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The only way to get hold of a human at Google

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Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#51

Post by snowwrestler »

dsl wrote: post #38
alaskamiller wrote: post #19

There's actually a big support team for Gmail. For enterprise customers. Here are instructions: http://gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com/

gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com appears to be unrelated/unaffilated with Google. The bottom of the page says "(c) 2012 Brett K. Carver". Also, blogspot?

Google owns Blogger and hosts all their official blogs there. Example:

http://analytics.blogspot.com/

That does not prove gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com is an official blog though.

Edit: for clarity

Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#52

Post by zacharycohn »

dsl wrote: post #38
alaskamiller wrote: post #19

There's actually a big support team for Gmail. For enterprise customers. Here are instructions: http://gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com/

gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com appears to be unrelated/unaffilated with Google. The bottom of the page says "(c) 2012 Brett K. Carver". Also, blogspot?

Blogspot is owned by google.

Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#53

Post by gattler »

Sigh when will people finally wake up and understand that Google, Yahoo or Facebook are Advertising companies. Anything that isn't affecting their really big clients in advertising isn't getting any sophisticated support and even that area of business might be maltreated in respect to professional support. And don't be shortsighted here. IT absolutely -needs- support. So if you really wanted professional support for emailing you have to go to a tech company that doesn't earn a living with selling your Browsing history to other parties or worse.

In case of an email product I did not find anything yet that would serve my professional needs. The only really 99% reliable thing yet has been renting a root server (or using my own machine with DynDNS) with a nice swell Postfix/Dovecot install. The Internet was invented as decentralised, if not even distributed technology. Buying in (you buy with your cookies) a centralised technology like FB, Google or Yahoo, even if they are in the cloud or in the edge - it's still one vendor, for me was always against the economical philosophy of the Web.

If you don't have the knowledge how to set up a distributed email node (if you allow me calling it that way), I would recommend lavabit.com, they are reliable and non-commercial (However also subject to the patriot act b/c located in the US).

And not only the Internet with its industry-raped non-standard HTML language, its ridiculous insufficient Border Gateway Protocol or its patchwork 7bit/8bit e-mail MIME protocols is one heck of an enormously cool hack, also the Web can be nowadays.

If you don't get any support from cookie traders like Google or even Ghostery, why don't go self-made and install a distributed Social network like GNUSocial? The Internet used to be a business opportunity for everyone, don't let it get destroyed by monopolies, that block inventions with 15 year-old patents.

Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#54

Post by joezydeco »

dkulchenko wrote: post #24
gergles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't pay for @gmail.com addresses, or else I absolutely would. If I'm going to make everyone change the e-mail they send me things at, I'm sure as hell going to change it to a non-GMail address now.

Switching to a custom domain is a good idea even if you don't pay for Google Apps. Because if Google kicks you off for whatever reason, you just change your MX record and your email is fine.

YES. I see all these comments above saying "man I'm afraid of being totally dependent on gmail". Owning your own MX record is the way out of that situation.

Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#55

Post by gkop »

dredmorbius wrote: post #39
cletus wrote: post #15

I'm sorry for the trouble you're having. I have on idea of what's happened and why but thought it timely to point out for the benefit of those reading this thread: I highly suggest you use two-factor authentication with GMail: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-secu... Or Jeff Atwood's post on this: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/04/make-your-email-hac... Your email is too valuable to be l…

Google's got enough of my info. If they want to come up with a two-factor auth, I'm happy to provide the public half of a PKI keypair. Of my choosing. Not my phone number, thanks. My real email is too valuable to be left to GMail.

You can get a list of 1-time pads instead.

Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#56

Post by alanfang »

vibrunazo wrote: post #42

A 2 second google search for "gmail support forum" brought me to: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail Have you tried that? I honestly never have and would love to know if those are actually efficient. If you haven't tried it, please do then report back to us.

The Google support forum is a black hole. At best you'll get a canned copy pasted response from a Google employee that won't help you.

Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#57

Post by krschultz »

ajross wrote: post #29
andybak wrote: post #5

And this time I'd like the outcome of this thread not to be just "A Google insider wandered past and fixed this guys problem" but "Here's how we're going to make sure it doesn't happen again. Because next time it might be me and by then Hacker News might have grown weary of these kind of posts and I won't be able to get the necessary attention. Nothing. I repeat - nothing - is pushing me to move away from dependence…

So, just for the sake of argument, let's assume that the poster's account was compromised and being used to send spam. Would that change your analysis? Why or why not? My suspicion is that your immediate response will be to change the subject, most likely along the lines of "The problem isn't the temporary freeze on the account, it's the lack of communication." So I'd like to preemptively point out that you didn't ma…

Let's say for the sake of argument that his account was compromised.

Why lock him out? Wouldn't it make the most sense to let him get in and change his password?

If your answer is 'because the spammer/bot might change his password', realize it would be impossible to detect a spammer/bot before they start spamming, so once the bot has your password, it can login and change your password before it starts spamming. But most bots don't seem to do that.

Or lock the account such that no new email can be sent, but email can be received. At least then you aren't locked out of your archive for the last X years of your life.

Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#58

Post by gergles »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #43

Are you sure you have 2FA on? Do you have a desktop client that could have been compromised? I'd love a follow-up on how your account got flagged if it wasn't compromised. (Note, I ask because the last time this happened on HN, several people errantly thought they had 2FA turned on when they didn't). (Some days I wonder if I angered a stalker who downvotes everything I post... or if it's some darker HN sign. Sigh)

Yeah, I have no clue how it got flagged. See my update above.

And yeah, I had 2FA on -- I was challenged appropriately logging in to GMail even, it was post-login where I got the "you're bad" page.

Re: The only way to get hold of a human at Google

#60

Post by gergles »

bobbydavid wrote: post #46

The vitriol regarding Google's services is unjustified. Gmail is a free service. Google allows you to use it for free, in exchange for being shown ads. You have access to the same infrastructure that paying clients use, and the same uptime, but without paying. You can download all of your data easily, and at any time. Nothing about that is predatory on the free users. What would you say is the appropriate market "pri…

Well, that depends on why I need the "emergency help". If I need it for their problem, then I expect it for free, given that I am already "paying" for the service with my ad views and my personal data.

If I need it because I screwed something up, that's a different (and irrelevant) discussion.

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