7 ms·

I helped my mother reformat her computer remotely. We successfully ported her mail client but managed to lose her gmail password - meaning we had enough access

I helped my mother reformat her computer remotely. We successfully ported her mail client but managed to lose her gmail password - meaning we had enough access to send/receive emails but not create new sessions. The account was created some time in 2006. A week prior to the reformat she had changed jobs, and lost the mobile phone number associated with her account. The second factor email was associated with my account, I could see reset codes come through which were relayed to her but would result in an 'oops, something went wrong'. My guess is a bug due to account age / whatever. I figured we had enough evidence to obtain a password reset, so I googled for gmail support contact details. There are none. I then tried repeatedly to contact Google via twitter, all my tweets were ignored - probably because I only have like 20 followers. In the end, my mother ended up porting her old mobile number to a prepaid sim, as $previouscompany had disconnected the number entirely, and used that as the second factor to reset the account. Pretty damn frustrating that Google doesn't have any unpaid inbound support _AT ALL_. Next time I'll consider paying a twitter influencer to impersonate me (or my mother), or paying for adspace, or using a mail service that exposes at least some form of support.

heavenlyblue 7y ago
>> Next time I'll consider paying a twitter influencer to impersonate me That seems like a great idea in general :)
exDM69 7y ago
> Pretty damn frustrating that Google doesn't have any unpaid inbound support _AT ALL_. Frustrating? Yes. Surprising? No. Afaik, there isn't even any paid support for individual customers unless you have some sort of business account. I find this a bit unreasonable, but I wouldn't expect any free service that involves a paid employee from any service I don't pay for (with money, not privacy). They can't be making many dollars per year per user. A single support call answered by a human would take years' worth of income from said user. I'm amazed at how many people do not realize this, and still rely on these "free" services even for their jobs. To give an example: recently, a popular blogger lost their Instagram account and it was sold to a 3rd party (because they had lots of followers, I suppose). Blogging is their day job and Instagram is a major source of readers for them, so they depend on it for their living. The account was probably stolen by using a reused password from some password dump and they didn't have 2FA enabled. In the end, the blogger got back their account because they were a part of a traditional media publishing organization which had a business account with Facebook, Inc and were able to escalate it that way. Had they not had this account, it would have been lost. There are lots and lots of professions where social media presence is required to bring in the customers (e.g. woodworkers these days depend on Instagram!) or even monetization from their account directly. If you depend on Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc to earn a living, you should consider a business account or at least do your best to secure the account (2FA, no password reuse, etc).
- throwamay1241 7y ago
  > I wouldn't expect any free service that involves a paid employee from any service I don't pay for (with money, not privacy). I expected at least one response suggesting this. I, and many others would consider email access my absolute most critical asset, it's also extremely difficult to switch providers. It's not like your real estate goes 'nope sorry you can't prove yourself, we can't replace your lost keys without validation, sorry, go buy new stuff and live somewhere else' - I imagine that would be illegal in many countries even if the place was rent free. I understand that Google support, if it existed, would be inundated with bad tickets. However, I don't imagine having a skeleton set of support staff and a support workflow that requires users to climb mountains to communicate with a human would really impact on googles bottom line. It would have stopped me venting in various places about the issue, and might end up losing potential sales when I/others push our employers to use $not_google because their support sucks.
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    > I, and many others would consider email access my absolute most critical asset So why not pay for it?
    - throwamay1241 7y ago
      This isn't even a service request, it's a bug report. Are you able to name a reputable email provider which isn't >$60/year or self-managed? My 65 year old mother probably wouldn't be interested in either of those two, but would be willing to pay for per-use support lines for the one time in 13 years which rendered her account inaccessible. And lets not forget my father, who couldn't access his _paid_ Telstra/O365 standard-user work email. When I called the Telstra support line they gave me administrative access to the entire instance, no proof of ID necessary (I literally said I'm not associated with the company and calling on behalf of my father). To be honest, I'm not sure which is worse now that I think about it.
      - _-___________-_ 7y ago
fjcp 7y ago
People bash Yahoo Mail a lot(with good reasons), but last month I had some problems with my (free) email account and after trying all the options I had to contact the support for help. Almost instantly I was talking on chat with a real human who helped me with my problem. I know their service have problems, but I was impressed with how easy it was to reach a person for help, I thought it would be harder.
ubermonkey 7y ago
The idea of trusting a giant corporate entity with my email with whom I don't even have a commercial relationship has always been anathema to me, and that reaction just seems smarter the older I get.
leggomylibro 7y ago
>Pretty damn frustrating that Google doesn't have any unpaid inbound support _AT ALL_. They actually do have basic customer support for free accounts, it just isn't very easy to find. I forget exactly how it works, but I was able to help someone in a similar situation recover their account by following the 'steps to recover your account' listed here: https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/2402620#ts=2402552 https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/2402620#t... After failing the automated recovery, it came up with an option to request a manual reset, with a free-entry text field asking what was wrong. It sent messages to the account and all of its recovery options with links to cancel the request, then after a few days someone took a look and was able to help.
wpietri 7y ago
It's very frustrating. I've run my own mail server since before Google existed. Sometimes I have deliverability problem with Google Mail. Only there as far as I know, and not all the time. But sometimes it'll just put custom-written, non-bulk email in spam. Even though I have friends at Google, I can't find out what's going on. Apparently that team won't even talk to other Googlers. It's maddening. Now if I need something to really go through (e.g., contacting somebody about a job) I have to send the mail from my gmail account. That feels like rewarding them, but I don't seem to have a choice.
- smartbit 7y ago
  Did you change your ip-address after gmail started?
  - wpietri 7y ago
    You're asking if my IP address has been the same since 2004? No, we've changed providers a couple of times. But it's been stable for the last 5 years at least.
robk 7y ago
sadly i guess it worked fine from their end. you sorted out the problem on your own without them helping.
justinclift 7y ago
Do you recommend Google things to other people? Personally, having experienced a similar thing but not regained access to the account, I never will. Actively encouraging the exact opposite frankly.
kyrra 7y ago
This post and other top-level post in this thread have issues with account recovery. Google tends to follow a playbook when it comes to account recovery, and if you can't check one of the boxes to get through, they won't let you back in. This is to stop account takeovers via support (which are known attack vectors people use against other companies, like cell phone providers). While it's frustrating to lose access to you account, it is the tradeoff Google has made to try to keep your account safe. And as far as Google employees being able to help, that channel has mainly been closed. Even if you know a Googler and have lost access to your account, the Googler will likely just tell you to follow the account recovery help page[0]. (I'm a googler, opinions are my own) [0] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7682439?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7682439?hl=en
- noja 7y ago
  You're an apologist who is spouting nonsense. Other companies solve this problem, Google hasn't and they should do better. Perhaps by involving a real support person.
  - growse 7y ago
    Which other companies? How did they solve the problem? If you involve a human, you're going to get socially engineered. It's not a question of "if", but "when" - especially if you're a high-value target where user accounts are valuable.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Proven 7y ago
> Pretty damn frustrating that Google doesn't have any unpaid inbound support _AT ALL_. Why didn't you pay?

heavenlyblue 7y ago

>> Next time I'll consider paying a twitter influencer to impersonate me That seems like a great idea in general :)

exDM69 7y ago

> Pretty damn frustrating that Google doesn't have any unpaid inbound support _AT ALL_. Frustrating? Yes. Surprising? No. Afaik, there isn't even any paid support for individual customers unless you have some sort of business account. I find this a bit unreasonable, but I wouldn't expect any free service that involves a paid employee from any service I don't pay for (with money, not privacy). They can't be making many dollars per year per user. A single support call answered by a human would take years' worth of income from said user. I'm amazed at how many people do not realize this, and still rely on these "free" services even for their jobs. To give an example: recently, a popular blogger lost their Instagram account and it was sold to a 3rd party (because they had lots of followers, I suppose). Blogging is their day job and Instagram is a major source of readers for them, so they depend on it for their living. The account was probably stolen by using a reused password from some password dump and they didn't have 2FA enabled. In the end, the blogger got back their account because they were a part of a traditional media publishing organization which had a business account with Facebook, Inc and were able to escalate it that way. Had they not had this account, it would have been lost. There are lots and lots of professions where social media presence is required to bring in the customers (e.g. woodworkers these days depend on Instagram!) or even monetization from their account directly. If you depend on Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc to earn a living, you should consider a business account or at least do your best to secure the account (2FA, no password reuse, etc).

throwamay1241 7y ago
> I wouldn't expect any free service that involves a paid employee from any service I don't pay for (with money, not privacy). I expected at least one response suggesting this. I, and many others would consider email access my absolute most critical asset, it's also extremely difficult to switch providers. It's not like your real estate goes 'nope sorry you can't prove yourself, we can't replace your lost keys without validation, sorry, go buy new stuff and live somewhere else' - I imagine that would be illegal in many countries even if the place was rent free. I understand that Google support, if it existed, would be inundated with bad tickets. However, I don't imagine having a skeleton set of support staff and a support workflow that requires users to climb mountains to communicate with a human would really impact on googles bottom line. It would have stopped me venting in various places about the issue, and might end up losing potential sales when I/others push our employers to use $not_google because their support sucks.
- _-___________-_ 7y ago
  > I, and many others would consider email access my absolute most critical asset So why not pay for it?
  - throwamay1241 7y ago
    This isn't even a service request, it's a bug report. Are you able to name a reputable email provider which isn't >$60/year or self-managed? My 65 year old mother probably wouldn't be interested in either of those two, but would be willing to pay for per-use support lines for the one time in 13 years which rendered her account inaccessible. And lets not forget my father, who couldn't access his _paid_ Telstra/O365 standard-user work email. When I called the Telstra support line they gave me administrative access to the entire instance, no proof of ID necessary (I literally said I'm not associated with the company and calling on behalf of my father). To be honest, I'm not sure which is worse now that I think about it.
    - _-___________-_ 7y ago

fjcp 7y ago

People bash Yahoo Mail a lot(with good reasons), but last month I had some problems with my (free) email account and after trying all the options I had to contact the support for help. Almost instantly I was talking on chat with a real human who helped me with my problem. I know their service have problems, but I was impressed with how easy it was to reach a person for help, I thought it would be harder.

ubermonkey 7y ago

The idea of trusting a giant corporate entity with my email with whom I don't even have a commercial relationship has always been anathema to me, and that reaction just seems smarter the older I get.

leggomylibro 7y ago

>Pretty damn frustrating that Google doesn't have any unpaid inbound support _AT ALL_. They actually do have basic customer support for free accounts, it just isn't very easy to find. I forget exactly how it works, but I was able to help someone in a similar situation recover their account by following the 'steps to recover your account' listed here: https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/2402620#ts=2402552 https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/2402620#t... After failing the automated recovery, it came up with an option to request a manual reset, with a free-entry text field asking what was wrong. It sent messages to the account and all of its recovery options with links to cancel the request, then after a few days someone took a look and was able to help.

wpietri 7y ago

It's very frustrating. I've run my own mail server since before Google existed. Sometimes I have deliverability problem with Google Mail. Only there as far as I know, and not all the time. But sometimes it'll just put custom-written, non-bulk email in spam. Even though I have friends at Google, I can't find out what's going on. Apparently that team won't even talk to other Googlers. It's maddening. Now if I need something to really go through (e.g., contacting somebody about a job) I have to send the mail from my gmail account. That feels like rewarding them, but I don't seem to have a choice.

smartbit 7y ago
Did you change your ip-address after gmail started?
- wpietri 7y ago
  You're asking if my IP address has been the same since 2004? No, we've changed providers a couple of times. But it's been stable for the last 5 years at least.

robk 7y ago

sadly i guess it worked fine from their end. you sorted out the problem on your own without them helping.

justinclift 7y ago

Do you recommend Google things to other people? Personally, having experienced a similar thing but not regained access to the account, I never will. Actively encouraging the exact opposite frankly.

kyrra 7y ago

This post and other top-level post in this thread have issues with account recovery. Google tends to follow a playbook when it comes to account recovery, and if you can't check one of the boxes to get through, they won't let you back in. This is to stop account takeovers via support (which are known attack vectors people use against other companies, like cell phone providers). While it's frustrating to lose access to you account, it is the tradeoff Google has made to try to keep your account safe. And as far as Google employees being able to help, that channel has mainly been closed. Even if you know a Googler and have lost access to your account, the Googler will likely just tell you to follow the account recovery help page[0]. (I'm a googler, opinions are my own) [0] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7682439?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7682439?hl=en

noja 7y ago
You're an apologist who is spouting nonsense. Other companies solve this problem, Google hasn't and they should do better. Perhaps by involving a real support person.
- growse 7y ago
  Which other companies? How did they solve the problem? If you involve a human, you're going to get socially engineered. It's not a question of "if", but "when" - especially if you're a high-value target where user accounts are valuable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Proven 7y ago

> Pretty damn frustrating that Google doesn't have any unpaid inbound support _AT ALL_. Why didn't you pay?