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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

#211

Post by ryandrake »

survirtual wrote: post #61

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:…

It's now been 0 days since the last "Help! I've been locked out of my account!" story on HN. These have been going on for years and years[1]. The solution is for individual people to stop relying on services that don't have customer support to host critical things. This is now a well-known failure case for free cloud services. It should not be a surprise.

1: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

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

#212

Post by romanhn »

joenot443 wrote: post #108
schiffern wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for everyone's help. Backup email works now. Looks like (fingers still crossed) I'll be getting back into my main account in 48 hours. Obviously I'm re-working my email solution as we speak... starting with backing up my Google data! Lots of good recommendations in this thread. Learn from my mistakes . It can happen to you!!

I was about to take out my work (G) laptop and send this down the appropriate channels. Very glad to see someone else stepped in already. This is definitely I (personally) wish we could do better, I feel embarrassed and very slightly partially responsible whenever I see our support failures making the front page of HN.

Hi there! I hate to pile on, but I have a very similar issue and was wondering if you'd be willing to help. About a year and a half I lost access to a Gmail account with emails going back all the way to the beginning. Lots of sentimental messages, stuff like that. Logged into it after a long while, started looking at picture attachments out of nostalgia and somehow tripped an algorithm that locked me out. I stupidly did not have 2FA set up as this was not my primary account, so had no other way to offer proof that I was the rightful owner, despite having the correct password. I tried all the usual things - waiting a long time, trying old devices (phone, laptop), going back to the old location I used to live... nothing worked. Would love to regain access to years of memories.

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

#213

Post by ylee »

themadturk wrote: post #210

I only use Google as a secondary account now, though most of my family continues to use it (under a vanity domain, grandfathered in after lo these many years). I still keep my Google 2FA active, though. I use pobox.com to forward my primary domain. Right now I have mail forwarded to their "mailstore," which is essentially a lite version of Fastmail.com (Fastmail owns POBox, or the other way around, don't remember), b…

>I only use Google as a secondary account now

I've never had Google as a primary email account. I do have a few Gmail accounts, but that was to reserve them with my name, as opposed to ever giving the addresses out.

>I use pobox.com to forward my primary domain

Customer since 1996 and primary email address since 1999 because my college address closed at graduation. Since then my email has been hosted at ISPs, at various other providers, and at a Google Apps site, but it doesn't matter because the pobox address never changes. My college address works again, but I've long since used the pobox address in too many places to mass migrate away.

Years ago, before it got "corporatized", Pobox's FAQs had one entry that went something like:

Q: How do I know you'll be around in the future?

A: How do we know you'll be? Ha, didn't think of that, did you?

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

#214

Post by cuteboy19 »

awinter-py wrote: post #111
cuteboy19 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Old password+new password" is not 2fa

yes exactly. if G were following best practices from the consumer banking industry, 2fa would be more like 'old password + random row from your equifax profile'

And of course, the last 4 digits of your ssn

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

#215

Post by wintermutestwin »

jeffbee wrote: post #138
wintermutestwin wrote: post #113

The fundamental problem here is that there is no way to get support from google that is a human being. I dream of a day when the US government retakes the mantle of consumer protection. Proposed regulation #2 (after eviscerating privacy violation) is that all services must meet certain customer service standards, including having a way to get to a human being. I know I am dreaming hard here, but there once was a time…

> The fundamental problem here is that there is no way to get support from google that is a human being. No way other than paying a trivial $1.67/month for Google One.

Using google, you are already "paying" by giving them your data (which is worth way more than the value of their service)

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

#216

Post by moffkalast »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #199
moffkalast wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbird? Marty, I'll need to fix the time circuits, we've travelled back to 2006! But seriously, what's next? Switching to IE from Chrome? Back to MS Office from Docs? The more things change the more they stay the same...

What's wrong with Thunderbird? My workplace uses it, my family's small business uses it, I use it. Has lots of features, doesn't require a fast stable Internet connection, and there's no risk of losing your emails because $provider locked you out. Plus if you have multiple email accounts, it's super convenient to get them all in one place.

Idk, Thunderbird, Outlook, and desktop email checkers in general seem absolutely antediluvian to me. Like CRT screens, trackball mice, and space cadet pinball.

Do you still have to fetch mail manually like a caveman or did they make it automatic yet? Does your mail sync between all your devices? I still think it's less likely to get banned from gmail than my local hdds to fail.

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

#217

Post by Wicher »

mindslight wrote: post #98
kmbfjr wrote: post #84

Google gave away the Google Voice number I had since the GrandCentral days, a number obviously used daily with purchased credits in the account and religiously confirmed linked number. Zero customer support, no way to get the number returned and no refund on existing credits for toll services. And to add to the pain, they won’t give me a new GV number because it sees my linked number as a spam source and never sends…

Are there any good VOIP alternatives to Google Voice that don't get tripped up as invalid phone numbers by other companies' snake oil authentication? From what I've found, GVoice is uniquely large and has enough "normie" Google Fi customers that companies can't discriminate the way they do against say Voip.ms and Flowroute [0]. My tentative plan is to get (another) cheap paygo SIM, stick it in a cell modem attached t…

Try https://jmp.chat . Nice features, excellent customer support.

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

#219

Post by ajross »

KyleJune wrote: post #102
ajross wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that "My Domain Got Stolen and the Registrar Won't Fix It" is another whole subgenre of this kind of anecdata, right? My point is just that there's no free lunch. Everything breaks, but on balance I'd trust Big Tech to get it right more than little companies like Fastmail or your domain registrar.

OP's post isn't about his email or domain getting stolen, it's about him getting locked out of his account with no way to get back in. There are many different providers for both email and domains that provide good support. Sure it's possible I could still get locked out of either. I feel like smaller companies that I'm actually paying are more likely to be responsive to my issues than a large company that I'm using…

> I feel like smaller companies that I'm actually paying are more likely to be responsive to my issues than a large company that I'm using for free.

"I feel like" is, precisely, the anecdata fallacy at work! You feel that way because you see so many more reports of problems with the big providers. The truth, obviously, is that account management problems like this are present everywhere[1], but the email (or domain) market is dominated by a small handful of players. So you think the tiny ones are better than they are.

[1] Pointing out the pervasive complaints about domain registrars was supposed to drive this home. It's weird you think that somehow doesn't count. All bureaucracies mess up, it's not like email is a special kind of failure.

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

#220

Post by ticviking »

harshalizee wrote: post #123
blacklight wrote: post #96

This is probably the #500 post on HN that reads "help I've been locked out of my Google account for Kafkaesque/inexplicable reasons and I have nobody to reach out to". If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Do yourself a favour in 2023: drop Google and all the filthy excrement that they produce. There's plenty of much better alternatives, and from a purely market…

But realistically how do you do it? I've stopped signing up for any new Google products for well over half a decade now. Even moved my email to protonmail. I have a little over 500 accounts tied to my Gmail over the last two decades. Moving them is a pain but still possible. The problem arises when it comes to existing accounts with byzantine financial institutions. Trying to change email addresses that are linked to…

I've lost thousands of dollars of digital content at google. I was really salty about it for a while, but sacrifice is the price of liberty. It is a small sacrifice to not do business with companies that demand I do business with other companies that refuse to provide customer service.

I do a lot more business in cash locally as a result. Finding a good local bank that will let me physically show up to deal with problems with my money was the hardest part due to the massive consolidation in that industry, but the result is that I am more connected to my community and more resilient to many types of problems.

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