
The only way to get hold of a human at Google - _pghu
...is apparently posting to Hacker News.<p>My GMail account has been disabled.<p>"Unusual Usage - Account Temporarily Locked Down"<p>"To keep our systems healthy, Google has temporarily disabled your account. This primarily occurs when we detect unusually high levels of activity on your account. In most cases, it should take one hour to regain access. In rare cases, it can take up to 24 hours for access to be reinstated."<p>It's been at least 10 hours (Gmail app on my iPhone shows "last updated: 5/22"), and going "welp, you're fucked, wait a day to get your email" is not an acceptable answer. All of the "help" forms have no contact information and no other way to get in touch with someone, so I'm putting out the "hey, Google employees who read HN, tell me who I can talk to about this" bat signal.<p>I haven't changed my email use patterns at all in months; the message occurs on a browser in incognito mode, I don't use any extensions, etc.<p>On a more general note, on what planet is "you don't get any email for a day and have no recourse, and we won't tell you why, or let you do anything to fix that" an acceptable action?<p>UPDATE<p>At 10:20, my account magically unlocked itself (I did nothing between posting this thread - my iPhone started dinging like crazy and then I could log back in) and is now working again, without anyone waving the magic wand. So, if you run into this, just know you only have to go 10 hours without email, instead of a whole day. I have been using my personal domain for most mail for a while, and this has just prompted me to accelerate that process to at least be able to maintain backup ways to send/receive mail.<p>I do still hope this thread stays up for a while, primarily so that the workflow around these account lockout messages gets better. It's fine to lock accounts out for security reasons, and I understand that algorithms have problems. That said, there should be more details of <i>what</i> they think triggered the algorithm, and a way to remediate it. If they think it is unauthorized access, try to auth with n+1 factors instead of the n normally required, etc.
======
andybak
And this time I'd like the outcome of this thread not to be just "A Google
insider wandered past and fixed this guys problem" but "Here's how we're going
to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Because next time it might be me and by then Hacker News might have grown
weary of these kind of posts and I won't be able to get the necessary
attention.

Nothing. I repeat - nothing - is pushing me to move away from dependence on
Google products more than the fear of this happening.

~~~
ajross
So, just for the sake of argument, let's assume that the poster's account was
compromised and being used to send spam. Would that change your analysis? Why
or why not?

My suspicion is that your immediate response will be to change the subject,
most likely along the lines of "The problem isn't the temporary freeze on the
account, it's the lack of communication." So I'd like to preemptively point
out that you didn't make that case in your original argument.

These flames get really tiresome.

~~~
eli
I can only speak for myself here, but let me state unequivocally that the lack
of communication and path for recourse _is_ the problem.

PR-wise it might be a tough sell, but I think a perfectly acceptable answer is
a pay-per-incident support line that connects to someone who can actually fix
my problem.

~~~
Zaak
I would like to see Google create a marketplace for support. They allow people
to buy some access to their internal systems, who then sell support service.
There would need to be careful vetting and monitoring of the people who buy
the access, but if that could be made to work, end users get access to
support, and Google wouldn't have to staff it.

Of course, they would have to provide support to the support providers, but
that would be a much smaller, more knowledgeable population.

~~~
mcherm
I badly want this particular solution. But the only way to create this startup
would be to have good contacts with people in Google who have the authority to
experiment with such a setup (because clearly Google WOULD need to experiment
to find out whether it worked). I really DO think that someone ELSE, with a
corporate structure that better supported the skillset of providing excellent
customer support, could make an excellent living providing "customer service"
for Google. 90% of issues could be handled just by hand-holding the customers
without bothering Google at all. And the other 10% could be bundled up nicely
(here's a repeatable bug report; I have 20 lockouts that appear to pass the
first screening; etc.). But there would HAVE to be some way for people INSIDE
Google to receive these nicely bundled reports and to respond to them.

------
cletus
I'm sorry for the trouble you're having. I have on idea of what's happened and
why but thought it timely to point out for the benefit of those reading this
thread:

I _highly_ suggest you use two-factor authentication with GMail:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-
secu...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-security-for-
your.html)

Or Jeff Atwood's post on this:

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/04/make-your-email-
hac...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/04/make-your-email-hacker-
proof.html)

Your email is too valuable to be left open to attack, hijacking or theft.

~~~
Duff
I think that the root of this issue is the stupid Google policy of not
distinguishing any variation of your address if a '.' character is in there --
until someone registers it. People get confused and try to login.

So if your address is jsmith@gmail.com, you can send email to (or login with)
j.smith@gmail.com or jsmit.h@gmail.com.... at least until someone registers
jsmit.h@gmail.com!

I was an early beta GMail user have a reasonably common first initial last
name GMail address. I probably get 3-5 password reset attempts per month. I
also routinely received a variety of interesting misdirected emails.
Everything from someone's VPN credentials, a US military EEOC complaint,
invitations to a stag party in Ireland, a video of a paratransit bus flipping
over (intended to be sent to an investigator), to girls modelling underwear
for boyfriends.

~~~
paul
False. It is not possible to register multiple variants of the same address.
The reason you get misdirected email is because people are entering the wrong
address in forms. You should see all the email that goes to paul@gmail.com :)

~~~
paulgb
Out of curiosity, is it enough to make the account unusable? Do you have to
set up strong filters?

~~~
sushantsharma
On an (un)related note, my google voice phone number is (xxx)-234-5678, and it
is completely unusable. You should hear the kind of voice mails that I get. I
have started archiving the most amusing ones in my account. I have been
blocking the numbers from area code (xxx) since I registered that number
(June/2009), but it is still not usable.

~~~
JonnieCache
Do share. That sounds like a blog post waiting to happen.

------
robomartin
This is a general problem with Google and their customer-no-service attitude.
It's just deplorable. It really is. You have to wonder: What is it going to
take for them to give a shit and actually do something about it?

Very soon the word gets out that HN is where you can get your Google bullshit
problems fixed and we'll be treated to pages-upon-pages of people with Google
problems.

The general issue is that of account suspension or closings without any
recourse. It seems that the most damage is being done in the AdSense/AdWords
ecosystem.

I've said this before, with the introduction of services like Google Drive,
one has to really think hard before jumping in with both feet. If you have
your email, documents, advertising, revenue generation, file storage and other
important services with Google you might be risking a lot. At the present time
you have to assume that all of those services could evaporate and go "poof"
overnight and you'll never know why. That's why I don't use any of them. I
have better things to do with my life than to have a heart-attack because a
Google algo decided to shut-down my business and cut me off from all of my
data.

Seriously, Google, Larry, Sergey, this is embarrassing (and evil).

~~~
bmelton
Giving away an awesome mail service for free to the world is not evil. Being
too busy to support every Tom, Dick and Harry that has problems with it is
also not evil.

An analogy: "Hey Tom, I'm not using this rake any more. Would you like to have
it? I'll give it to you."

"Sure Dick. Thanks, this is a very nice rake indeed."

The rake breaks.

"Hey Dick. The rake doesn't work any more. Come over here and fix it."

"Sorry Tom, I can't do that. I'm busy raking my lawn."

"I hate you Dick, because you are evil."

It's been said numerous times in this thread -- if you want support, you pay
for it. If your email account isn't important enough to you to pay for it,
then you don't really have much grounds to gripe if it breaks.

I don't see how that makes anyone evil.

~~~
slurgfest
Gmail is not a used rake.

[Dick comes to the door of Tom.]

Dick: Hey Tom, I see that you don't have a mailbox. I have a few hundred
extras down the street, would you like to use one on the condition that I
might analyze who is sending you mail and the like? It's really secure and
it's all the rage in the city you can store 2000 pounds of mail forever blah
blah blah. You should really use it!

Tom: Sure Dick, it's a real help to have an address for bills, personal
correspondence, etc. And I can use it to establish residency and so on.

[Tom puts the address in his letterhead, tells everyone to use it, makes
several job applications with it, etc. He uses it for everything. Every
service he uses authenticates him by his access to this box.]

[One morning Tom goes out to his box and sees it has been padlocked. After a
great deal of searching, Tom finds an unofficial contact for Dick.]

Tom: Hey Dick, can you unlock the box for me? I am expecting a check, a letter
from my daughter, etc.

Dick: Sorry, I can't do that. And I can't tell you why. What did you expect
for free? Anyway, how did you get this number?

~~~
bmelton
Well, you have to win points (and got one from me) for coming up with the best
analogy.

Though as I recently discovered, they do have phone support, and message
boards, and google groups, and all that jazz.

I understand that I'm perhaps the outlier in thinking this, but Google is
acting exactly as they said they would, and exactly as they always have. I
don't see malice in that, and I certainly don't see 'evil'.

~~~
jakobe
Phone support? Where? I have looked for phone support when all the email
disappeared from my gmail inbox. There is no phone support for Gmail.

~~~
bmelton
[http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...](http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1752770)

Found in my 'Help' link from GMail.

~~~
dkersten
I don't see any way to contact them on that page. I do see this, though:

 _"Prioritized account recovery support is currently offered on an invitation-
only basis for selected users."_

So, no, this certainly doesn't fix the problem for a lot of us.

~~~
bmelton
Ah, I didn't see the invitation-only bit.

------
anigbrowl
_On a more general note, on what planet is "you don't get any email for a day
and have no recourse, and we won't tell you why, or let you do anything to fix
that" an acceptable action?_

ON a planet where you get high-performance email services for free,
apparently. I feel for you, but the lack of personal response (IME) doesn't
mean that your communications are being ignored, just your need for a
response. This is still far from ideal, but typing out responses take time
away from simply fixing problems.

If you pay for gmail storage or an apps account, then obviously the above
doesn't apply.

~~~
gergles
I do pay for GMail storage, so the predictable parade of "WHAT DID YOU EXPECT
FOR FREE?????" (answer: exactly what was advertised, a working email service)
is tiresome -- and besides that, there isn't even a contact form for this
issue.

There is no way to communicate with anyone or to even raise an alert of "hey,
I have a problem". The only way that it is going to get fixed is for someone
to manually intervene, and the only way to make that happen is apparently to
complain loudly here until a Google employee waves their magic employee wand
at my account.

~~~
rbanffy
> exactly what was advertised, a working email service

Claiming Gmail (even the free one) doesn't work when, in fact, it experiences
seemingly random and very infrequent outages, is disingenuous. It's incredibly
hard to make a complex application like Gmail work perfectly all the time for
all its users and I'm completely sure they are well within their ToS. Much
like we are willing to live with software that has some bugs, we must be
willing to live with services that aren't always there.

Buses stop, rails need maintenance and your plumbing sometimes fails. Life
continues.

~~~
rory096
To be fair, the OP shouldn't be able to expect a 100% working email service.
But to expect that the provider not be _actively causing it to fail_ seems
reasonable.

------
wpietri
> on what planet is "you don't get any email for a day and have no recourse,
> and we won't tell you why, or let you do anything to fix that" an acceptable
> action?

On the planet where you're the product rather than the customer?

The financial truth of 99% of their business is that users to the extent that
they look at ads. And since ads aren't worth much individually, people must
look in large numbers.

All the people I know at Google are great folks, and they sincerely want to
serve users. But customer service is expensive. So is writing special-purpose
code for weird edge cases.

------
Matt_Cutts
[redacted], it looks like this issue resolved itself; I'm curious, did you
mention your email address anywhere on this page? I didn't see it mentioned.

I'm happy to ask people for more details. Normally when you have two-factor
authentication on, I wouldn't expect you to see this message. So there might
be some improvements we need to make on our side to try to prevent this from
happening for other people.

~~~
brudgers
Matt, I think your message is consistent with the disconnect people feel when
experiencing problems with Google services.

The root of the issue for the consumer of Google services is not a loss of
email access (that's just the sort of technical problem everyone has when
dealing with the internet). The issue is that there is no person representing
Google who says, "I'm sorry you are experiencing difficulty, let me see what I
can do to help you."

Google doesn't even go there on their own support forums:
[http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/gmail/%22Ac...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/gmail/%22Account$20Temporarily$20Locked$20Down%22/gmail/U3ql67r2VFo/Ip-
Sm-cSxuIJ)

There is a meaningful number of posts for the exact issue the OP experienced
and what little assistance that Googlers provide is generally of the "you did
something wrong" variety rather than "we're working on making it better."

~~~
Matt_Cutts
brudgers, I think the larger mission for Google has to be to drive down the
number of people having problems like this. So Google's philosophy (for better
or worse) is often to find and fix the root causes of problems. So for an
account that was hijacked, we'd prefer to put our resources into finding new
ways to prevent and protect against hijacked accounts, rather than putting a
ton of people into one-on-one sessions to work with people whose accounts are
hijacked. For one thing, the scale of Gmail makes those sort of one-on-one
consultations extremely difficult.

Imagine if tens of thousands of accounts are hijacked every day. There's not
an easy way to interact with all those people, which is why we look for ways
to drive down the number of hijacks or provide additional solutions like two-
factor authentication or other self-service solutions.

In this case, there was a subtle point that I was trying to make, which is
that the problem resolved itself even though the original poster never
appeared to give his email address. Sometimes these issues are a matter of
transient issues like connectivity or data centers where it's just a matter of
time for the issue to fix itself.

~~~
brudgers
It's a problem of pitch. You're entirely correct that the original poster's
technical issue may have been resolved automatically, but it's not the
technical issue which prompted the post. Accounts don't need reassurance, but
people do - particularly when they have placed trust in Google regarding
something which may be critical to their business or social life.

When my credit card is compromised, just by acknowledging my inconvenience, it
makes the time between the cancellation of one card and the arrival of its
replacement seem reasonable.

I get the issue of scale. What I don't get is why Liza isn't wired up to the
forum and the email doesn't say "We apologize for the inconvenience." It's
only a handful of bytes.

------
kyt
Someone broke into my gmail account in 2009, changed the password, and I've
never gotten it back. I tried to recover it using their standard form, but
they ask all sorts of ridiculous questions like the day I started using gmail,
the day I started using Google docs, etc.

------
debacle
Here's a serious question - how much would you pay per annum to be able to
talk to someone when you have an email problem?

~~~
gergles
$50, the same they charge Apps users. You _can't_ buy support for @gmail.com
accounts.

~~~
bdb
Forward your email to an Apps account, then set up your @gmail.com address as
an alias. Works great and you get support. Gmail is smart enough to set the
outbound email address properly for any replies.

------
alaskamiller
There's actually a big support team for Gmail. For enterprise customers.

Here are instructions: <http://gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com/>

~~~
dsl
gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com appears to be unrelated/unaffilated with
Google. The bottom of the page says "(c) 2012 Brett K. Carver". Also,
blogspot?

~~~
snowwrestler
Google owns Blogger and hosts all their official blogs there. Example:

<http://analytics.blogspot.com/>

That does not prove gmailaccountrecovery.blogspot.com is an official blog
though.

Edit: for clarity

~~~
DrJokepu
The site you've linked doesn't have any Google branding. Moreover, none of the
real Google blogs have adverts on them. In addition, the visual design of the
page looks rather unprofessional.

It's very unlikely that this site is affiliated with Google.

~~~
stfu
Plus there is some other hint: " This page is not sponsored by or affiliated
with Google."

------
vibrunazo
A 2 second google search for "gmail support forum" brought me to:

<http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail>

Have you tried that? I honestly never have and would love to know if those are
actually efficient. If you haven't tried it, please do then report back to us.

~~~
alanfang
The Google support forum is a black hole. At best you'll get a canned copy
pasted response from a Google employee that won't help you.

------
insertnickname
It isn't exactly news that Gmail accounts are closed for no obvious reason.
I'm sorry that you're unable to access your e-mail, but at least now you've
(hopefully) learned that Google isn't trustworthy.

------
nilsjuenemann
Do you using Chrome with these two extensions?

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mihcahmgecmbnbcchb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mihcahmgecmbnbcchbopgniflfhgnkff)
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmpbfngldlkglhimk)

For me these combination made a request loop (response from gmail was 404 and
501) for some circumstances. As a result my account was temporary disabled ...

~~~
gergles
I do use Chrome, but no GMail related extensions (and specifically not either
of those.)

------
srik
Someone must have gotten hold of your email+password combo. Mine got stolen
once, Ive no idea how but suddenly all my friends started texting me saying
they've been receiving spam mails from my account all of a sudden.

Google might be reacting to similar?

------
donpdonp
I agree its maddening to be locked out of gmail for no specific reason. I
imagine the customer to employee ratio is a billion to one, so even if they
had a ticket system, it'd be overwhelmed in a short amount of time.

What are the chances your account was hacked and is now being used to pump out
spam? Turn on two-factor authentication if you haven't already, once you are
able to get back in.

~~~
gergles
So close to zero as to be zero; my password is strong and I use 2FA. My
account works on every other Google service but GMail.

------
sp332
Out of curiosity: if I set up a forwarding rule on my Gmail, and Google
suspends my account temporarily, will it still forward my email?

~~~
gergles
Yes, it appears to still do that. I can also still access my account via
ActiveSync on my iPhone (but not IMAP or the web interface.)

------
bifrost
This is why you should never use free email for anything you care about, and
especially not GMail. I hate to break it to people but the PAID service is not
better either, you're just paying for what you used to get for free...

------
bobbydavid
The vitriol regarding Google's services is unjustified.

Gmail is a free service. Google allows you to use it for free, in exchange for
being shown ads. You have access to the same infrastructure that paying
clients use, and the same uptime, but without paying. You can download all of
your data easily, and at any time. Nothing about that is predatory on the free
users.

What would you say is the appropriate market "price" of 10-hour turnaround on
emergency technical help? Having worked at a company that provided optional
sub-24-hour response, I can tell you it's usually expensive.

~~~
antihero
Nope. Completely untrue. They _benefit_ from us using their services. We are
doing them a _favour_ by choosing them over others - their business is _built
upon_ people using their services.

If everyone just their our money back (£0) and stopped using Google's
services, they wouldn't have a business any more.

By using a service such as Gmail, we've trusted them and invested our on-line
lives in them in order that they can monetise that usage and grow their
business.

It is completely unacceptable when that trust is betrayed and they cut you off
without recourse.

~~~
bobbydavid
Google definitely benefits from free Gmail users, but that wouldn't be true if
every free user got human attention when things went wrong, regardless of who
was at fault.

I guess I see OP's problem stemming from the existence of bugs/quirks/spam
attacks. As a developer, I know these things are simply impossible to prevent
with 100% certainty. I don't feel that Google is morally culpable for bugs or
spammers, unless they are somehow adding bugs to the point of negligence.

In fact, as a developer, the idea of being morally culpable for bugs scares
me, since that kind of implies I am doomed to be immoral.

~~~
antihero
Well the least they could do is try to resolve the situation with the human
that has entrusted their stuff to them.

------
Urgo
I travel fairly often and most of the time when I travel I remote into my
machine back home so I'm many times logged into google services from those two
locations, then throw my android phone into the mix as well and my webserver
which uses google api's linked to my account as well. All in all I have tons
of connections to google at any given time.

A few months ago I was flying home from a trip and was using the in flight
wifi. As soon as I landed though at my connection city and turned on my phone
I quickly noticed things weren't working. I tried logging into services and my
account was disabled for some reason. I of course started freaking out since I
have so many things linked to this such as my suplemental adsense income. I
filled out a form assuming it'd go no where.

I wasn't able to accomplish anything before boarding my next flight. Before
take off I had the inkling to try the recover password option. To my surprise
after doing that and having it txt my phone I was able to change my password
and magically my account was unlocked.....

Anyway I know the OP already fixed his issue but just wanted to share this
story. If you ever get locked out saying your account is disabled try the
recover password option as a way to unlock it....

------
gattler
Sigh when will people finally wake up and understand that Google, Yahoo or
Facebook are Advertising companies. Anything that isn't affecting their really
big clients in advertising isn't getting any sophisticated support and even
that area of business might be maltreated in respect to professional support.
And don't be shortsighted here. IT absolutely -needs- support. So if you
really wanted professional support for emailing you have to go to a tech
company that doesn't earn a living with selling your Browsing history to other
parties or worse.

In case of an email product I did not find anything yet that would serve my
professional needs. The only really 99% reliable thing yet has been renting a
root server (or using my own machine with DynDNS) with a nice swell
Postfix/Dovecot install. The Internet was invented as decentralised, if not
even distributed technology. Buying in (you buy with your cookies) a
centralised technology like FB, Google or Yahoo, even if they are in the cloud
or in the edge - it's still one vendor, for me was always against the
economical philosophy of the Web.

If you don't have the knowledge how to set up a distributed email node (if you
allow me calling it that way), I would recommend lavabit.com, they are
reliable and non-commercial (However also subject to the patriot act b/c
located in the US).

And not only the Internet with its industry-raped non-standard HTML language,
its ridiculous insufficient Border Gateway Protocol or its patchwork 7bit/8bit
e-mail MIME protocols is one heck of an enormously cool hack, also the Web can
be nowadays.

If you don't get any support from cookie traders like Google or even Ghostery,
why don't go self-made and install a distributed Social network like
GNUSocial? The Internet used to be a business opportunity for everyone, don't
let it get destroyed by monopolies, that block inventions with 15 year-old
patents.

------
sparknlaunch12
I have heard this happening a few times. However I thought you can register a
mobile number to help resetting your account password?

~~~
gergles
It isn't the account password; I can log in fine, it's just that I immediately
get redirected to the "bad boy" page.

------
DanBC
> _On a more general note, on what planet is "you don't get any email for a
> day and have no recourse, and we won't tell you why, or let you do anything
> to fix that" an acceptable action?_

Serious answer: email is not reliable. There are lots of factors outside your
control. Please don't rely on email being available. Unfortunately most
providers today are pretty solid most of the time, meaning people put too much
trust into their email providers.

------
Cerin
Google's response to user complaints is probably the worst aspect of the
company, since it's effectively non-existent. Unfortunately, that's what
happens when you have millions of users, and only a few thousand employees.
Even if everyone at Google responded to user complaints, they probably
couldn't get to them all.

You're wise to have a backup plan.

------
dholowiski
Depends what service you are talking about. I have a phone# to a helpdesk for
Google Adwords. Real live human beings work there. But we pay a buttload of
money for that service.

Also google apps for business promises 'Around-the-clock phone and priority
email support.' I guess you're just getting what you paid for.

------
aliasaria
Once while waiting in the lobby of a Google office I could hear the
receptionist answering a frustrating call from someone asking for a search
result removal request. She had to read from a script because people call so
often -- they call reception at any Google-related business asking for help.

------
mmahemoff
FWIW and taking the subject a bit too literally, another way is to be active
on Google Plus.

~~~
slurgfest
How do you do that when you are locked out of your Google account?

~~~
mmahemoff
I guess having to switch between my GMail and my Apps account has that one
advantage. But fair.

------
amalag
So much of my life is on Gmail, I HAD to setup two factor authentication, and
it was easy.

~~~
sjs382
OP claims to have 2FA set up. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4014014>

------
packetslave
_there should be more details of what they think triggered the algorithm_

One problem with this approach is that it _also_ provides information to the
bad guy, e.g. "here's what you did to get caught, so don't do that next time"

------
tocomment
That's terrible. What are some better options for web-based email?

~~~
minikites
I like fastmail.fm

~~~
zszugyi
I used to use their free service, but their spam filtering was pretty bad (in
2010-2011).

~~~
minikites
The free accounts only have basic spam protection, the paid accounts have more
advanced spam protection.

<https://www.fastmail.fm/pages/fastmail/docs/pricingtbl.html>

------
pyre
For all of the people railing against Google/Gmail, what do you use that is
comparable to Gmail? Do you use Android? How do you use it without a Google
account?

------
CrownStem
It amazes me that people rely upon a free Email service for critical personal
infrastructure.

------
antihero
I think if I got my account disabled I'd go to their offices and demand an
explanation.

~~~
niels_olson
It's a closed campus. Best of luck with that. In fact, why don't you do a
trial run and let us know how it goes?

~~~
antihero
I think they just have normal offices in the UK.

Otherwise, dress like a courier.

------
kikito
Ask for your money back

------
capo
You have my sympathies and all but this is getting annoying, every once in
awhile the HN front page gets cluttered with these sorts of posts, wait the
day out it’s not that unreasonable. Complaining when not even half way through
the designated time period comes across as whining.

And for the record you could have gotten human support if you were a paying
Apps costumer, for the free stuff you have to deal with automation.

It’s just the same thread with the same comments each and every time; “They
don’t respect users”, “Their customer support sucks”, this doesn’t elevate the
discussion on HN and shows the false sense of entitlement we all have even in
regards to the free stuff.

~~~
pyre
Gmail isn't free. We are paying for it with our eyeballs. Gmail would only be
'free' in the way that you imply if Google was getting nothing in return. Just
because money isn't changing hands doesn't mean it's free.

~~~
statictype
So you've redefined the word free to make it meaningless.

Giving a way food to homeless people? You're getting the satisfaction of
having done something good in return! That wasn't a free meal!

------
paulhauggis
I've noticed this trend with many big companies lately (Amazon, Paypal, and
Google). Everything is automated and they give you almost 0 chance of
defending yourself.

They also don't care because they are de-facto monopolies.

Amazon suspended my account 4 months ago. I'm just getting the $5K they owe me
in money now. To this day, I still don't know why they suspended me (100%
feedback and virtually no problems).

They shuffled me around their automated system with the result being that my
account stayed suspended.

I was also suspended a couple of years ago from Google Adsense due to one of
my scripts going awry. I wasn't clicking my ads, but It refreshed a page a
bunch of times with Adsense ads on it.

If I try to signup with my name, I just never get any response back. This one
was definitely my fault. I could just use my LLC, but I got out of that game
ages ago.

~~~
lopatin
PayPal is actually very reasonable when it comes to getting in contact with
human operators. I've never had a problem with that. Receiving decent support
from them however is a whole other issue.

~~~
mikelward
I tried to change my legal name. Faxed them copies of official documentation
twice. Never received a response.

------
drivebyacct2
Are you _sure_ you have 2FA on? Do you have a desktop client that could have
been compromised? I'd love a follow-up on how your account got flagged if it
wasn't compromised.

(Note, I ask because the last time this happened on HN, several people
errantly thought they had 2FA turned on when they didn't).

(Some days I wonder if I angered a stalker who downvotes everything I post...
or if it's some darker HN sign. Sigh)

~~~
gergles
Yeah, I have no clue how it got flagged. See my update above.

And yeah, I had 2FA on -- I was challenged appropriately logging in to GMail
even, it was post-login where I got the "you're bad" page.

------
alainc
Which planet? Planet Google, of course. You're a tool in their shed, not the
other way around.

