While you're figuring this out, backup all your data on Google. Google is crazy and could possibly delete all your accounts and data.
Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
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Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#12While you're figuring this out, backup all your data on Google. Google is crazy and could possibly delete all your accounts and data.
Backing up now, thanks. Even worse I'm an Android user. I don't have a good solution for the people that mail me every few months. Oh hey, Google might lock my account because I didn't fork over 14k in fraudulent charges, can you start emailing me from my Outlook email instead?
Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#13Keep trying to talk to them and explain -- so far every instance like this I've heard about was refunded. Good luck.
Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#14Google will typically waive charges in cases like this.
The only time they won't is if (by looking at the logs) they decide you were probably scraping and storing all their data.
Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#15[deleted]
Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#16Did you check your Github repos and associated commit history for accidental push of secret files? There's an article on the HN front page describing secret leakage in Github repos (the most common is Google API keys, go figure)[1]. I imagine somebody out there has a bot to monitor pushes in realtime to extract secrets. You or a team member might have leaked keys in a similar manner.
[1]: https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/04/08/how-bad-can-it-git-chara...
Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#17Next use a credit card. Basically thanks to credit card laws the bank will go tell google to f off and give you your money back. Debit cards don't have the same protection, but just call your bank or OCS (https://www.occ.treas.gov/). They have a little more bite.
Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#18Next use a credit card. Basically thanks to credit card laws the bank will go tell google to f off and give you your money back. Debit cards don't have the same protection, but just call your bank or OCS ( https://www.occ.treas.gov/ ). They have a little more bite.
He was a student so he may not have had access to a credit card when he started the account. But yes, a credit card will have more protection.
Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#19Sorry this happened to you! Feel free to send me your case number (email in profile), and I'll escalate it.
The Support personnel have hopefully been helping out, as all Billing Issues are covered regardless of support tier. I obviously don't know the ins and outs of payment instrument refunds / do debit cards mean that you actually do have to contact your bank, but I'm sure people in Support do.
Re: Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
#20Before disputing the charge, be sure to back up all data and contact info from your Google accounts. Fighting charges has been known to trigger account lockouts with no appeal.
This is even more terrible as an Android user. So much for "don't be evil". Thankful for the HN forum.
Hope it works out with a minimum of hassle!