Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#171

Post by ausbah » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

prlambert wrote: post #165

The anti-Google frothing here has gotten so extreme it's crossed into comedy. Maybe instead of assuming incompetence and malevolence you should consider how hard it is to do this perfectly. You don't have to like them, but the fact is the there are many many smart and competent people working on these systems trying to do the best for all users of Gmail and Google Accounts. Every day there are hundreds of very bad pe…

if this happened to you I'm sure you wouldn't be thinking "gee they really are just trying their hardest let me cut them some slack". you maybe be right but that doesn't solve anyone's problems like this one

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#172

Post by eunice » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #70

user3939382 wrote: post #17

I made the jump to Fastmail and I'm very happy with it. Web interface is at least as good as Gmail's. Thunderbird keeps a local copy of my emails, I control the email domain. I can create backups. The second you get back in you gotta get off this platform.

I make this point in most of these threads, but this is falling to an anecdata fallacy. Gmail is thousands or tens of thousands of times bigger than Fastmail[1]. When you have have a scale difference that large, you're going to have a huge, huge imbalance of problem reports like this that has nothing to do with actual reliability. All providers mess stuff up occasionally. Everyone has a customer support crisis at som…

I feel like while you're absolutely right, I still have this nagging voice in the back of my head with gmail - a concern that there's this non-zero possibility I could lose access because e.g something i upload to drive gets mistakenly flagged as copyrighted material. Too many eggs in one basket.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#173

Post by forgotpwd16 » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

650REDHAIR wrote: post #156

sph wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me repeat it for those in the back: If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Your email is your most prized possession. It is more important than your credit card number. At least you can call your bank if someone steals it. Also, _ALWAYS_ use your own custom domain for emails. Do not host it @someone-else.com Stop using a free service from a terrible company t…

Do you host your own email?

You can have an email with custom domain without having to host it. Though, even for that, not sure how easy will be for a non-technical person to set up. Maybe there're services making it simple.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#174

Post by spicymaki » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

I am sorry to hear about that. The state of customer support is really sad these days. If you figure out how to get back into your account, you should make sure you generate physical recovery codes. That should prevent you from being permanently locked out of you account.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#175

Post by josephcsible » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

martincmartin wrote: post #93

evouga wrote: post #82

Can someone explain how it’s anything but completely insane for an online service to deny access to someone with a *correct* password?? This isn’t someone getting locked out because they forgot their password (where I can at least understand why the user is at fault).

2FA exists because sometimes ne'er do wells get your password. Phishing, guessing weak passwords, password reuse from sites that are hacked, the list goes on.

What Google did here isn't 2FA.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#176

Post by MerelyMortal » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:44 PM UTC

joe__f wrote: post #126

blacklight wrote: post #96

This is probably the #500 post on HN that reads "help I've been locked out of my Google account for Kafkaesque/inexplicable reasons and I have nobody to reach out to". If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Do yourself a favour in 2023: drop Google and all the filthy excrement that they produce. There's plenty of much better alternatives, and from a purely market…

I've been thinking to move away from Gmail for a while now, what alternatives do you suggest?

I did with Fastmail and a custom domain name. Very easy (Fastmail has a Gmail import tool), highly recommended.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#177

Post by josephcsible » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #138

wintermutestwin wrote: post #113

The fundamental problem here is that there is no way to get support from google that is a human being. I dream of a day when the US government retakes the mantle of consumer protection. Proposed regulation #2 (after eviscerating privacy violation) is that all services must meet certain customer service standards, including having a way to get to a human being. I know I am dreaming hard here, but there once was a time…

> The fundamental problem here is that there is no way to get support from google that is a human being. No way other than paying a trivial $1.67/month for Google One.

There have been past stories here about people who were paying for that but found themselves in situations like OP's anyway, and it didn't help them to resolve it.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#178

Post by shepherdjerred » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

hacym wrote: post #68

danillonunes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the major problem is having your email attached to a big tech general account. If your son decides to download a pirated game to your iphone, out whatever other unrelated minor offense, and Apple determine it's worth nuking your entire account, your email is gone. Granted, Google is worse at this matters, and when you own the domain at least you can point it to somewhere else, but it's still a hassle.

Does Apple have a history of doing that? This is the first time I’ve heard of that.

No

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#179

Post by usr1106 » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

A long time ago I created a separate Google account for every of their services. I have the passwords of all of them, but as soon as I try to log in they ask me add my phone number "to make my account more secure". There is no way to click it away or say later. So de facto I am locked out. I won't give my phone number to Google and I don't have a dozen of other numbers. Google is like forced prostitution. You must sell your privacy to their advertising business.

Edit: Have not tried again for quite while. Maybe they change it some day? Well I have given up all hope and try to avoid them as much as I possibly can.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#180

Post by tag2103 » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

throw0101c wrote: post #109

blacklight wrote: post #96

This is probably the #500 post on HN that reads "help I've been locked out of my Google account for Kafkaesque/inexplicable reasons and I have nobody to reach out to". If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Do yourself a favour in 2023: drop Google and all the filthy excrement that they produce. There's plenty of much better alternatives, and from a purely market…

> If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. This is mostly true for any of the free offerings. If you're paying for the '…for Business' stuff (perhaps with your own domain), then there's probably more availability for recourse and contacts (especially since they're charging your credit card, so they have some form of link to a real human being).

I've had a Google domain for several years hosting my private email, I'm migrating everything to protonmail (including my Companies) in 2023.

FYI- It is the exact opposite. There is zero support without multiple support tickets, their UI is full of antipatterns. I get to pay and not only do they scan my emails (they claim they stopped that practice, sure) they also won't allow Google Workspace (formerly GSuite) to utilize features like Google Family. I have a tertiarty public account that right now I can't access because I'm travelling and have run afoul of the Google gods and in the Admin console zero way to force allow a login. And I'm paying for that wonderful granular control.

I for one hope the wave of GPT based AI wipes them off the face of the internet, they are valueless. Their search is a joke now. They've been adversarial to the user community for years and reminds me the terrible taste of a monopolized- because lets face it that's what they are- ecosystem with ZERO concern or care about their end user.