My Google Workspace account suspension • Hacker News Board

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#41

Post by EvanAnderson » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:07 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #27

techteach00 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because his honest and accurate diagnosis for why mega tech corps treat people inhumanely is the first step towards stopping it. In my opinion of course.

What's a good alternative to Google Workspace for SMB customers?

Microsoft 365 is a reasonable alternative. It's easy to buy and even tiny Customers can get a degree of real human (read: tier 1 is unhelpful contractors that you have to fight thru) support.

It's still repugnant to me, as compared to self-hosting, but I would never self-host for a greenfield SMB Customer today. The economics don't make sense and the talent pool of knowledgeable and reasonable sysadmins is dwindling by the day. (I wouldn't want to make a Customer so beholden to me if they were willing to pay for it.)

I miss being able to spin-up an on-prem email server on a box with reasonable hardware redundancy, some external USB disks to rotate for off-site backup, a UPS, a couple consumer-grade "business class" Internet connections, and a contracted "backup MX" to catch email in the event of an outage. It was a good enough for a lot of small SMBs who had a physical office, and was cheap.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#42

Post by oybng » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

This occurs to dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people on a daily basis. It happened to me many years ago. This is your opportunity to escape, instead you cry out here for attention. How pathetic

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#43

Post by cj » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

Using a Google Workspace Super Admin account for your non-admin day to day needs is similar to using your AWS root account instead of IAM users.

In my experience Google Workspave support is very good. I’ve always been able to get a knowledgeable person on a call to debug issues without much difficulty.

But yea, if you’re locked out of your admin account, that’s another story. Very sjmilar to if you get locked out of your AWS root account. It’s a nightmare to recover.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#44

Post by r1ch » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

I recently had to go through the recovery flow for an admin account and it was wild. Despite Google manually unlocking the account and giving me a reset link, every login was forced to authenticate via SMS using the (removed) phone number. Luckily I was able to get a hold of it and get the code, but even after adding a TOTP and security key 2FA, further logins still required SMS.

It feels like the security team made this change to reduce account hijacking but it's at complete odds with the recovery flow and modern security practices. Better hope your phone number doesn't get hijacked or recycled because it's the key to your account now, security keys be damned.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#45

Post by ToucanLoucan » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:25 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #19

dotandgtfo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the goals of the digital services act.

The EU isn't as bad as some Americans want to believe.

They aren't perfect but at least they try. All our government does is bomb brown people and cut taxes for the wealthy.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#46

Post by Jimmc414 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:27 PM UTC

Google needs to understand that watching this nightmare scenario play out over and over again is actively destroying trust in their platform. When your email, authentication, documents, payroll, and CRM all flow through a single provider and that provider can lock you out overnight with no meaningful recourse, you’ve invited customers to place their entire digital presence into a house of cards. The fact that this same story surfaces almost daily should be a wake up call to existing and prospective customers. Every unresolved lockout is one more reason to start planning an exit. Google has led the effort to lower the bar so much that it’s commonplace and somehow acceptable to ghost paying customers who youve locked out or even worse bounce them through a gauntlet of AI chat bots with the illusion that you are even aware of the damage you’ve caused.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#47

Post by welder » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

> I removed my phone number from the account. I am travelling to the UK for a short period and did not want to have roaming on my Australian phone.

So for my own notes, removing a phone number from my Google account before travel will risk account suspension. Hope OP resolves it, but also need to make sure this never happens to me.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#48

Post by r_lee » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

this is actually scary as fuck

I thought with Workspace you'd actually be spared from this kind of BS

I guess not?

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#49

Post by ValentineC » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:32 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #43

Using a Google Workspace Super Admin account for your non-admin day to day needs is similar to using your AWS root account instead of IAM users. In my experience Google Workspave support is very good. I’ve always been able to get a knowledgeable person on a call to debug issues without much difficulty. But yea, if you’re locked out of your admin account, that’s another story. Very sjmilar to if you get locked out of…

> Using a Google Workspace Super Admin account for your non-admin day to day needs is similar to using your AWS root account instead of IAM users.

It sounds like the mistake here is not appointing another Super Admin, and making sure they don't use their account for day to day needs. Or just having two Super Admin accounts controlled by the same person, heh.

I can't see how not using one's Super Admin account wouldn't prevent tripping some kind of fraud lockout that's impossible to recover from.

Randomly, I just remembered that I lost a GCP account because I tried logging in from Laos, and they asked me for the front and back photos of a payment card that I used ages ago that I didn't bother making scans of before it was lost. Urgh.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#50

Post by andrewjneumann » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

If you’re operating Google workspace without a well oiled Enterprise behind the scenes, a single admin account is a single point of failure.

I had this happen a couple years ago when I was migrating to a different domain. The only difference was all of the authentication that I supplied Google said was an adequate and I got into some sort of a login loop where Authenticator, SMS, DNS record nor pass key would provide enough authentication for me to get in.

I got the automated got bought to finally send me the mythical form, after completing that I was told that they were unable to authenticate me further. I ended up emailing their support multiple times and threatening lawsuits multiple times when I got a magic call from a human at Google. They also sent me the link that put me into a login loop however after chatting with them for nearly an hour I got a different magic login link form which appeared to work.