts beginning from this month so perhaps they're giving some another chance.

It's actually ridiculous the byzantine methods sometimes required to regain access to Google accounts. To even have a chance in such cases—even when a recovery email has already been configured—one has to use the exact browser version number that has been previously logged into (how many users would even note this), same geographic area even if different IP (obvious), and importantly if prompted for a phone number not to use one that has been used on 2-3 other accounts (even if only used to login and not entered as the recovery or 2FA number).

The last straw that prompted me to leave them was when they began asking for a home address. Just voluntarily after successful logins and not part of any forced login or security requirement. The audacity that they expect users will just give it to them was so offputting, apart from everything else they try.

Oh wow, I did not know about the upcoming policy to start deleting accounts with two years of inactivity. Thanks for mentioning this! So glad I got through ahead of it. How many people will not...

Wow! Thanks for the post. I was able to login to my locked account as well. Been waiting ten years for this.

Why not download the mail and keep it locally, instead of accessing it only on the whims of Google security EPMs?

A standard IMAP client will do this for you easily.

Good point. I had done this previously with my primary email, but it didn't occur to do the same here for some reason. I kicked off the Google Takeout process per another comment's suggestion.

One should do that for all email addresses, even ones that one uses daily.

You never know when you will be screwed over by your provider.

I got Yahoo! Mail in the 90's (when they started offering email, the world was so different and I thought a @yahoo.com address was a must have). A few years ago I thought I'd look at emails from my teenage years, and guess what, Yahoo silently lost all my emails before the year 2000/2001.

If only I can find that 20GB IDE disk with all the data I've migrated since my first computer...

I'd suggest looking again - they might have lost the rest by now if you haven't been using it. They now delete all email if you haven't logged in for a year. I found out first-hand :(

Nah, I look in it daily, I use it now as the address for online shops, etc. Which is a terrible idea because they can upload their data to Facebook (where I'm also registered with this email) and then both sides have a better marketing profile of me...

Is there a way to do this without flipping the unread flag to read? I tried doing this years ago with Yahoo email and the it started marking the unread emails as read.

Using IMAP? Did you read the emails on the other device? I thought IMAP synced the read state between devices.

Maybe I did it wrong then. I tried syncing with Thunderbird some years back and it flipped everything to read.

Or maybe that was a POP sync. I don't even remember anymore.

I do a Pop3 sync of all my email from gmail about once a month. It's not a perfect 1-to-1 mapping, but if I ever get locked out, only lose about a months worth of mail.

Google Takeout now!

If it works…

> during the recovery process got asked for a phone number.

Do you mean a phone number entered during registration, or an arbitrary phone number?

I can only assume arbitrary as it sure wasn't aware of a tie to my number during previous recovery attempts. I assumed there was a required phone field somewhere that I needed to provide data for.

I too will never entrust Google for email again. I'm a product, I get it, but still, it sure smells like there's a class action in this some day, under a conducive federal, shall we call it "ambiance."

Unbelievable! As a gmail victim myself I'm very happy for you.

I don't know if that's an unfortunate coincidence, but I seem to have been banned from google the same day. :) I didn't know you can actually be banned from google! (and I haven't even been there for a month or two)

403. That’s an error.

Your client does not have permission to get URL / from this server. That’s all we know.

You refer to it as a "backup account", but it doesn't sound like a backup if it was the only place those messages were stored.

I use gmail as my primary email client, and use both a gmail.com address and several of my own domains. But I regularly sync everything to a local email client (Thunderbird), so that even if Google cut me off, I would have access to all but my most recent emails, and to all my contacts.

Have you now enabled 2fa and recovery codes?

Immediately!

You made me go and check mine! I mean I know I had them but it always pays to remember. And.. I found out that the "what was your mothers atomic weight in molar equivalent pure technetium" check question was deprecated 2 years ago and they will no longer ask you how a Giraffe whistles, if you want to get back into the account. I deleted the question.

Puh, I'm (EU based) so happy that I use pay mail services such as Posteo, Mailbox or Protonmail.

You essentially pay 1€ per month, I get full privacy and I can adjust the level of security, ...

I don't have a recovery option since I know that I don't loose my password and no one else would guess it.

Reading this I wonder if there is a process to take control of my domain associated with my gdrive account so that I have control of it from the standpoint of access, registration.

What happens if google locks you out if your domain?

Did you buy it through Google Domains? I think you can migrate it to some other service without affecting the gdrive account.

Google takeout is already amazing (especially compared to other companies that offer similar services) but I wish I could incrementally download whatever changed since my last backup. The amount of my data they have is huge, and I'm basically only taking a snapshot once every 6 months at this point. I have to download ~15 50gb files :(

(It's almost all from YouTube, Gmail, and Google Photos)

It is extremely not amazing, it continually fails to export my 12tb account. Which is a problem, because in 30 days or so they are going to start enforcing the 5tb limit on workspace accounts, which will prevent me from getting even emails.

Can you break it up into different products on each export?

Still fails

Yikes, thanks for letting me know this is what will happen when my data gets that big.

I built a toolkit to rapidly backup takeout archives every 2 months and make it a bit easier to do so. I hover around the ~1.5TB range.

Of course, there are catches. But maybe it might work for the non-six month archives.

https://github.com/nelsonjchen/gtr

There are many reports of it not working, with no recourse. :(

Please tell me you are not gonna keep using the account. That would be too pathetic to bear.

Wow...how many GB of spam is in there?

I never used this address anywhere so comparatively not much. Oddly, almost none of it is in the spam folder. The other interesting bit is that someone seems to have been using this address for online purchases and lease agreements (fraudulently, most likely).

I have a very old Gmail account. For purposes of this discussion, call it sergey@gmail.com. I often get real email sent to addresses like sergey2000@gmail.com. By "real" I mean important stuff that people would miss if they didn't receive it. In the beginning, I used to follow up. I'd occasionally get a reply from the sender asking a question like "OK, thanks, could you send it to her for me?" I concluded that some people have a "horseshoes and hand grenades" attitude toward email addresses -- close but not exact is good enough. Maybe they can't remember all the digits in the address, so they put what they can remember and hit send.

Similar situation, but I've had people think I'm "hacking" them when I respond.

As a result, within the last 15 years I have only contacted someone back once. That was about funeral dates/coordination.