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Google ate my email address

rondam.blogspot.com

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Re: Google ate my email address

#21

Post by masnick »

ceol wrote: post #12
barista wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Its surprising how much Google can get by without providing any customer support at all. I stopped using my gmail accounts earlier this year when I lost my I emails and google couldn't track them down.

Apparently they offer 24/7 phone and email support for Google Apps for Business customers, but I've never had any experience with it. Could someone else comment as to whether or not their Apps customer support is just as bad?

My only experience with Apps phone support was when I signed up for the 30 day business trial to use the IMAP import feature. Half way through a massive import, I got an email from Apps saying that I was going to be charged the $50 yearly fee about 25 days early and then another that my account had been downgraded (I did not downgrade it). Called phone support, got a real person in what sounded like England very quickly. They were helpful and reported the issue to the engineers. They reversed the charge no questions asked, I re-signed up for the demo, and all was well.

So tl;dr the phone support seems ok.

Re: Google ate my email address

#22

Post by masnick »

sunnydaynow wrote: post #20
ceol wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently they offer 24/7 phone and email support for Google Apps for Business customers, but I've never had any experience with it. Could someone else comment as to whether or not their Apps customer support is just as bad?

Very bad, at least in our case (small company). They reply mostly with templates. When one issue would have taken a bit more time to solve (Thunderbird IMAP issue with ONE of our user names) they simply stopped responding after a while. AND: You can NOT go back to the free service, at least not easily! Talk about lock-in...

Really? I had no problem downgrading my account. It was during the demo period though.

Re: Google ate my email address

#23

Post by r00fus »

serverascode wrote: post #4

I recently picked up a fastmail.fm account and am forwarding gmail to that, in case gmail effs up.

Be careful, I've created a fastmail.fm (actually airpost.net which is one of their domains) account, and unless you're paying for it, they can and will wipe your account if you leave it fallow/unused for a year or more (unsure what the duration is).

This became an annoying problem when I created a seperate account backed by my airpost.net email (won't do that again unless I decide to pay for the email acct).

Re: Google ate my email address

#24

Post by alexqgb »

ceol wrote: post #12
barista wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Its surprising how much Google can get by without providing any customer support at all. I stopped using my gmail accounts earlier this year when I lost my I emails and google couldn't track them down.

Apparently they offer 24/7 phone and email support for Google Apps for Business customers, but I've never had any experience with it. Could someone else comment as to whether or not their Apps customer support is just as bad?

One of the interesting things I discovered was that their idea of 24/7 support simply meant was that I could leave a message anytime, and they'd get back to me at some unspecified point (but usually within 48 hours!) between 8 and 5, Mon. through Fri.

When I did get a calls back, their first questions never pertained to my problem. They were far more concerned with the state of their self-help system, and wanted to know if and how failures there led to my calling them directly.

This was a couple of years ago, and it may have gotten better since then. However, the steady drumbeat of posts like this indicates that it hasn't.

Re: Google ate my email address

#25

Post by nhebb »

rmorrison wrote: post #9

I wish Google had some form of reasonable technical support. That way, HN homepage wouldn't be the only way to get their attention.

In this case, they wouldn't even need to provide support if they just offered a way to merge accounts. I have three, and it's a pain.

Re: Google ate my email address

#26

Post by larsberg »

scott_s wrote: post #19
jasonbarone wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: Google does NOT support merging accounts. I've had a similar experiences. The Youtube merge was a disaster causing many Gmail addresses to be merged with "nicknamed" Youtube channels that users didn't want anymore. Since Google refuses to step in and delete accounts or unlink them, many people are stuck with a Youtube account nickname they don't want to be associated with. This got even worse over the last few…

YouTube insisted I login in order to watch some movie trailer, so I did so with my gmail account. It then insisted that I give a nickname. I didn't care at the time, as I figured I could just change the name later - surely the only unique ID here is my gmail account. And that's why my YouTube name is skadfjlsakdfjlksdfjl.

Ha!

I'm upvoting you because I did almost exactly the same thing in that situation... my YouTube name is lalalalalalalala2334.

Re: Google ate my email address

#27

Post by pasbesoin »

alain94040 wrote: post #10

Welcome to Google Hell. I have described my experience here http://blog.foundrs.com/2010/11/15/the-10-step-google-login-... (the 10-step login from hell). I never wanted to have a gmail account. But to use a certain service, years ago, Google required that I create a gmail account. So I did. Then someone invited me to a Google Apps project, so I got another email there. Then YouTube decided to merge my login info wit…

> Am I Human? Clearly, YouTube is not.

That about sums it up. ;-)

Re: Google ate my email address

#29

Post by javert »

It would be nice if Google would publish a finite state machine showing what's going on with your accounts/email addresses, and what you can do to transition to somewhere better.

It might make people feel better to know that there is a logical process (is there?) when something screws up, rather than having to pray to the user support people to fix your account.

I mean, I don't pay Google for anything, and I know that Google is mainly made up of machines, not humans. So I imagine my accounts could get "eaten" at any time, perhaps permanently.

I don't really trust Google with my Google accounts.

Re: Google ate my email address

#30

Post by gwillen »

javert wrote: post #29

It would be nice if Google would publish a finite state machine showing what's going on with your accounts/email addresses, and what you can do to transition to somewhere better. It might make people feel better to know that there is a logical process (is there?) when something screws up, rather than having to pray to the user support people to fix your account. I mean, I don't pay Google for anything, and I know tha…

"to know that there is a logical process (is there?)"

There isn't. You're fucked.

-- ex Google employee

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