PANIC !!! Google disabled my account
A few hours ago Google just abruptly disabled my primary Google Account – mrinal [dot] wadhwa [at] gmail. I can’t login and all email to that account is failing and yes I’m panicking … my life runs through that account and it has been that way for over five years.. so this is scary !
All the suggested help doesn’t seem to be working so I’ve written to Google Support and hopefully things will be back to normal soon.
Meanwhile, I can still be reached at email [at] mrinalwadhwa.com ….
UPDATE:
About 20 hours after this happened Google enabled my account again, Thank you Google. Those were some painful 20 hours, but I’m just glad things are back to normal. Here’s the email I received from Google, what’s funny though is that they did not care to explain why this happened …
Hello,
Thank you for your report.
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. The issue you described should now be resolved. If you continue to experience difficulties, please respond to this message, and we’ll investigate further.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
Image courtesy LunaDiRimmel
January 21st, 2009
Ah…this is sad. However, am not sure if much can be done about this as Gmail itself is a beta product. Also, i hope you are not using this email account for storing any passwords. Just wondering if some hacker has got hold of the account and has changed the password himself, then you might have more to come.
This post also is a clear example of why we MUST take backups of our gmail accounts.
http://technofriends.in/2007/04/20/backup-your-gmail-account/
I hope you are able to get this sorted out soon.
Thanks
Vaibhav
January 21st, 2009
Although, GMail is still beta (and probably will be forever), they have the responsibility to maintain the accounts. If they were to do this to me, I think it would violate my contract with TMobile as my Google account is what activates my G1 phone.
January 23rd, 2009
If you enable IMAP on your Gmail and sync it to your computer then you have an archive that’s not in the cloud.
January 23rd, 2009
Rachel,
Yes, an archive/backup makes so much sense but I haven’t been regular with that at all because I use Gmail’s web interface as my primary mail client and I really like it … I even have other email accounts POPing into gmail so that I have everything in one place. The main reason I like Gmail’s web interface is threads, I haven’t found any other client yet that does threads as nicely as gmail and with the numer of mailing lists I subscribe to it makes so much sense to stick with Gmail’s interface. So, if I do that then archiving to my desktop is now a task and not something that just happens.
Also, while all this was happening I realized that email is not everything I loose if I loose my Google account … I loose so much more …
1. My identity, there are so many sites on the web that recognize me by this id . almost immediately after my account was disabled … Twitter and Linkedin started complaining of an invalid email account.
2. My contacts, while many people don’t like it .. I really like that gmail remembers every person I ever had an email conversation with .. this is my ultimate contact book and I would hate to loose it.
3. Data on other Google sites … for example, all visitor statistics of people who have visited my blog and other sites over last 2-3 years
There’s so much more … I had never thought that google could one day, without any warning take away everything … but ya, now that this has happened once I will be taking measures to backup everything I can and make as many copies I can.
Mrinal
January 23rd, 2009
Rich,
I agree Google has the responsibility of maintaining all this information … but after reading their Terms of Service I think they have kept enough safe guards to deny someone access if they wish to.
What’s strange though, is that they did not even care to explain why all this happened in their email … I could’ve possibly lost some very important email in those 20hrs and I deserve to know why all this happened. Also, its just simply ethical and good customer service 101 to let a customer know why a certain problem occurred… instead of just saying .. ya there was a problem, but we’ve fixed it now.
Mrinal
January 27th, 2009
Mrinal,
On Google’s response to your “panic”: I am not sure what can you do knowing what went wrong at Google, write more about it, I guess?
The good thing is they fixed it, which is rare with “any” kind of after sales support these days. I would just be happy that it was fixed and you got an acknowledgment that they will fix it again if it happens, what more does one need?!
-vj
January 28th, 2009
>> I am not sure what can you do knowing what
>> went wrong at Google, write more about it, I guess?
Well, they owe me an explanation … an explanation of why their service wasted my whole day and why it embarrassed me in front of people (including clients) … by sending an automated reply … “Account Disabled”
I can understand if there was a technical error but they still owe to explain to me why.
Mrinal
February 2nd, 2009
Wow, I had not thought about this aspect. I should stop using my gmail addrress as a login for sites.
>>My identity, there are so many sites on the web that recognize me by this id . almost immediately after my account was disabled … Twitter and Linkedin started complaining of an invalid email account.
February 8th, 2009
Mrinal,
So what did happen? What was the root cause? Did you in any way contribute to it? And what, if any, other explanation or response has Google provided. Were you the only individual affected or were a class or group of users afffected? Do shed light.
thanks
sri
February 8th, 2009
Hi Sri,
I’ve been trying to find answers to those questions my self but no luck.
I was not the only person affected by this though .. I discovered on twitter that 3 other people had the same problem at about the same time as me
http://twitter.com/mrinal/statuses/1135888218
Mrinal
March 20th, 2009
Thank you VERY much !
I was not able to run the actual source from their googleCode SVN because of usage BIT 101 components.. which I could not download from the site.
Great work !
May 13th, 2009
Hi All,
even my gmail account vkalyanc@gmail.com has been disabled since 4th may. I am struggling to get back my account. i have sent the reply form to google so many times but no reply.All i get is saying that “your account has been disabled. we suspected suspicious activity on your account”. Please Mrinal, Google, help me get back my account.
My other working email is ca.vkalyanc@gmail.com
June 19th, 2009
My email id raju.ajo@gmail.com has been disabled saying”Google Account disabled due to suspicious activity” what to do ? Please Mrinal, Google, help me
My other working email is ajoraju33@gmail.com
July 10th, 2009
My email id rahulkumarweb@gmail.com has been disabled saying”Google Account disabled due to suspicious activity” what to do ? Please Mrinal, Google, help me
My other working email is arkonamjunction@gmail.com
July 10th, 2009
pls recover my account
November 18th, 2009
hi al,
my gmail account malapatiravi@gmail.com has been disabled by google team and now i am not able to access my account so if any one knows pls help me regarding this. i hav lot of contacts with this email account. my other working mail id is malapatijob@gmail.com
November 18th, 2009
my email id malapatiravi@gmail.com has been disabled due to suspious activity please Mrinal, Google, help me out .
my other working gmail account is malapatijob@gmail.com
February 8th, 2010
I have been without my gmail account for 7 days. Despite my e-mails to them 5-6 times, daily, I still have no response or an e-mail account. My account was purely personal, and now I have no access to my friends, neighbors, or bill collectors. Gmail really sucks.
February 13th, 2010
my email idmah_agvin@yahoo.com has been disabled due to suspious activity please Mrinal, Google, help me out
my other working gmail account is lalit.gour410@gmail.com
February 13th, 2010
my email id mah_agvin@yahoo.com has been disabled due to suspious activity please Mrinal, Google, help me out
my other working gmail account is lalit.gour410@gmail.com