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Google disabled my husband's account

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Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#451

Post by justinclift »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #290
ochoseis wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What seems novel here is that the author _actually works_ at Google and still can’t help despite being an insider. Although, not sure if that says more about Google or more about the banned account.

As a Google employee, I don't expect to have any special privileged access to Google customer support and I think if we did have it, wouldn't you think that would be unjust? Disclaimer: not saying anything about the qualities of said services.

> ... wouldn't you think that would be unjust?

Not at all.

Being able to more efficiently access other systems and employees at your company than outsiders isn't "unjust" in any way.

Not being able to do so, seems very broken and weird. :(

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#452

Post by delfinom »

bilalq wrote: post #252
justinlloyd wrote: post #222

I had a Google Pixel phone. Less than a year old old. Treated with kid gloves. Always kept in a case. Pristine condition. An approved Google software update bricked it. This was, by all accounts, a known issue. The phone was under warranty. I sent it back. They shipped me a scratched up refurbished phone. It ran fine for a week then bricked itself due to the same software update. I sent that back. They sent me anothe…

That's honestly unacceptable. Google deserves whatever anti-trust action comes their way. It's absolutely insane that they can lock you out of your phone, email, youtube, password manager, business, and everything you've ever used sign in with google for on the whims of some buggy algorithm.

This is standard consumer abuse all companies practice, big and small.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#453

Post by playeren »

payamb wrote: post #175
alpaca128 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a more privacy-focused email provider, their lowest tier costs 1 Euro/month and is enough for me, which means I still have near free email with calendar sync. I don't upload any photos or other files anymore, though. The problem is that you can never fully trust those cloud providers to keep the data safe, so you need other backups anyways. I was thinking about using a more trustworthy service for off-site back…

What they are called?

Not OP, but it sounds like mailbox.org

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#454

Post by zikzak »

martinko wrote: post #15

This is one of the reasons why I've finally began migrating to a custom domain + proton mail. Can't imagine the time it would take me to get back all the accounts registered to my email, not to mention those to which access would be lost forever.

What is the advantage of using a provider like Proton Mail versus using a client to make a local back up of important Gmail labels (or regularly using Takeout to back up a email label with your most important stuff in it)?

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#455

Post by zikzak »

dleslie wrote: post #126
martinko wrote: post #15

This is one of the reasons why I've finally began migrating to a custom domain + proton mail. Can't imagine the time it would take me to get back all the accounts registered to my email, not to mention those to which access would be lost forever.

I did it a few years ago and have been quite happy with the outcome. I still use a Google account for my Android phone, but my PinePhone should be shipping in a few weeks. I'm done with Google. Good riddance.

Are you hosting your own email server or going with a provider? Which provider, if so?

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#456

Post by enonevets »

actuator wrote: post #14

I have been thinking about this for a while. Considering I prefer to keep the important data/emails on Gmail or Google drive for security and I really consider it important. Would it help if Google had a paid tier? Say, if you can get into an annual plan, similar to what's there for hardware devices like Apple Care+. Just that, in this there is someone to help you through issues. We used to pay 10% of our AWS bill fo…

Google One was absolutely a nightmare experience for me. I signed up at launch, the service had severe issues syncing things. Took almost a week to sync backups that took Dropbox maybe a day. Then it kept flagging a ton of errors that basically said a bunch of my files couldn't be backed up. I talked to support and you do connect to a real person, but there was nothing they could do. then requested a refund, they didn't have the power to do that either. So it got escalated. I was told someone would reach out to me. That never happened. I contacted support again. Rinse, wash, and repeat I don't know how many times over a few weeks before the refund finally processed. During this time I talked to a manager who similarly had no authority to do anything. I was convinced support, though is a live person, has very limited authority and is really other there to relay basics on the product.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#457

Post by mleonhard »

Eyas wrote: post #2

This story is just absolutely ridiculous: The poster _works at Google_ and even tried to escalate internally for days, to no avail.

Someone posted a video on YouTube showing them bullying and humiliating one of my friends. I helped her report it. YouTube ignored it. I worked at Google at the time. I filed an internal ticket and YouTube ignored that, too. Years later, the video is still online.

Companies serve the shareholders. Shareholders want to spend as little money as possible on user support. I think new regulations are a good way to solve this problem for everyone. US consumer protection laws need updating for the Internet age.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#459

Post by jlelse »

askvictor wrote: post #424
Yeroc wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This helps mitigate some risk but if you're using OAuth or rely on receiving future emails via your @gmail.com account you're still out of luck regardless

This. We need to create an email portability system (like there currently is with mobile phone numbers)

Just use a custom domain.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#460

Post by dingaling »

_wldu wrote: post #262
bee_rider wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point we've all got these 10 year old gmail accounts that we've used as the recovery email on 1,000 websites, and while... I guess it isn't really a big deal to lose a reddit or ycombinator account, it'd be nice if there was some other option to use as the recovery email for online banking that had the stability of google. I'd happily pay for some sort of assurance -- "if you violate our TOS, we'll just put y…

Buy a cheap domain from Gandi for 10 years. They provide free email and DNS. Use that email for anything you care about. Stop using your gmail account and forward your gmail to your domain's email account. Gradually, you'll switch your recovery emails to the domain that you own and control. The other nice thing about this is you can be bob@domain.com rather than bob2746293@gmail.com and you can provide email accounts…

That's still a SPOF though. Over the years I've had various letters from registrars and registries threatening my account due to missing information or new requirements.

GANDI themselves once accused me of ToS violation because one account uses my initials ( as on my bank account ) instead of my forenames that they demanded. I migrated everything out of that account ASAP.

Ideally you need two completely different domains ( to avoid potential trademark issues ) in two different TLDs at two registrars.

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