Hello Google? Stop Disabling User Accounts!

Posted by on Oct 20, 2008 | 14 Comments

There is not a week that goes by, that someone, somewhere, is not posting or blogging about a disabled Google account. The disabling of a Gmail account prohibits a user from not only using Gmail itself, but all of Google’s programs including Doc’s, Google Adsense, and other features. What continues to be disturbing is the amount of time it takes to get your account reactivated.

Yes I know. These Google accounts are free. Yes, Google doesn’t need to provide support quickly. Yes we can switch to another system. But is this feasible for some folks or company? Not always. This one blog site explains the problems one company faced.

Since Google has decided to take my account away from me, the nucleus of our company communications has been taken away and now is replaced by a black hole. My small business communications are now ruined until my account is reestablished.

Furthermore, my clients all contact me via email addresses associated with my Google Account. Now, when these clients attempt to contact me, or send over time sensitive documents or reports, these emails are now send to a voided account, and now, since Google has decided to block my Google Account, GMail is now serving this negative message to my clients and business associates :

“Technical details of permanent failure: Account disabled”

Thank you Google, you have shone a most negative light on my business with my clients.

Overall I am a Google fan boy. But when this happened to me and my account was disabled, it was a real pain trying to get the account activated by sending emails to Google. I personally believe that Google has the means and money to provide phone support to assist us users in getting our accounts back in working order.

Just my two cents.

Comments welcome.

Source.

  • Jeff

    Was this done by mistake? Why would they disable accounts. if its random error, that’s poor business, even for private users.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Jeff,
    According to some, Google says it is a security feature. It seems that if someone attempts to access your account and is turned away multiple times, it triggers a Google investigation. The first step is to disable the account.

    The user than has to email Google, provide identifying information, in my case I needed to ID some in my contacts, and then wait. :-(

  • George

    i wonder how the guy at google who came up with the whole dissabling accounts idea for security reasons would feel if his account was disabled for a week or two…

    gmail is free yes. but if everybody left because it was horrible google would loose a huge stream of money.

    of course google has the means to do phone support, or if not that at LEAST email support, which they dont have, which is outrageous. They need to realize we’re the ones who make their money.

    this isn’t something like the gasoline indusry where they can do whatever they want either. so many other email clients have support teams, its rare for somebody like google to not!

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello George,
    “I wonder how the guy at google who came up with the whole disabling accounts idea for security reasons would feel if his account was disabled for a week or two…”

    I think I’ll post this over at Google. :-)

  • Nick

    I’m having a most scary episode…account disabled. I my case its because there was a security issue with Google Checkout…the worthless redundant buying service that I signed up for to get 10% off some gear. What a fool. The Googlesphere is inherently evil and here’s why. They promote trust that lures users with awesome free cloud computing service. I foolishly trusted Google and used Gmail, Docs, and Picassa to safeguard my data. Now, because of some BS Checkout problem, they’ve locked me away from my data. IMAP made the situation far worse, since I now have lost 3-years worth of email data. INSANE. I blasted the cheerleaders at Lifehacker who promote all things Google. I suggest that anyone who suffers a similar fate do the same. The word needs to get out that Google can’t be trusted.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Nick,
    Thank you for sharing your experience with us. It is appreciated.
    Regards, Ron

  • alice

    Nick i had very good experience with goole and so have millions of other users.
    Grtz.. me :D

  • http://philsqualitypaint.com Phil Smith

    I can not believe I have just lost my gmail, and along with it almost 200 repeat clients who use my email to contact me. I have tried everything to get my email up an running yet gmail has a very poor support system…in fact it’s impossible to speak with a real person!

    I have recently had my roadrunner email setup, and was going to have it added to my new business cards and website. I was also in the process of backing up all my emails from the past 3 years from my gmail archives, yet they are now lost unless google restores my email…which I’m not counting on…what a huge pain!

  • Digibaba

    I got locked out on 8 June 2010, “Temporary Suspension.” I was given the choice to use my home phone number and get an “ACTIVATION CODE” telephoned to me. As soon as I put in the number and clicked, the phone rang and gave me a five digit number. Trouble is, nowehere does it say what do you suppose to do with it? I mean, I can either replace my USERS NAME with it, or my PASSWORD. I tried it both ways, but I was told that the stuff does not match. So, I am still locked-out “temporarily.” Locked out of Gmal and also out of YouTube.

    What do i do with the activation code, where do I use it exactly to unlock the Gmail account? Thanks!

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Try this. Username should be your entire gmail address. Use the code as your password.
      See if that works.

  • yourtreat22

    There’s a reason Google is ddisabling accoounts. After google disables your account, they require you to submit your telephone number for a voice or text message to obtain a verification code. Once google has your telephone number, they sell it and your EMail address to 3rd Party’s that spam your GMail with stuff like (“Meet Windows 7 Phone today”).
    Moreover, it is Google itself that intentionally disables your account claiming “suspicious activity” occured. Certainly it occured. However, it occured, because GOOGLE targets various user accounts for Marketing purposes, and then THEY perform an action that RESULT IN the “susoicious activity”. For example, google themselves forced my GMail accoount to attempt to send spam to every “Contact”. Google created the spam. In fact, GOOGLE EVEN ALTERED THE SPAM AFTER IT WAS IN MY INBOX! Only Google itself has THAT KIND OF ACCESS to its own database. In any case, no REAL spammer would do this, as EMail systems are now setup to detect AND BLOCK mass mailings in which there is a single line of text having simply a URL. Google knows this. However, it suits their Marketing needs, because once they perform that action, your google account(s) are disabled. NEXT, THEY sell your GMail account ifo to a 3rd Party, and you are immediately spammed. BTW. We are not talking about small companies. The example of Windows 7 phone is real, and Microsoft is not a small company. BTW. As I hinted, GOOGLE forces multiple accounts to be disabled by doing the same thing, i.e. they cause your accounts to sent a one line URL spam message to all your “ontacts. GOOGLE 1)DENIES ANY KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR DISBLING ACCOUNTS FOR MARKETTING PURPOSES, 2) GOOGLE FALSELY CLAIMS “WE”HAVE REMEDIED THE SITUATION, 3) GOOGLE FALSELY CLAIMS THAT THE GMail does not receive EMails at their support GMail address and flasely claims that they can only be contacted via their Forum.
    Lastly, “topping off” this unethical activity, Microsoft Marketting follows up the spam activity by DIRECTLY sending additional EMails INTENDED TO MISDIRECT THAT USER THAT WAS SPAMMED BY THEM. The EMails have the headers: “Has your Browser Been Hijacked?” and if you subscribed to a Microsoft Security Forum, you also get an immediately GMail from them,about “Prparing your system for Web Security” or a similar subject. —- EMails on public EMail system are programmatically scrutinized by the public EMail systems themselves, for marketting purposes. Lists of keywords that are relevent to different lists of 3rd Parties are used to programmatically scrutinized EMail you send and receive.
    Public EMail providers then sell specific lists of their EMail accounts to 3rd Parties, for their own marketting purpooses. If you think public Internet EMail providrs, like Google are acutally honest with regard to what they do with the the EMails your write and read, your phone numbers, your SPECIFIC activities as relating to keyword matches in EMails, you are quite naive. As other users have mentioned, these companies are NOT to be trusted. Google and other companies have plenty of programmers available to them, and your provide them with plenty of information. READ THEIR TOS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY. They CAN DO (and do, do) whatever they want with your information. They don’t care if you loose information or you are screwed by anything that they do, including: 1) disabling your accounts, in order for you to take special notice of messages that arrive in your inbox, as well as, 2) disabling your accounts, in order for them to get your phone number for subsequent profitable sales to 3rd Party marketters.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Interesting.

  • Anonymous

    What about Pixelmator?

  • Tiny

    What about http://pixlr.com/ ?