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Something similar happened to me with one of my rarely-used Gmail accounts, got prompted for the security question after it took me until my 3rd attempt to get

by asddddd 10y ago

Something similar happened to me with one of my rarely-used Gmail accounts, got prompted for the security question after it took me until my 3rd attempt to get the password correct. I had set the answer to gibberish some 8 or 9 years ago, and had zero way of recovering the account. Found lots of people with similar issues on the Google product forums, all answered (not by Google employees, of course) that it was completely unrecoverable. I wrote off the account at that point and migrated a few accounts attached, but 2 weeks later the system let me enter a phone number to be able to log in. Moral of the story: pay for support if you want it.

dpark 10y ago
If only Google would let you pay for support. Someone unintentionally locked out of their account would probably happily pay $50 to get back in. I had to deal with this a while back because TFA was enabled on my account and I got a new phone and number at the same time so my login options were all broken, and the recovery flow didn't work for the same reasons. Thankfully this was a Google for Work account so there was a way for me to prove domain ownership and they restored my access. If this had been my personal Gmail account (not attached to the domain), I would have had no way to recover it, partly because I couldn't prove ownership so easily, but mostly because they have basically no support for personal accounts.
- arjie 10y ago
  They do let you do that. For $60 a year, you can have 24x7 phone/email support via their Google Apps platform. No restriction on it needing to be for work AFAIK.
  - dpark 10y ago
    Interesting. I was not aware of that. Thanks
  - keithpeter 10y ago
    https://apps.google.com/pricing.html https://apps.google.com/pricing.html Would that be the landing page? If so it asks a lot of 'company' type questions. Is there a personal landing page?
    - arjie 10y ago
      I think that's just a convenience thing. I'm fairly sure you can sign up without and they'll still give you support. I've had Google Apps for years now and it's been good.

by asddddd 10y ago

dpark 10y ago

If only Google would let you pay for support. Someone unintentionally locked out of their account would probably happily pay $50 to get back in. I had to deal with this a while back because TFA was enabled on my account and I got a new phone and number at the same time so my login options were all broken, and the recovery flow didn't work for the same reasons. Thankfully this was a Google for Work account so there was a way for me to prove domain ownership and they restored my access. If this had been my personal Gmail account (not attached to the domain), I would have had no way to recover it, partly because I couldn't prove ownership so easily, but mostly because they have basically no support for personal accounts.

arjie 10y ago
They do let you do that. For $60 a year, you can have 24x7 phone/email support via their Google Apps platform. No restriction on it needing to be for work AFAIK.
- dpark 10y ago
  Interesting. I was not aware of that. Thanks
- keithpeter 10y ago
  https://apps.google.com/pricing.html https://apps.google.com/pricing.html Would that be the landing page? If so it asks a lot of 'company' type questions. Is there a personal landing page?
  - arjie 10y ago
    I think that's just a convenience thing. I'm fairly sure you can sign up without and they'll still give you support. I've had Google Apps for years now and it's been good.