
G Suite Horror Story - dirtylowprofile
https://lawgimenez.me/2018/08/05/g-suite-horror-story/
======
rkagerer
Sorry to hear about your woes. Google should be ashamed and embarrassed that
they still haven't fixed this.

I ran into a similar problem years ago after they acquired Postini and forced
us all to migrate. GSuite was called Google Apps at the time, and it
cannibalized my personal email (which originally used my own domain, not
GMail). Despite numerous contacts with various support channels and even
nagging dev googlers at I/O about it I never managed to get it properly
severed again. Wound up losing all my history from a lot of Google services
linked to the original account.

Doesn't help there's also a bug in the Google Play / Android setup wizard
where it refuses to recognize the me%olddomain.com@gtempaccount addresses
(thinks % is invalid), presenting another impediment to trying to manually
extract stuff.

Shame Google, shame!

~~~
ddtaylor
The lesson I learned a long time ago is Google products are great until you
need to contact someone. I'm sure a few people have some ability to directly
contact a _real person_ at the company, but 99% of us are stuck with their
product support forums that OP linked to, which frankly are terrible and
rarely solve any real problems - I would highly doubt if any of their
"representatives" can actually do anything but show you existing help
documents.

~~~
e40
Calling the product support forums _terrible_ is being way too kind. They are
worse than terrible because they give you hope. I've used them dozens of times
over the years, and never once has a solution come from them.

~~~
stoolpigeon
Yes.

When they turn up in my search results for an issue it always makes me sad
because the threads never have useful resolution.

~~~
ddtaylor
It's like a graveyard of problems.

------
zatkin
It's stories like these that reinforce my own justification for running my own
email server.

I would recommend you run your own email server - it's both fun (you get to
set it up yourself, add any features you want), and rewarding (you don't have
to worry about the "rug being swept from under your feet"). The only caveat is
time - time for SMTP servers around the world to know that your mail server's
IP is not sending spam - and filling out some forms to unblock the server's IP
address.

Since moving in 2014, I have had no hassles at all, and I continue to tweak
things to my liking.

~~~
Someone1234
I'd strongly recommend against it.

In a past life I ran email services for a small business, and then a medium
business, it was a full time job, just keeping us out of the spam blacklists,
keeping things patched up, ecosystem changes (e.g. new DNS records every few
years, new security requirements, etc) and filtering incoming
spam/malware/philishing attempts.

If people want to setup email for educational reasons, go ahead, but running
one over a longer period isn't wise and frankly many wouldn't put enough time
and effort into it to do it well. It is absolutely not set and forget, you'll
need to baby it daily indefinitely.

When people ask me what I recommend? I tell them outsource email to a major
provider and use your limited time/effort elsewhere. Better rate of return by
far.

~~~
ulrikrasmussen
What? I have been managing my own mail server and domain for 10+ years now,
and apart from a few days spent reading up on DKIM, DMARC, SPF, etc., it has
been mostly set and forget.

~~~
nvarsj
I did the same for many years. Until I noticed that some people just never got
my emails. Mostly people with business emails - I'd send something job
related, and never hear back, just assuming they weren't interested. It took
me a while to figure out that some email providers (outlook.com is one
example) will just outright block small email hosts, despite following all the
best practices like DKIM, DMARC, SPF. It's a lost cause trying to host your
own email. I've been on fastmail for the last year or so with my custom
domain, and it all seems to work great.

~~~
howard941
It's ironic that outlook.com blocked you when it itself is too costly to block
in that you can't tell whether the message is important from a contact at say
a Fortune 500 or another Nigerian scam.

Like you I ran my own stuff but possibly unlike I didn't encounter issues with
recipients other than yahoo. I ran it from home from 2001 until last month and
paid extra for a /29 static block from the phone company.

------
kyrra
It's worth noting that this person posted to /r/Google[0] before writing the
blog post. One thing that doesn't make any sense to me is this comment:

> When I login it always redirect to my @yourdomain.com with no gmail, drive,
> etc. Even if I clean the browser history. I do not understand this even.

So it sounds like this person can still log into their Gmail account, but it
redirects to the deleted gsuite account. That definitely doesn't seem right,
but it seems like the Gmail account could still be there?

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/94gl4k/gsuite_cance...](https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/94gl4k/gsuite_cancelled_my_subscription_now_i_cant_use/)

~~~
Nition
Their support ticket has some more info in subsequent posts from both them and
others:
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/apps/RIHSJ4LI...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/apps/RIHSJ4LIXwE;context-
place=forum/apps)

~~~
kyrra
Thanks. Reading that a the help docs[0] explain it better. I wonder if they
can restore the business account and then do takeout on it.

[0]
[https://support.google.com/work/mail/answer/6243136?hl=en&re...](https://support.google.com/work/mail/answer/6243136?hl=en&ref_topic=6248365)

------
ramshanker
Temporary workaround: Everyone should perform manual download of their data
once each 6 month or so. [https://www.wikihow.tech/Back-Up-Your-Gmail-
Account](https://www.wikihow.tech/Back-Up-Your-Gmail-Account)

~~~
pandasun
I wish I had done this in 2015. I lost the only pictures of my now deceased
dog in Google Drive when I was locked out for no reason. Except I didn't
regain access because I didn't make a popular Reddit or blog post.

Apparently Google's "customer service" runs as follows:

1\. Don't provide any customer service email address.

2\. Don't provide any contact form.

3\. Don't provide any phone number.

4\. Don't respond when people resort to sending snail mail. (Yes really I
tried and I'm not the only one).

5\. Provide a forum where 999/1000 posts don't get a response.

6\. Suddenly respond if it affects public relations. (ea. a popular Reddit
post).

~~~
giancarlostoro
That is horrible. Also why I will likely never pay out of my own pocket for
their services.

~~~
scrollaway
If you pay even just 5 bucks a month, you get access to their support which is
overall pretty good.

G Suite is worth the price tag just for that if you actually use Google
products seriously...

~~~
giancarlostoro
Until you get banned and then your voice is no longer heard? like this and
many more examples...

~~~
scrollaway
You'll note that the user in question was banned after cancelling the
subscription...

------
client4
I was banned without explanation in 2011 from Google. No calendar, no email,
no phone contacts! Gone immediately and with no ability to get them back. I
only regained access because of a Reddit post.

------
koolba
Just like the old saying goes: “ _Don’t mix business and pleasure_ ”

That means not mixing corporate Gmail (or Outlook, or anything else really)
with your personal email.

Not using the email for your AWS account to purchase home goods on Amazons
retail site.

At best your have the mild convenience of a single inbox. At worst Amazon
shuts down your AWS account because you open a dispute for a fake Beanie Baby
purchased off the retail site.

~~~
gingerlime
I would say "Don't even mix business with business with Amazon"

(not very) funnily enough, we have a business AWS account that is also used
for Amazon (buying stuff for the office), as well as Amazon seller central.
We've set up MFA on the AWS account, but it's in total conflict with the
seller central account, which keeps asking for setting up MFA as well. If we
set both, we're almost totally locked-out of our AWS. Somehow the MFA device
gets mixed up or something. We can kinda squeeze-in if we try a few times with
alternating between codes. Seller central seems connected to the Amazon
retail, but not AWS. Totally bizarre.

We've contacted AWS MFA support several times, but there's basically no
solution for this. They claim it's all somehow integrated, but something isn't
quite well integrated as it should be.

~~~
exikyut
Maybe try pinging AWS's VP,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jeffbarr](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jeffbarr)
(email in bio link).

My guess is that you might be the only person/company who has this specific
setup, so there's either no ticket, or it has a priority of -99999.

Still probably worth headscratching about internally...

(If emailing works out, I'd be very interested to know!)

------
bmarquez
This is scary. I rely on a legacy free G Suite account, so if paying users
have problems, I'd definitely be screwed.

In general I've found it difficult to get a hold of a live human at Google.
The one time I was successful was after buying a Google Nexus phone and
requesting hardware support (I think it was through the customer
support/returns line.)

In contrast, I recently had issues with my iCloud account and was able to get
live telephone support. It took 3 hours on hold and being passed through
different departments, but I was impressed that Apple actually solved the
problem while I was on the line. Didn't spend a penny on iCloud (directly)
either.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
TBH this just sounds like a bug, if google support weren't so incompetent they
would make this right and the story would be forgotten. But they are so this
will be another black stain on Google's name.

~~~
Nition
Someone in the support thread[1] links to an official Google page[2] where it
says under 'Before you unlock additional G Suite features':

> G Suite: You can continue to use your personal Gmail account. However, if
> you unlock additional features and then cancel business email powered by G
> Suite, you can't go back to using your original free Gmail address.

Sounds like a terrible 'feature' though.

[1]
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/apps/RIHSJ4LI...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/apps/RIHSJ4LIXwE;context-
place=forum/apps)

[2]
[https://support.google.com/work/mail/answer/6243136?hl=en&re...](https://support.google.com/work/mail/answer/6243136?hl=en&ref_topic=6248365)

------
hpcjoe
Number 1 lesson from this: ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP OF YOUR DATA AT A DIFFERENT
PLACE ON DIFFERENT MEDIA.

For google, to do this, use
[https://takeout.google.com/](https://takeout.google.com/) . Download a copy
of your data. Now.

Number 2 lesson to learn from this, which is very painful for many, is that
there is a significant operational risk surface added by using cloud services,
in that you may not actually have control or access to long historical records
of data and metadata. Which means, despite clouds simplifying your life with
respect to owning/operating/standing up your own kit/capabilities, depending
upon how good/bad they are at being helpful in events like these, you
_massively_ increase operational risk by using them, as you lack control over
the access to your data and history. If their policies and procedures run
counter to what you need ... well ... think smelly creek, canoe, and no paddle
or oar.

This is on the provider, and Google's "customer service" is known to be
horrible for paying customers. I had used them at $dayjob-1, and found that
depite paying them ~$100/month for my companies users of Google Apps/GSuite, I
could never reach a person to help with a problem. I couldn't find contact
points for asking for help. They had an email alias that took a while for them
to answer, and it was as bad as the half-way-around-the-world tech support
call centers, but in email form.

So, yeah. Back up your documents, emails, etc. Ask yourself what happens if
they go away. If you are a small business person as I was, ask yourself what
happens if one of your customers is late paying you, so you are late paying
them. Kinda sucks to operate without your email and your documents ...

Call this one of the the down sides to *aaS.

------
8ytecoder
Mail: personal domain with GSuite backed up by IMAP every day

Contacts: backup on multiple devices

Drive: full data on at least one hard drive at all times

Photos: use via Google drive instead of Google photos directly. That allows
you to backup like any other data.

All of this must then be backed up off of the hard disk. Our lives are all
digital these days. Memories, financial documents, important addresses and
phone numbers - everything is digital. Treat it like you'd treat anything
valuable.

Also, don't assume something catastrophic. Something as simple as a stolen
credit card that you forgot to update in one service is enough to lock you
out. Or a bug.

~~~
exikyut
Wait, Google Photos doesn't allow backup?

I had no idea. Nice.

~~~
izacus
I think you misunderstood something. You can export all your photos via
Takeout... or flip a switch that makes them appear in your Drive to use more
convenient sync tools.

~~~
ValentineC
Nice, it looks like they finally enabled the option [1] for G Suite users [2].
It wasn't available before [3].

[1]
[https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6156103](https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6156103)

[2] [https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2017/12/changing-how-
yo...](https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2017/12/changing-how-you-view-
photos-and-videos.html)

[3]
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/hMeOfq...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/hMeOfq0QsWU;context-
place=topicsearchin/photos/category$3Amanaging-photos-and-videos)

------
pixelmonkey
This is probably a good moment to mention that GMail backup solutions exist.
got-your-back (GYB) is an open source backup tool in Python that can be easily
run as a cron job and backs up all your email.

[https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back](https://github.com/jay0lee/got-
your-back)

Also, Google Takeout has a full MBox export of your GMail account that may be
worth running annually as a paranoid extra safe backup.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I've found it difficult to find somewhere to import an Mbox. You've gotta grab
a desktop app like Thunderbird that supports it and then upload the data
again. Easiest for me has been to just have any email client that supports
IMAP on a desktop PC and open it occasionally so that it syncs. This saves you
the Takeout delay of packaging up your mail, and ensures you're only
downloading the delta since last time. I do have some Takeout snapshots though
in case I ever absolutely have to go back.

~~~
pixelmonkey
The GYB script I linked actually has a restore mode that can make use of the
Google Takeout MBox files.

------
mark_l_watson
This works for me: I have my own domain and pay for Fastmail. I do have a
forward rule to send everything to gmail, and enable this rule when
travelling.

Google Takeout is your friend, and I periodically download copies of email,
calendar data, and many other options. I got my gmail 3 years before it became
public, and I appreciate having the account, but I make sure my business would
continue fine if I suddenly lost the account.

For backing up photos: this is easy, I set my phone to wait until I am on wifi
and then save to Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Photos. Before I put the phone
on wifi, I look at pictures taken that day and delete the ones I don’t want to
have 3 backup copies of. For most people, photos may be their most valuable
didgital asset. Worth having multiple backups.

------
xab9
Question: how do you move away from gmail?

Phone providers in the last decade came up with number transfers (I can talk
about Europe only), but how do I transfer my gmail.com address? I have
hundreds of registrations tied to my gmail (been using it since it was
available, more than a decade now), some are for my bank, others are for
webshops, countrywide tax management system, ebay, amazon, healthcare, friends
etc.

I read how people are not relying on gmail and running their own servers, but
how do they do it? How do they cut loose the ties with their past?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
This is what I've done: sync your Gmail account with a regular mail client and
backup the mail clients database so as not to lose any old emails.

Step two create new email address with dedicated email provider, one known to
have good customer support.

Step three, stop giving out your Gmail address, and over time update your
email address on all the services you use.

You can't take your @gmail.com address with you to a different provider, I
think that would break the way the Internet works.

~~~
giancarlostoro
Another option is to get a personal domain where the dedicated email provider
can support. If you own the domain to your email, you can switch providers
more seamlessly, of course you gotta back up your emails through a third party
client. Maybe a third party web client you can host yourself that stores your
emails.

Maybe something like Mailpile:

[https://www.mailpile.is/](https://www.mailpile.is/)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Oh yeah, I should have mentioned I registered two domains. One is my
firstnamelastname.com and the other is k45j.com so I use a364@k45j.com because
it’s short and unambiguous to say over the phone.

------
ValentineC
I wanted to see how people were being convinced to link their Gmail accounts
with a G Suite account, so I tried hunting for the option to sign up for this
"Gmail for Work" service.

The links keep sending me to either G Suite's standard landing page, or to
admin.google.com, which only works with G Suite domains.

I did find the help pages for the service:
[https://support.google.com/work/mail/answer/6236599](https://support.google.com/work/mail/answer/6236599)

------
walrus01
I strongly encourage everyone who wants to have some modicum of control over
things, register your own domain and _control the authoritative nameservers
for it_. It's fine to have route53 as an authoritative slave if you want. This
lets you point the MX to another service provider rather quickly, such as in
an instance where something has gone terribly wrong with your Google mail
services.

~~~
im3w1l
> control the authoritative nameservers for it

What does this mean?

~~~
walrus01
control your own DNS. When you register a domain, your registrar asks you what
you want to be the domain name servers for it. This is the same info that
shows up for the namservers in a domain's WHOIS entry. If you control the
nameservers you can quickly and easily do things like move the mail services
elsewhere, in the event that your third-party-hosted mail services go rogue.

------
mamborambo
Scary shit here! I just finished the gsuite trial period and started my first
paid month, and then to read this horror story is....

I activated Gsuite because it is the best price/capacity value for cloud
storage (at the moment) and also I want to evaluate this product as reselling
my IT services. I am not going to be happy if I cannot move back into my free
gmail in the futue.

Google, we need a good response from you.

------
rukuu001
Ugh, I lost my YouTube channel when I _upgraded_ a personal address to GSuite.

It wasn't a huge channel so I shrugged and got to work uploading videos again,
but just so frustrating.

------
Apocryphon
Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

The more this story is upvoted, retweeted, and spread, the likelier that
Google will be forced to deal with a potential PR backlash.

Customer service via viral outrage is an unfortunate consequence of these mass
scale services (and companies unwilling to properly invest in human support
staff to improve the quality of customer success). It's slightly similar to
human flesh search engines in China [0]. Maybe there's a way to organize
crowdsourced feedback whenever these tech giants fail to address particularly
bad customer issues.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine)

~~~
michelledepeil
The original post is yet another example of taking to personal blogs to get
proper customer support for critical services.

I find this concept terrible. The eventual, theoretical end-point is that only
the elite, social-media connected individuals will get help with their Gmail
issues. I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about 70 year-olds who don't run
blogs and don't have 40k insta followers.

So yes, crowdsourcing such a thing, in a simple, clear way, would be an
absolute blessing. Think Github issues but then 1000x more accessible for
average consumers.

~~~
reitanqild
> I find this concept terrible. The eventual, theoretical end-point is that
> only the elite, social-media connected individuals will get help with their
> Gmail issues.

Another, better outcome would be if Google get tired of getting bad PR and
decides to 1. remove traps like the one we are discussing and/or 2. fix their
support system.

------
manigandham
Never combine accounts, especially across different service levels. Personal
GMail + GSuite is asking for trouble, simply because they are different
products aimed at different customers with their own teams and support. Trying
to detangle accounts after will never go well.

Just setup forwarding instead, or have 1 account automatically check and pull
in email from the others, or use a mail client with support for multiple
inboxes.

Also remember that free services guarantee nothing. If you want support then I
recommend paying for Google One so you have some recourse at the end:
[https://one.google.com/](https://one.google.com/)

------
js2
My recollection is that Google used to have two completely different account
types. There was the external @gmail.com account type, and then there was the
internal @domain.com account type. The latter used an accounting system that
was originally designed for internal (employee) accounts, but then became the
basis of what was called "Google Apps" which I guess is now GSuite. Apparently
there were (and still are?) all sorts of bizarre issues due to the fact that
they originally had these two distinct account types.

Anyway, I have both an @gmail.com address and my own domain, the latter of
which I had with Google Apps for a while back when it was free. I remember
having no end of trouble accessing various Google services when I had both
account types. I eventually moved my domain away from Google (I moved email to
FastMail). But one thing that broke when I moved my domain away was that my
wife lost her blogger account... there was no way (at the time) to transfer
everything she'd blogged to an @gmail.com account.

What a terribly confusing mess. My complaint about these sorts of things is
the same complaint I have whenever an Apple product breaks on me in a really
stupid way: you'd hope the richest tech companies in the world could do
better.

------
z92
I run my own email server and have my mail address pasted over websites in
plain text and whois records. Still I receive very few spam and not using any
spam filter.

Here's what I did. Fit for personal use only, not business use.

* Setup DKIM signature and reject all mails that don't have one. Cut down spam 90%.

* Reject mails from .info .us and other country TLDs that you don't deal with. Further cut down spam by 90%.

* When I mark a first mail from a new domain as spam, the server blocks all future mails from it.

That's all. Works for me.

~~~
crtasm
That sounds good, I've learned how to do SPF for outgoing mail but not yet
DKIM - one day!

I saw a talk a few years ago on aggregating DNS lookups for insight into many
things, spam included. The presenter said he had great results from simply
blocking mail from domains that were less than 24hrs old.

------
z3t4
Even if you store the data in the "cloud", you should still make backups! If
the service doesn't allow you to make backups, then use another service! If
the data is important, you should have backups! I know how boring backups are,
but it can be fully automated. (if the data is very important you also want
offline backups though) Just don't forget to test the backups at regular
intervals, to see if it's possible to recover from a backup.

------
hellofunk
I have a GSuite subscription that I’ve been thinking of canceling. I wonder if
there is an obvious way to know if this could happen to me. I have emails from
it’s main email address forwarded to a personal account, and probably also
have the personal account setup as a concact perhaps. I will have to
thoroughly read through the settings. My personal gmail account is 14 years
old.

~~~
ValentineC
If you have a paid G Suite subscription, you'll have access to their
phone/email/chat support [1], and you can call them to find out if your
Gmail's linked.

I think the OP's problem was upgrading to G Suite via a new "Gmail for
Business" option [2], which I still can't find on my personal Gmail accounts.

[1]
[https://support.google.com/a/answer/1047213](https://support.google.com/a/answer/1047213)

[2]
[https://support.google.com/work/mail/answer/6236599](https://support.google.com/work/mail/answer/6236599)

------
WheelsAtLarge
And here's an example of free never really being free. It sux but when you pay
nothing, expect nothing. That's really the lesson to learn.

I once had a "free" website that was running for years. One day it was all
gone, no notice, no warning. Lucky I backed it up. I was back in business in a
few hours..

~~~
fauigerzigerk
That's not the lession. We do pay Google enough to make billions of profits
every quarter by granting them access to our data.

Google's terms of service give us no guarantees at all, but neither do other
consumer or small business oriented cloud services that charge real money.

I seem to be one of the few people who actually read the terms of service
before starting to seriously depend on a provider.

Usually, you don't have any rights at all. Most services can kick out paying
customers without notice, without explanation and without recourse.

If you want real contractual guarantees (SLAs with penalties) you need to go
all the way to enterprise services and they are extremely expensive.

In my view, the pragmatic lession if you're not an enterprise customer is to
choose profitable mid-size providers that are not too cheap and combine a few
of them or combine with on-premises infrastructure (that is your PC :) to
avoid any single point of failure.

------
scarejunba
Holy shit! This is a _terrible_ user experience. What an absolute nightmare. I
can't imagine some PM saw this and decided to okay it. Wow.

The only reason I can guess that it didn't pop up sooner is that no one uses
this product.

------
tempestn
I enjoy the Google interface and spam filtering, but don't want to be
dependent on them. So I've been transitioning to a new address on my own
domain, and just auto-forward the mail from my server to gmail and reply from
there (using my domain). I also download my mail via IMAP monthly so I'll have
a backup in case I ever lose access.

There's also a fringe benefit: I can run spam assassin on the server, set to
filter out only the spammiest of spam. That cuts the quantity in gmail's spam
folder down to a level I can manageably look through on occasion for false
positives.

------
dirtylowprofile
Thank you for the response guys, I am still halfway reading the comments. I
hope this problems gets to the guys at Google, I really wanted to recover my
personal Gmail account before Google completely wipes it out from their
server.

Right now, I am on @icloud.com and since Apple is easy to migrate from one
device to another I believe this is a nice fresh start.

In the future maybe I will try Protonmail but since it requires a "bridge" for
paid accounts, maybe I will look into it in the near future.

------
smivan
UPDATE: [https://lawgimenez.me/2018/08/07/g-suite-happy-
ending/](https://lawgimenez.me/2018/08/07/g-suite-happy-ending/)

Google reached out to the author and got the situation resolved.

------
freakynit
Companies these days spend like maniacs on UI, but can't even get the basic UX
right.

------
kmfrk
I set up e-mail forwarding for a custom address after reading stories like
this. While it won't back up my e-mails (unless I get a plan that supports
that), I'll still be able to redirect 2FA and contact e-mails elsewhere.

------
marcus_holmes
Google's nightmare-bad UI strikes again.

------
viach
Imagine having online exchange auth to be based on the lost email. Indeed, a
horror story.

~~~
Havoc
Had that with a bank & phone number I lost. Guess who got a OTP via snail mail
lol

------
8to5Therapy
This is more like user not able to read horror story

------
Animats
Always remember, with Google, you're not the customer, you're the product. As
such, you have no power to demand anything.

~~~
dingo_bat
One would think that applies to the free users, not the paying customers.

------
SpaceManNabs
Am I in a position to be susceptible to this? My personal Gmail is used for my
data science/dota blog hosted on Google App Engine. I am using the free quota
stuff. I don't think I upgraded to business or anything. So scary :(

