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I got locked out of my Google account for a month

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Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#151

Post by CydeWeys »

fastball wrote: post #136
graniter wrote: post #106

Yeah well I got locked out of my hotmail account 5 years ago and I never got back in. There was a bug in an iOS release that caused the Mail app to make repeated, unnecessary requests to authenticate hotmail/outlook so Microsoft determined that there was suspicious activity and locked me out. They have an account recovery process for situations like this and I tried, and tried, and tried, and failed to regain access.…

You didn't back up your 2FA keys?

I'm in the same situation right now. I didn't back up my Authy keys because when I switched phones, the balance on my Coinbase account was zero (still is), so it wasn't a high priority to me.

Now, I'm trying to get back into the account so I can add some BTC to sell it, and I'm getting nowhere with the customer support. For an account with a 0 balance. And I still have access to the correct email, phone number, etc.

At this point it'd just be easier for me to sign up for a new account I guess, but I don't want to have to use a throw-away email for that. You'd think there'd be some kind of easy path to regain control of an account with zero balance, as there's no risk of theft. Nuke all attached bank accounts and the like as a safety measure.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#152

Post by mistermann »

notyourday wrote: post #48
Shoothe wrote: post #2

> On December 5th, I sent a note to a PR contact who I work with on Google-related news and I told him about my problem. He said he had gotten my case escalated and I should hear within 24 hours. Sadly in all these stories that end successfully there is an inside help from someone that has contacts in Google. I don't even want to think about what would happen to people that don't know anyone inside Google.

US over time has developed this amazing alternative system to deal with all kinds of really complicated b.s. it involves guys and gals in black robes. They even get to say "Agree, that thing you signed is stupid, so we are going to presume you did not actually sign that". Use them. They are lovely. 1-800-BUILD-A-BEAR lovely. They also happen to love to smash into faces of smug dumb entities. Like Google. Or Apple. Mo…

Wouldn't life be wonderful if this was true.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#153

Post by jopsen »

detaro wrote: post #145
jopsen wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are smart enough to use TOR shouldn't you also be using 2FA? Ideally, U2F...

Do you have any evidence that Google treats 2FA differently in this scenario?

If I travel many accounts often ask for 2FA...

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#154

Post by marcusr »

This is too technical for most unfortunately, but the only way to guard something as valuable as your email address is to own the domain and so control the MX records.

I'm fortunate enough to have a grandfathered free Gmail account so I can own my domain and point it to a Gsuite account without paying.

Otherwise it's worth paying up for Gsuite, Fastmail or similar.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#155

Post by dredmorbius »

"Who are you?" is the most expensive question in information technology. No matter how you get it wrong, you're fucked.

I've been locked out by Google several times. And know of other instances including Google and othere services. Some never regained access.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3mo7l6/that_go...

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2w618r/how_to_...

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#156

Post by dredmorbius »

marcusr wrote: post #154

This is too technical for most unfortunately, but the only way to guard something as valuable as your email address is to own the domain and so control the MX records. I'm fortunate enough to have a grandfathered free Gmail account so I can own my domain and point it to a Gsuite account without paying. Otherwise it's worth paying up for Gsuite, Fastmail or similar.

That only shifts the problem to retaining control of the domain.

Talk to Alexandra Elbakya about that, amongst others.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#157

Post by Godel_unicode »

rocqua wrote: post #144
whiddershins wrote: post #46

I think this is the money quote: “That same day I opened a second GMail account so I could have access to services like an email account if need be, [...]” So, this journalist is in the middle of a horrible experience with Gmail and responds by ... opening another Gmail account, because basically realistically imagining email as something other than Gmail is far too much of a stretch in most people’s minds.

I'd love to switch away from gmail, but their 'important mail' function is essentially unique to them, and I love it. Sadly, this seems like a system that can't really be self-hosted. It requires data.

If you have Gmail you have a fantastic training set of important and not important email pre-labeled for you to try learning that model for yourself.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#158

Post by kuschku »

mehrdadn wrote: post #66
WovenTales wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were all that could do it, sure. That's not the end of it, though. I was trying out anonymization methods a while back, and created an account for use through Tor + a VPN (yes, I know it's Google). I recently tried to get back into it, but since I wasn't "where I usually sign in" (and can't actually say what city they thought that was), I'm locked out. I have the correct password in my manager, and I can even…

I'm confused, so you are answering every single security question correctly and you age logging in from your usual location without any kind of Tor/VPN/etc. and you still have no way to access that account? Or are you merely prevented from logging in via Tor/VPN?

That is correct, I had the same issue.

My account was previously always used in Germany, and then fell into disuse once I migrated to another Google account (to change the primary email address).

Someone tried several passwords for the account from Russia, Google warned me by sending a warning to the backup email, and let the attacker in anyway.

Being in Germany, the reset flow asked me to either

(a) provide the phone number used, prove I control the backup email, and provide the exact account creation date (I was off by a few months, and it failed to allow me in),

(b) prove ownership of the backup SMS, backup email, and answer all security questions correctly (which I couldn't, because the phone number had long been reassigned).

I, desperately, called Google Nexus support (not possible to solve), and even asked people on the inside, who got the account team on it (more on that later). No can do.

In the end, I got the new owner of the phone number (ALDI Talk reassigns phone numbers after 6 months disuse) to help me by him sending me the SMS verification code, which I'd enter, to verify identity, and get the account back.

After I managed to log into the account, I obviously enabled 2FA, secured it, etc, but I also found a new message in the inbox, from Google's account recovery team, the usual 'thank you for contacting us, etc' one. They had contacted 'me', after I complained that the account was hijacked, by writing an email to the account, and talking with the attacker. Who obviously said there's no problem.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#159

Post by vulkoingim »

cjsuk wrote: post #139
vulkoingim wrote: post #137

Recently I had a similar experience, thankfully with my work account. Even then, with having GSuite support, it took around 2 weeks to resolve the issue. If you lose access to your personal GMail account, well....you're fucked :/ Since then I have slowly started migrating my personal email and all logins to another mail provider, where you can actually contact support, as to not rely on Google.

This sort of stuff scares me so much. I see many people relying on one basket of eggs all the time (AWS is a fine example) with no backup plan. I’ve actually considered running my own mail server again now DKIM/DMARC is around.

I know how that feels and I agree. Vendor lock-in is crazy. Too many people and businesses rely on a company, without giving a second thought about what would happen if that company suddenly changed its terms or stopped providing a service that they are using.

But running my own mail server...argh. I wouldn't want to do that ever again. My approach is, instead, using my own domain with a 3rd party mail provider. That way you are always in control of your e-mail address, and you can always switch to another provider anytime, if anything happens.

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