YouTube locked my accounts and I can't cancel my subscription | Hacker News Reader

YouTube locked my accounts and I can't cancel my subscription

pocketables.com

165 pointsdigitalhigh106 comments

I had a strange and similar interaction with Google recently. I was asked to do the Android developer verification, but then I missed a deadline at some point. Support said that I would need to create a new Google account for all of this. I said this was unacceptable as this was a Google account I had for nearly 25 years and I didn't want to create another. They said tough luck, go make the new account. Luckily, I had recently married and was making a new account for the name change. I tried to use that account, but it wanted a different phone number to use for verification, but I only have one number and you can't use Google voice numbers. I went back and told Google I cannot use the same phone number to verify and I'm not buying a burner phone to do this with. Then they just said "Ah, ok, we'll fix your original account then" and fixed the original account. This was literally a week of back and forth. Pointless waste of time.

I'm surprised you were able to get a person to address your issue.

I thought exactly the same! My question: How/Why were they able to speak to a human (or maybe chat/email)?

Last year our bakery business got blocked from Google Maps. Reason: Your business is not eligible...

Yep, apparently a brick and mortar bakery isn't eligible for Google Maps. Obviously bogus. I appealed over and over again, rereading the rules, watching every dumb YouTube video, fixing every minor imagined transgression I could think of and each time just got another BS automated "your business is not eligible...".

Pretty much gave up them my partner decided to try one more time. In Vietnamese.

We had both been trying, she in Vietnamese, me in English, but this time she tried it at about 10:30pm local time and apparently it got routed to a bored Vietnamese speaker in the California help center, who fixed it immediately.

So it is possible but it'll take some weird combination of luck and timing.

Damn! That is so dystopic to me. The future of businesses determined by the will of some customer support interpretations of bogus rules. Ain't that a bit black mirroresque?

This is how Apple's app approval process works as well :)

You get rejected, you can just increment the version number and resubmit. It will get assigned to a different person and maybe pass this time.

I worked at a job where we had to maintain an app for Apple's platform. We would make some minor bugfix based on user feedback and submit the app. They would come back with a denial that was based on changes or features introduced years ago. We would go tweak that specific feature in some way, resubmit and it would pass.

It's also possible/likely they're using discrimination. It's cheaper to avoid lawsuits and PR disasters by ensuring they respond faster to minority customers. That and/or Vietnamese customers tend to have higher spend/conversion, so Google gives them better service. Or her husband's Google account had some kind of score based on previous spend/statistical probability that determined he deserved better service.

I think there is zero chance these companies aren't using LLMs to sort out the "desirable" customers from the undesirables. Google in particular knows almost everything about us.

We're in Vietnam. I'm the minority here, as a European.

Some people, by some other people's measures are never minorities.

Thanks to cumulative technical progress what used to be the domain of state actors has now trickled down to big business (on some level this is a joke, but also I'm dead serious). Someday it will trickle down to the bakery.

> The future of businesses determined by the will of some customer support interpretations of bogus rules.

That's the present. The future will be trying to cajole an LLM into interpretation of bogus rules. Not sure if that's better or worse.

That is straight out of the movie Brazil.

Several years ago, one of my Gmail accounts (mainly used for non-serious purposes, such as registering on gaming forums) was stolen due to a password leak. I received an login alert via a forwarded email, but since I hadn’t set up a recovery email address, I lost control of the account. I couldn’t even find any way to reach out to someone to take action and recover my email account.

All you can do it post a thread on the support forums, and nothing happen anymore;

I think for ordinary users (rather than developers or merchants), this is even worse.

When you are logged in to the Google Play Developer console there is an area to do the verification and once you get to a stage that breaks down (as explained) it just has a support form, which then happens via email.

I suspect the story is entirely made up, based on that detail alone.

>I suspect the story is entirely made up, based on that detail alone.

... why?

Google has a zillion employees and the story didn't even end altruistically on their side, what the fuck would the point of fictionalizing this encounter be? typing practice?

I get that it's kind of supposed to be an advanced jab at google "The world will end before you speak to a human", but cast the shade on the perpetrators rather than saying that the victimized side is lying.

HN just being curmudgeonly. Nothing you can do about it except disengage with the site. All social media is bound to have the same results.

Pay me and I'll post the email thread with verified headers. My contact info is in my profile.

Otherwise consider that you're fucking wrong and have little understanding of how communication with Google works?

Also go through my history and find the other times I have sharesd this same story. Do I get paid for each time?

Had similar experience. My best guess is that the account never went through the various age verification flows (since it was that old, it predated all that) and ended up being marked for deletion- I suspect that they had a bug (legal or in code) that prevented warning emails to get out. I got lucky to detect it early, since they disabled AI a few weeks before account deletion.

My gmail account still has the "First off, welcome. And thanks for agreeing to help us test Gmail." mail in it from June 2004. The account itself is over 21 years old. I wonder if I'll get forced to age verify myself any time?

You are just a row in a database. Column can’t have nulls.

   SELECT
      id,
      full_name,
      IFNULL(age_verified, acc_created < DATETIME_SUB(CURRENT_DATETIME(), INTERVAL 18 YEAR) AS age_verified,
   FROM 
      google_accounts

As the owner of a GMail account which is also of legal adult age (and a Reddit account which will be 18 this year), I am morbidly curious what will happen once these mandatory "age verification" start to be enforced.

It should be trivial for Google and Reddit to grandfather-in accounts which are more than 18 years old (arguably less, who created their account when they were, e.g. 5 years old?). However, I'm betting they will come up with all sorts of rationalisations as to why this is not possible, anything from the bullshit ("not technically feasible" my ass) or the self-contradictory ("an account may have changed owner"... so in violation of the ToS? And what's to stop an account from changing ownership after age verification?).

I admit I am prematurely riling myself up with indignation for something which may never happen. Maybe I am wrong and Google, Reddit, etc. take the common sense approach, but I have no hope in it.

Since we all know that age verification is just tracking validation, then your predictions and indignation are justified.

Mine did, once, and it hasn't been requested again. It was also, until recently, accepted by age verification services as indication of non-minor status.

The Amazon version of this story I heard was support advising to create a new account, and then the person got permabanned for creating multiple accounts which is against TOS.

This is the first and only time I've seen someone say they got a positive resolution. No joke, not a single post about Google account-lockouts (that I've seen) in more than a decade has had a happy ending. I'm happy for you. It's also surprising that this breaks the mold.

For about 10 years, I have had a habit of creating a new, separate Google account for every new project I start, and then adding my personal account as a team member/collaborator. This way, the potential blast radius is (hopefully) limited.

I assume you have a consumer protection agency. Ping them.

Put it in plain words. "I have been paying... they made it impossible to access stuff I paid for and made it impossible to unsubscribe."

That's textbook fraud. They'll be fined and give you your money back.

I agree. The answer is regulation that outlines rules of engagement for "free" (you are the product) online services.

Australia is famous for having very strong consumer protection laws for purchased products (physical goods). It has been discussed many times here. How does this work in the digital universe?

Steam (ie Valve) used to pretty much not give refunds for games.

That changed after Australian's Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) dragged them through Federal Court for it, comprehensively winning against Steam:

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/federal-court-finds-va...

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/valve-loses-appeal-over-...

Thus the "refunds if you've not played for more than ~2 hours" policy that Steam then implemented (globally).

Probably the relevant quote to answer your question about how things work in the digital universe:

> "This important precedent confirms the ACCC's view that overseas-based companies selling to Australian consumers must abide by our laws. If customers buy a product online that is faulty, they are entitled to the same right to a repair, replacement, or refund, as if they'd walked into a store," ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said.

"They", being a trillion dollar company, can effortlessly draw this out while you expend all manner of time and resources and still not pay you or resolve the problem. Any regulation that would change this to be better for the average consumer (and therefore worse for the trillion dollar company) will never pass because they have more say in the laws then you do.

This is a defeatist comment I know, but I do feel defeated when it comes to tech companies.

500000000th person discovers google is not creating youtube for you, but for them to make cash. Crazy story. Really shocking and definitely not one of the most standard complaints in existence.

Anyways, there's absolutely no such thing as "I can't stop paying for this". Just do a chargeback on your card. It's not a real problem.

The article was complaining abut AI, yet written by AI

I use a kitchen knife to prepare dinner, and yet I am still appalled when someone uses a knife to stab someone. This is not hypocritical.

The article is partly about a _misuse_ of AI, and partly about just how bad the system around accounts and appeals is in general.

You probably do agree that this should not be normal. And not the expected way to get your money back? There is no blocklist option at my bank, so I'd have to do that every month in perpetuity?

Simply because I cannot login and cancel my account?

side note, these are things I feel should be: 1. Illegal: "noreply@" addresses. My inbox is not a dumping ground and email is two way, not one way. 2. Required: phone numbers on you website, easily found, that are picked up by humans.

What do you mean there is no blocklist? Your bank has no way to stop someone from taking your money, no matter what, if it’s ever authorized even one time? That makes no sense. Your country desperately needs some way to fix your system.

In America, the authorization to charge a card lies with the card itself. You call the bank and revoke the authorization. Done. This solves the problem of requiring every single company needing to hire some untold number of people to sit around at phones and hopefully agree to stop taking your money?? Or whatever weird setup your country has.

It also doesn’t matter if it’s normal or okay or whatever. You’re dealing with a business - it’s effectively an inanimate object. You don’t live in a vacuum, so you can complain that it isn’t a friendlier company, or you can find a solution. I’ve found one for you, at least that works in the US.

> discovers google is not creating youtube for you, but for them to make cash

This isn't the cop-out you think it is. Plenty of profit-making businesses have great customer service. Google's crap service is entirely on itself.

So how is this supposed to convince me to give YouTube money directly or indirectly by buying a subscription and disabling my ad blocker? Stories like this reinforce my decision to never give YouTube a single cent.

It was after the hundredth post like this that I de-Googled my life. It was only a matter of time until something happened to my account, and I had so much of my life tied up in their services. The biggest and best change was buying my own domain and changing my email address. Now no one can ever remove access to my emails.

I've been on this path for years, with varying degrees if faulure. How did you manage it?

Some bits are harder than others.

Most of my important email was migrated to a Protonmail account. With the exception with a couple of things tied to government services that don't have a path of changing your email, which sucks.

Android: Next time I switch devices I am going for GrapheneOS. Technically still an Android, sandboxed Google services and all, but a step in a better direction.

Android Auto/Waze: There's no competition here, sadly.

YouTube: Another thing that is very difficult to replace beyond just reducing my YouTube usage. I can use stuff as Newpipe or self host Invidious, but technically it is still YouTube.

Also mixed success, but it depends what you want to achieve. My goal was to minimise risk of life disruption, and I think I succeeded. Some people are on a quest to keep their lives private, and that is harder.

Email: The most important component here is owning your domain. Then you can switch between providers. I'm using iCloud now because I can have email addresses for the whole family for very cheap and it integrates well with my Apple devices.

Search: Kagi.

Maps: I still use Google maps. The alternatives are just not as good here in Denmark.

Phone: iOS. I really want to try GrapheneOS but our government uses a national ID app which only works on official Android and iOS builds. It's very annoying to function without that app.

YouTube: Still use it as well, but with ad and sponsor blocks on computer and mobile. I have an Apple developer account and sign my own sideloaded YouTube apps.

Cloud storage: I switched to iCloud, but I keep a full local copy of everything in case I lose access to my account. I also built a home NAS and keep the movies on that. Basically anything which I don't mind losing so much.

Docs: I use Office applications primarily now instead of Google Docs.

My main concern was actually being locked off my Google account once I realized how much of a wrench it would throw into my life if that happened. Privacy is a secondary concern here - not that I don't think it matters, more that I think it's a lot trickier than simply avoiding Google services.

I recently acquired my own domain, and perhaps that is a good idea, especially considering I can set it up on Proton too.

For Maps I tried HERE and TomTom, but they simply are not good enough where I live (in Europe, ironically). HERE doesn't know that some streets exist on my town, TomTom is missing a lot of addresses which makes things very cumbersome super quickly.

Phone: Apple is not an option. I despise Apple products, and I don't think they are any better than Google.

Cloud storage: I've switched to self hosting + tailscale here. It has been working actually pretty well.

Docs: I use Libre Office. Google Docs is shit.

There’s a platform called Odysee which hosts mirrors of many YouTube channels, might want to check that out instead of alternative frontends like invidious.

Nice, I'll check it out!

I ungoogled when google locked my account many years ago (I didn't see hundreds posts about it). I don't use youtube, what do you need it for? FOMO? Internets are not monopolized enough yet for google to obscure them.

for youtube i use ytdl (very easy to install with pip or w/e new thing there is now). then at least it's more of a deliberate choice to watch something rather than random thrill seeking.

is there a risk that domain renew fee will skyrocket, because cost of change it for you now even higher?

For all of these newfangled TLDs that are springing out of the woodwork with strictly for-profit interests, yes. Even some ccTLDs have seen rapid price hikes in recent years.

I think the safest bet is to pre-renew the domains you really want to keep for as far out as you can (most registries allow you to renew a domain for up to 10 years). That way, if there is some major change to cost structures, you have a decade to either weather the storm or come up with a migration strategy.

Sad story but this has been written by an LLM (to original short story has been inflated by and LLM to turn into an "article"). Speak w/ your bank and ask them to block future charges - easy.

The thing is so unreadable one would think that it's a parody of an LLM article.

I'm curious about what actually happened, but I can'make it past the second section, the writing is so terrible.

My theory is that YouTube blocks some accounts for publishing LLM-generated music, and people who wanted to earn ad money from it get burned and publish LLM-generated posts about it.

I would be on YouTube's side here, except it's possible that their motivation is simply to avoid poisoning their dataset while they train their models off creators videos. Also, the question is how they tell apart what's LLM-generated without false positives.

Maybe there were also artificial listens fraud (it's a problem with their competitor Spotify), but we'll never know because no one who was blocked would publish that honestly.

> A clean message. A closed system. No actual solution. > This is not just about content moderation anymore. This is about basic account control.

These kind of articles are becoming unreadable

Did you or did you not publish AI "music" on YouTube? This half AI written rant looks like an angry Rathbun bot. It needs a summary.

YouTube is clamping down on AI content because they know people hate it and leave YouTube.

There is no money in generative AI. Google needs to advertise to humans and not to Rathbun.

That is why Disney cancelled the Sora deal.

Disney cancelled the Sora deal because OpenAI cancelled Sora.

> There is no money in generative AI.

It's really annoying that there is so much AI generated music on youtube. The problem though is more that you get tricked into listening to it by "creators". These people just squeeze money without adding anything positive to the game.

On the other hand it would be interesting if you could generate your own music spcifically for the mood you currently have.

That's irrelevant, a blocked account justified or not should not prevent you from canceling your subscription. It should in fact automatically cancel any subscription upon account suspension.

Isn't like 7 out of 10 top artists on Spotify AI music?

Easy fix, wait for the next billing, contact the bank explaining what happened, and block that and future debits.

At least in Australia, this shouldn't be a problem.

By comparison, Goldman, the bank operating Apple Card in the U.S., has previously refused to perform that block future debits process for me; they simply didn’t have the capability. I ended up closing my account with them to stop the charges, which worked perfectly. I envy Australia’s apparent regulation to compel merchants to do so.

I think it’s the bank that blocks the merchant here in Aus.

As an additional data point, in the UK I can just login to my banking app and remove the authorisation for a particular vendor (or, for people who don't use online banking, I could phone up to do the same thing).

I'd imagine if you have a card payment reverted to Google and they ban you in return, you're in a world of pain (that you are in the right probably doesn't matter).

The OP is already banned? Whats the issue in cancelling a charge you cannot use?

Google has a degree of seperation value stored on every account. Once the algorithm determines its been wronged it increases the radius so expect your household members and work colleagues accounts to be at risk when you try this.

bullshit - canceling the authorization will have no affect on your account at all, the subscription will just end.

In Google's eyes cancelling the authorisation is robbing them because they charge in advance and they might even cop a rejected payment fee.

I agree there may be no other option, I'm just warning to be ready and prepare for the possible loss of "connected" (in Google eyes) accounts.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45157001

Definitely not bullshit. I have a friend who was banned simply for returning a Pixel phone after accidentally ordering 2. Some automated mechanism flagged it as potential fraud and nothing worked to reverse the ban. Going to the bank to block payments, remove authorization, or God forbid, do a chargeback for the money they already took after banning you is playing Russian roulette with your Google account.

It's also the only way to stop Google from stealing your money short of going to a lawyer.

The account is already banned.

The Youtube account is banned. Google can escalate things and widen the net to ban anything and everything you have in the Google ecosystem, like a Gmail account. You can see here [0] that OP still has access to the Gmail account.

[0] https://pocketables.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-4-1...

It’s not clear that that is the Gmail account to be fair.

Still, you’re not going to let Google continue charging you for nothing and still keep your email with them.

Anyone who has anything like this happen to them is moving off Google products.

For three generations, unless you watch re-education videos.

Do you work for Google? I’m not sure what the problem is you’re describing.

I some countries, however, this may penalize you, credit score wise or whatever.

This option, in my opinion, should truly be the last resource, after exhausting (and documenting) every other route.

Very important: public routes, like Twitter Support, even better (make sure every step is traceable if the only option left is, indeed, blocking debts on your credit card).

You haven't signed any agreement or opened any lines of credit - I would be amazed if there was any jurisdiction in the entire world where this would affect your credit.

Heuristically, that sounds naive. Actuaries do not typically think "oh, that's enough data". If Experian could track whether you iron your shirts, it too would show up in your credit score.

I mean possibly. I interact in the space and there is almost no information in a cancelled subscription. There is more information in how much you spent on takeaway.

I contacted TM Bank and they would't let me do this.

Might be an idea to switch to a bank or credit union that have better customer service?

Subscriptions are not a contract of payment. Your bank pre-authorizes these payments, simply ask them to remove pre-authorization. If they can't do that, then the bank is spending your money without your consent.

Same for uk. Can cancel direct debits from the bank website.

Things like this would probably not be via direct debit though

Yeah. Recurring card purchases are hard to stop. They can keep going even after the card has been cancelled or expired. The direct debit guarantee is so nice in comparison.

> Easy fix, wait for the next billing, contact the bank explaining what happened, and block that and future debits

You'd also want to mail a letter to Google documenting that you're cancelling your subscription. Cancelling a payment method alone doesn't void a contract.

I doubt Google would do this. But there are plenty of trashy litigation-finance shops that buy up these abandoned contracts for pennies on the dollar and then try to collect. Even if you never give them any money, it would trash your credit for a while.

This is not an easy fix. Charge backs will lead to life-time permanent bans. Which means you're now forced to buy an iPhone in order to pass store attestation for essential applications like banking apps, government ID, age verification, etc.

Assuming the chargeback is made in good faith, why do the laws allowing for chargebacks in the first place permit this?

it's besides the point of the post but

> That argument is not unreasonable on its face. Artists should have rights. Their work should not be scraped, repackaged, and turned into infinite output without consent. But that is not the whole story. These companies don’t want to stop AI Music generation, they want to own it.

I'm not sure I agree with that assumption - flooding the market with large amounts of generated music (regardless of who does it) will decrease the value of UMG's products (real artists and AI songs) drastically to a point where I'm not sure that they would still have a viable business. While I disagree with a lot of what they do, I do assume that they have an interest in protecting music made by artists, not music generated as a product (though of course they also produce music like products with a lot of their human "artists").

> flooding the market with large amounts of generated music (regardless of who does it) will decrease the value of UMG's products (real artists and AI songs) drastically to a point where I'm not sure that they would still have a viable business.

This is questionable. Did generated code decrease the price of software products?

I get what you mean but I don't really think they are comparable, since one of them is art and the other is typically product development. Art factors in the person behind the art piece, software (or other products) does not. The value of art is tied to the skill, creativity and experience required to make it as good as it is (at least in most people's mind).

But also, the main claim of the advantages of code generation is that it will make software development cheaper, and will end up making software cheaper. This is currently not necessarily the case because the quality of the code generation is not really there to make actual (reliable) product development cheaper, but it helps a lot with rapid prototyping. Or as I see it, more things are being prototyped and never finished. What also factors into this is that there are not many incentives for big tech companies to lower their prices, because a lot of what they're offering are tools that we need. This is also not the case with generated music.

Generated code isn't a product but a generated song is. And it definitely reduced the value.

Price, no. Value - probably.

> Did generated code decrease the price of software products?

I think it's too early to say.

You could argue that if software development is low effort due to "vibe coding" then it doesn't have the same value as it once did. Perhaps there'll be a race to the bottom by new entrants to the market who don't need to pay a whole development team and can massively undercut the incumbents. Or perhaps the race to the bottom will be in quality along with price, but the savvy user will see the value the incumbents provide.

There are a lot of executives acting in a way that makes me believe they're less interested in viability than causing a stockmarket supernova.

This lengthy article is conveniently omitting what exactly the account got locked for…

There are multiple topics mentioned in this article. One is quite curious, which I had missed before, I must admit:

  Universal Music Group is currently at the center of a growing legal fight against AI music platforms like Suno and Udio, accusing them of training on copyrighted music without permission. [...] The claim is straightforward. These systems learned from real artists without paying for it, and now they can generate songs that compete with the originals

To be honest - I really doubt that Suno-like company created music they taught their systems on. The AI companies are usually using our property (text, music, code) to teach their models and then sell them to us. Quite different view than a constant admiration on how the AI helps us coding...

Literally had a similar experience with X today.

Was browsing when all of a sudden my account got suspended for no apparent reason. This was a premium account too, and I had last posted a tweet last year. I would maybe comment here and there once a week.

Ok cool you suspended my account. But when I tried to access my billing details to cancel the premuim sub, I got a "Something went wrong" error.

All these big tech companies have the same billing issues after bans/suspensions. Once they decide you're persona non grata, they don't give a f about cancelling your billing.

the llm writing is so annoying

This is why you only use virtual cards for subscriptions. I have never had this issue. Even adobe couldn't get a cent over what I was willing to pay. Didn't let me cancel the account, fine. Kill the card. You don't have to beg to these companies.

> I was told that if an account is linked to another account that receives copyright strikes,

I still remember how mad people were when that linkage between YT accounts and Google accounts took place, and, of course, it looks like they were right. Shitty behemoth of a company.

this is exactly why you should use a gift card for shady subscriptions.

with all the ai hype buzzing around, i'm too paranoid to link it to a bank account

these people this money grows on trees, and i suppose if you're google it does >.>

I use disposable digital debit cards for my subscriptions. These can be issued by fintech companies like Wise. If something like this happens to me I'll just delete the card.

Could not get through the article because it looks like LLM generated text squared.

But I assume people will have protections against this? One can just let their credit card company know to block out the next payment, or dispute the charges; I am assuming the user will have adequate proof that they aren't able to get to their subscription account.

While what Google is doing here is scummy, I'm assuming that multiple consumer reversals will make at least a minor dent to their financial reputation with the banks? Did this even need so much AI text?

I'm getting a 403 forbidden on this page.

I bet Google is training their models on videos uploaded on YouTube.

What a joke. People, start putting a license fee on your YouTube videos for AI training. Play their game.

This is the point where you send a letter to the company, stating both the situation and the remedy you want (e.g. refund of payments for inaccessible services, cancellation of the account, maybe a reasonably small amount as compensation for damages).

In that letter, you set a reasonable deadline.

If they don't respond within that deadline, you take them to a small-claims court.

I understand that us tech bros want to fix everything online, but sadly that doesn't always work. But that's not the end of all your options.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com