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

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

#61

Post by survirtual »

There is nothing google will do for you. I had a similar issue here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31681221

I’m still locked out of my account. December 22nd was the expiration of the domain name I needed in order to unlock it, and it is now gobbled up by another squatting service (Bodi), so I will have to try again next year. They don’t even entertain my offers to buy it.

Let our losses be a lesson to people: get off of gmail asap. They do not care about you. They do not care about the harm they are doing, the memories they are sealing away. All they care about is making money off of your data.

Get off google now. As fast as you can.

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

#62

Post by jjcon »

Alex3917 wrote: post #10

The longer it's been since anyone has logged in, the more confidence Google will have that it's really you trying to log in. In all likelihood you'll be able to get back in within a couple weeks.

Interesting - took my account three years to let me back in. Was happy it finally did though

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

#63

Post by pentium10 »

trollied wrote: post #49
nikanj wrote: post #6

I love how the HN front page is the only way to reach a human at Google. No amount of money can get you a support ticket opened with an actual person in a situation like this

Google One might have helped. https://one.google.com/about/support

Google One support only works if you can login.

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

#64

Post by vinckr »

Sorry to hear that, this really sucks. Shows once again how authentication is still not a solved problem.

I switched to posteo.net recently and have not looked back since, can only recommend a paid email provider. Different level of support and assurance when you are a paying customer.

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

#65

Post by tester457 »

stanleydrew wrote: post #53
nonrandomstring wrote: post #14

> because (like a fool) You are no fool. No doubt you are way above average intelligence. This so-called "security" ecosystem of Big-Tech is a dumpster fire of rotting clinical waste. Hope it doesn't spoil your holiday break - and for goodness sake make a New Year Resolution - to quit this madness forever.

This is an unfortunate situation, but calling it a "dumpster fire of rotting clinical waste" is frankly absurd. Google in particular has done more than anyone to acclimate consumers to the usage-patterns of better auth (two-factor in particular). Is everything perfect? Of course not, but things are a lot better than they could be.

I thought it was actually 2 step. The difference always confused me.

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

#66

Post by joxel »

stanleydrew wrote: post #53
nonrandomstring wrote: post #14

> because (like a fool) You are no fool. No doubt you are way above average intelligence. This so-called "security" ecosystem of Big-Tech is a dumpster fire of rotting clinical waste. Hope it doesn't spoil your holiday break - and for goodness sake make a New Year Resolution - to quit this madness forever.

This is an unfortunate situation, but calling it a "dumpster fire of rotting clinical waste" is frankly absurd. Google in particular has done more than anyone to acclimate consumers to the usage-patterns of better auth (two-factor in particular). Is everything perfect? Of course not, but things are a lot better than they could be.

Nah, this is a complete farce. You’d think by this point google could offer a simple checkbox in the settings of your gmail account:

“Do you want this account to be extra secure and for us to lock someone out of it with any activity deemed suspicious?”

And then when you don’t click that box they don’t arbitrarily lock your account. But they don’t. Because they’re a dumpster fire company.

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

#67

Post by kybernetyk »

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.

To make the transition easier you can configure Gmail to automatically forward mails you your FastMail address. They all then appear in the fastmail acc and you don't have to touch Gmail ever again.

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

#68

Post by hacym »

danillonunes wrote: post #59
dontlaugh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, iCloud+ allows the use of a custom domain. It may be an easier option for some.

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.

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

#69

Post by frereubu »

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.

The only thing that I find isn't as good about Fastmail is the spam filtering. I see more spam in my inbox and my spam folder than I did in Gmail, but despite that the trade-offs (particularly less of my data going through and sitting in Google's systems) still feel worth it.

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

#70

Post by ajross »

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 some point, with someone.

In point of fact I'd put the odds of Fastmail failing entirely as a business rather higher that those of any single user having an unresolvable 2FA glitch with a gmail account. In the world of real data and not anecdata, Big Tech is incredibly reliable.

[1] Which seems great, btw. I'm actually looking at moving my vanity domain to them as I'm sick of chasing standards trying to host it myself. This is absolutely not a ding at Fastmail.

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