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All those people in this thread saying to just login to these accounts to reactivate their deletion timers are off track. It is virtually impossible to login t
by arbuge 3y ago
All those people in this thread saying to just login to these accounts to reactivate their deletion timers are off track.
It is virtually impossible to login to an old Google account for which you never set a recovery phone number - and completely impossible if you did set one but no longer own it.
And there is no human support of any kind at Google that you can discuss it with.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago[flagged]
- guraf 3y agoHow do you subscribe to Google One if you can't sign onto your account? Create a new account just to give Google some money and pray that they'll give you support about another account?
- b112 3y agoNot to mention, google is the flakiest company ever. Even if you paid for supoort, the second you tried to use it, you'd likely find it canceled, google having moved on, distracted by some new shiny. Oh, that support was for google video, but we transitioned your account to Android TV and then Play Video and that support isn't valid, because I'm a vapid airhead called google! Jesus Google, the average person doesn't want a soap opera and drama, just to use core services.
- invalidname 3y agoI paid 400 USD per month for their support and this is completely untrue. Google has a culture of unhelpful support. They might have someone that answers the phone. But they will NEVER help you. It's against the Google DNA to help individuals.
- VHRanger 3y agoWe have AdWords accounts that spend 6-7 figures a year and it takes 3 weeks to escalate a ticket correctly.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago[flagged]
- DistractionRect 3y agoExcept we see this all the time on HN. Google support is yelling loudly into HN/Twitter and hoping a Googler picks up your case internally. The way Google has proven to work, is you have support until the AI/ML model says terminate the account. Essentially, support exists until you need it most. There's no warning, no explanation, just one day you're done, locked out. You can't even export your content off the platform once terminated. I don't see how Google One is expected to help users when developers for Android/Stadia which pay Google a heck of a lot more end up the same creek [0] [1] etc. You even concede it probably won't be helpful. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37224391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37224391 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26061935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26061935 They eventually get reinstated (looks like d4rken got reinstated last night), but not before they take to social media and Google gets requests for comment from a handful of news outlets. And still, they usually have no idea what they did/didn't do to cause it. They're left guessing but ultimately could have the rug pulled again at anytime.
- d4rken 3y agoYour description is pretty on point. It was eerily casual in relation to how much turmoil it creates for me. One day it was gone, another day, it was back. I have no idea why anything happened. I also think that social-media reach has helped my case. It feels very dystopian that this is de-facto way to approach these issues with mega-corps.
- DistractionRect 3y agoIt's ridiculously dystopian. At a whim they can end a person's livelihood, and depending on how integrated one is in their ecosystem, just erase their whole interface with the world. Unless you get a personal comment from a Googler on social media, there isn't a drop of humanity in the whole thing. Heck, it's almost ritualistic, like how some religions pray/yell out to the God's and craft offerings to appease them. Instead of rain, we pray for access.
- 0x0000000 3y agoI'm in this boat. I have valid credentials for my (now deceased) dad's Gmail account. But I can't login because Google doesn't trust my valid credentials and insists on sending a recovery code to a phone number that hasn't been in service for a decade. His hotmail account I can get into no problem. There used to be a time when you would trust Google ten times more than Microsoft not to mess with your account, lock you out, delete you for inactivity. Those days are long gone, fuck Google.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoHave you considered filing a complaint with the FTC? I’ve contacted them recently with regards to how Big Tech unilaterally handles account security with no consumer recourse for these cases, so follow on complaints from those experiencing this would be helpful.
- kamilm 3y ago"Federal Trade Commission | Protecting America's Consumers" - what about the rest of the world? Does anyone know whether it makes sense to exercise this option for non-American citizens? I can't log in into my Google account either. And yeah, the account was free (money-wise) - judging by FTC's forms, the paid accounts are the ones that matter.
- dataflow 3y agoLong shot, but have you tried contacting the person with that phone number?
- ck2 3y agoThere is one way but it's not easy, maybe impossible. Use the same ISP in the same city you created the account. Google security seems to sees that as one step in the validation of ownership. If you've moved or your ISP is gone, well that's impossible of course.
- judge2020 3y agoHuman support of any time opens up tons of social engineering situations that enable account takeovers - and these hurt Google’s reputation more than any abandoned account story. What do you suggest would be sufficient proof to the Google human support representative that would verify that you actually did own that account? They already have a process in account recovery that includes inputting the last password you know, entering the month you think you opened the account, and answering some extra questions, after which a human reviews your answers to determine if it’s really you. I’ve had this done for one of my old accounts and I was granted a link to reset the password for that account and set up new recovery details.
- dotnet00 3y ago>Human support of any time opens up tons of social engineering situations that enable account takeovers - and these hurt Google’s reputation more than any abandoned account story. That's an absurd assertion to make. Amazon makes it very easy to get a hold of a human for support (particularly compared to Google), they have no issue with social engineering driven account takeovers despite that it'd be pretty easy to cause significant financial damage within just a few hours.
- morpheuskafka 3y agoAll Amazon accounts that have ever purchased something are linked to a name, payment card, and address. A random Google account might not have any of those. How could Google possibly tell who has access to it?
- dotnet00 3y agoFor example, if an account has been inactive for years and suddenly someone is trying to login, is consistently making an effort over a reasonably long period and is willing to prove their own identity in some official way (such that if it turned out they were lying they could be trivially identified and prosecuted), then they can reasonably allow access. On the other hand, if an account is still actively logged into, it would be obvious that anyone else trying to get access should not be allowed to do so.
- flangola7 3y ago> It is virtually impossible to login to an old Google account for which you never set a recovery phone number Define impossible? If you've forgotten the old password obviously you can't get in. I don't see why it would otherwise be impossible.
- lawn 3y agoClearly you haven't done this yourself, because it's not enough with just your password.
- flangola7 3y agoSo what happens? If there's not a backup phone number or email set, what could they possibly ask for beyond the password?
- bassdart 3y agoThey ask for your current mobile number -- at least in germany and without any anonymization beside standard browser configuration like e.g. uBlock Origin. So it's simply to suck in numbers. I have not tried if they ask for more data after giving a phone number and so I can't log into two google/youtube test accounts any more since a few years.
- SamBam 3y agoBecause Google can unilaterally reject valid credentials if it doesn't feel it's certain it's you. Although I can see why this would be impossible if you have a phone number set that you no longer own. I'm not sure what exactly Google would ask for if you never had a phone number set.
- jacekm 3y agoThis is only partially true. I have many GMail accounts (I often create a new one per each service where I create an account) and went through all of them a couple of months ago to make sure that they are not deleted. All I needed was a recovery email address (to which I luckily have access) and a brand new phone number (whatever number you have access to, does not have to be associated with the account in any way). The part that is true though is that you're out of luck if you set a recovery phone and you no longer have access to it (same for recovery email). But even then I was offered a possibility to contact support to resolve it. And if someone is desperate they may try calling the new owner of the phone number and kindly ask for the code (you'll sound like a scammer, but hey, it's worth trying ;))
- arbuge 3y agoNo, it's all true... personal experience, several times over. Even if you do everything right in the new phone number case, in many cases Google will just deny you entry for no stated reason at the final step. Sometimes you get lucky, as you did (and me too in some cases), but many times you don't. As for being offered an option to contact support, I've never seen that myself.
- lazide 3y agoI was recommended ‘OneGoogle’ awhile back on a similar thread, which turns the account into a paid one, and gives access to (some) support. Obviously not helpful once the account is locked, but might be worth considering for worthwhile accounts before something like that happens.
- ghusto 3y agoSo the best thing to do is pre-emptively delete the recovery number from the account (providing you have alternative recovery options set up)?
- odyssey7 3y agoThere was a related Tell HN post about this situation that led to me recovering my pre-undergrad gmail account recently. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36335975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36335975 In my case, I had a record of what my password on the gmail account had been when I last used it, but when I tried logging in with that password years later, it didn’t work, and there was no way I could figure out to recovering access. A few months after seeing that Tell HN post, I tried again and the system allowed me to log in.
- gnu8 3y agoThe thing that baffles me the most is that literally no one at Google has thought of this. They should be having meetings where they come up with scenarios like this and plan out realistic ways of dealing with them. Google isn't responsible enough to run an email service, it's a toy business where techbros fuck around all day.
- lazide 3y agoThey have and do. The issue is fraud and account compromises are so common (due to password reuse being the norm and every other site under the sun getting compromised), that they’re in a catch-22. Support can be Social Engineered easily (especially if you don’t spend massive amounts of money on it). Making support not socially engineer-able is essentially impossible too with their user base, as the user base is too diverse. Technical solutions currently suck, even if we ignore that most of the population is unable to effectively use them. There is no consistent way across their user base to even verify a person exists, let alone that they are who they say they are, let alone that they are who created or owns the account! And no one even puts the closest local equivalent into their Google account for legitimate reasons anyway. Like who would want to upload their Birth certificate? Or passport? Or DL/ID? That’s a terrible idea. And many people don’t have the US equivalent to one anyway. Not to mention, deep fakes have gotten really good. Not that a US company is going to have much luck identifying a fake (or real!) Belgian equivalent for instance anyway. So they go with heuristics, which always have edge cases, try to hide what rules they use to avoid being gamed at scale, and hope for the best. Not great. But seriously, what else are they going to do?
- gnu8 3y agoThank you for the thoughtful reply. I will admit I was fulminating a bit. I'm just extremely frustrated that their solution to edge cases is to drop them on the floor and there's nothing to be done. No individual Google user actually matters to the company, but many people actually need their email account. The asymmetry of power and money here just isn't sustainable.
- 3y ago
- guilhas 3y agoMy gmail somehow allows to click some options, show the last digits of the number, and just type the complete number to login
- thiht 3y agoHeck, I have trouble connecting to my work Google account from my personal laptop. I have the username, password, 2FA and I’m connecting from the same IP, but Google somehow knows better.
- leipert 3y agoOh, that’s just the a work-life balance feature!