Google Disabled My 15 Years Old Account Without a Single Reason [Part 3]
Almost four weeks since I got my Google account disabled. There is no way I can get any person to talk to me, their system disabled my account, and until now, no human has sent me anything on why my account got disabled. I kept sending the appeal forms and attaching all the previous ticket numbers “For Reference,” and no one has responded.
One day I came across one tweet about the speed of the response from Google One Customer Support. I pay for a Google One account; I deserve customer support! Let’s try this door!
Surprise! You can’t talk to Google One Support if you are not a customer, and to be a customer, you need to log in with your Google account … Ops Ops! is the same account Google disabled! Then, I had to create a new account from another email, pay for a monthly subscription to become a customer, access the customer support page, and choose one of the following options so I chose the Get a call option.
In less than a minute, my phone rang. It was a Google bot telling me to wait until someone picked up! I stood on the phone for over 10 minutes until, for the first time, finally, someone from Google said to me: How can I help you? A sentence I had been desperately waiting for since the whole thing started!
At this point, after three weeks of stress and an emotional rollercoaster! I took the mic and didn’t stop talking; for almost 10 minutes straight, I was non-stop! I told all my stories and everything I tried with no luck!
The lucky customer support agent from Google One took a second and asked me, can you wait a little bit? I need to speak to my supervisor!
I said I had nothing to do today, so I would be waiting.
After almost 15 minutes of waiting, he told me that the account connected to my Google One was disabled (Really?), and they couldn’t do anything from their side, and all I could do was keep trying the recovery page. [Oh No! The Recovery Page Again!!].
I retook the mic and spent another 10 minutes telling my story again! The recovery was not helping; no one from Google said anything, and it’s been three weeks! I got to the point that I don’t need my email anymore, and I don’t need my account anymore. And I asked, can I just access my data to download it? The data that I paid to store on your servers? Ultimately, it’s my data, and I paid to keep it, so I should be able to access it!
He asked to go again to talk to his supervisors this time! So I waited again.
Another 10 minutes passed, and he returned with the same old answer and said they couldn’t help me access my data because I had my account disabled by higher authorities!
In my head, I said, there is no hope … It’s The New Mafia, the one that doesn’t kill you right away if you do something against their will, but the one that leaves you to suffer by yourself.
I thanked him because I appreciated what he tried to do, but apparently, my problem was much bigger… This made me wonder more about what I have done with you, Google.
Every day, I learn new things about how Google works and how we, the users, are treated based on the service! Some of the things I learned in the past three weeks are CRAZY! And when you think 2022 won’t be possible, you can always get surprised!
So each Google product has its approach to dealing with customers and their problems! So after I failed to get any good news from the Google One customer support team, I decided to move on and reach out to another Google product! The Google Domains Customer Support I have domains registered under that account, and I need to get those domains back!
Transferring the domains to another Google Domains account shouldn’t be a crazy idea, right!?
I created a new account on Google domains to talk with their customer support! We shared multiple emails, me trying to explain the situation. Guess what the answer every single Google employee defaulted to was?
Yes, you are right; it’s again the F**king recovery form!
After losing my mind and repeating myself multiple times, their customer support sends the following email.
I understand you need help figuring out which account the domains (*****) are registered under. Before I can divulge which account currently manages the domain, I will need to perform a verification procedure.
I went ahead and sent a verification email with the subject: Account verification and Authorization to transfer the domains to the domain’s listed registrant email address(*****). Please check all of your existing email accounts (it can be personal, work or business email accounts) inbox, spam or junk folder to look for the said email. If you received that email, please follow the instructions and reply directly to it.Thanks!
I was in shock! Because when you tell someone that you can’t access the email account that manages your domains and you want to transfer those domains to another email account, they send you a verification email to the same email you can’t access to verify the ownership!!
Yep, I lost my mind here, and I remember I wrote an email with a Gmail HUGE font size for the first time in my life. I was frustrated and felt like I was dealing with a stupid or ignorant customer support team who didn’t even read what I had been sending for almost three days!
Finally!!! After showing my frustration with a furious email, the supervisor called me! I had to repeat my problem one more time, but at least after this time, things started moving in the right direction! I started receiving transferring emails asking me to respond to the email to permit them to move forward with the transfer!
Aaaaand Finally I got one thing back! I got my domains back 🥳, the first success in almost three weeks! I needed this success to feel that I’m not wasting my time with Google, and at least if there is hope and there are HUMANs working at Google who can help and fix things!
Until now, I passed from an awful customer support experience with Google One to a bad one with a positive ending with Google Domains!
This makes me wonder; we pay a lot of money for Google, don’t we? We sold our attention and privacy for them to sell to the highest bidder! To watch all those ads everywhere, we use Google products! We paid a lot, and I believe that we deserve that some of this money goes to build a much better customer support framework where we still count on HUMANS to help each other, not just robots and AI!
What is my next move?
I’m going to court; I need to see what the law can offer! So, I started searching for lawyers who are experts in the digital data protection field!
I want an answer: Will being under the GDPR grant me protection against a giant like Google?
If you know any good lawyer I can count on, please share via the contact section! Thanks
How can the Internet community help?
Are you or know someone who is working in Google Accounts Team? Please reach out via any channel you find fit on the contact page. You are much appreciated.
