[RESOLVED]Google disabled my business gmail account!!!

What was their reason?

That sounds like a nightmare. I keep a lot of my business details in my email accounts but I also keep a MASTER FILE with all PW's etc separate on my external hard drive. Google will unilaterally close an account? That is pretty scary.

Contact google. Someone may access your account. That would be the reason.

Why on earth would you ever want to put such an important part of your business into the hands of big brother?

I've had a bunch of things shut down by Google, including a big account (not my main business account, the chief secondary account). Sometimes, when they close something down, they respond to your complaints and reopen the account a few days late (as they did with the secondary account). Sometimes they don't respond. Keep knocking on their door (but don't get obnoxious).

Back up your email with Thunderbird realtime.

I've used Gmail for years, and when I say I've never had a single problem with them, I truly mean it. That was the case until yesterday. I couldn't believe it, and am still having a hard time digesting it.

Now, I do have a master file with all my passwords, but, for some reason, a few passwords managed to slip by without getting added to it. It's generally not an issue because I have all of my accounts set to be logged on indefinitely.

Strangely enough, yesterday the computer starts going haywire and closes all of my applications and windows. I was barely able to stop the thing from shutting down altogether. Anyhow, when I reopened my browser, of course, I was greeted with my default home page.

The first thing I did was reopen my Twitter page, and then onto Facebook. To my surprise, they were logged out. So, I go to my master file to grab the passwords. Would you believe that I forgot to save all my new passwords?!

Usually, I save the file the moment I add something to it, but oddly enough, I didn't this time. So, I open another tab and try to log on to my gmail. Silly of me to that I could do a reset....Google disabled my account!

I can't reset my Gmail password, and I can't use the old one! You would think it's a simple fix since it's my account, right? WRONG! Google has this nice contact/info form that you have to fill out and unless you just started using their account features yesterday, you'll hardly remember the things they ask.

They want to know the date you opened the account, the EXACT dates you started using each feature (i.e., Gmail, Voice, etc.), activation codes and passwords, and a few other things. Now, I filled this form out once, and they responded today saying that the information I provided doesn't identify that I'm the account owner.

I know that my dates may be a bit off, but I made a close guess I'm sure. If I do get the account back, I'll be sure to record every detail about the darn account just in case this crap happens again.

Here's a question, and I partially know the answer:

Does Google track IP access in order to make a determination about who is using your account?

Yes, Google does keep a log of your IP each time you log in to one of your accounts. But, if your IP changes for whatever reason from what it was on a previous log, does that mean it isn't you still using the account (at least according to Google)?

There has to be a better way for them to ensure account security and if my suspicions are right, I hope this isn't a permanent change.

Google are impossible. Theres no way to get your account back. I know as Ive been trying for 6 months to get a reply out of them.

They banned my Adwords account and for good measure banned me from their help board and disabled my Adsense account at the same time and for no good reason.

Google are making news headlines for breaking the law and they have the nerve, the nerve to tell their advertisers that they broke their TOS. Just unbelievable!

Scum of the earth.

Sorry to hear that, KG. This illustrates why I have a distaste for depending on free services for my business needs though. We don't have as much control as we want to believe.

The best thing to do is to email or call them if it is possible.

They may give you an explanation why they took a hold of your account.

Tal

Contact google and get it back

So really what you're saying is that your account was disabled because you tried to login with incorrect information, right? Not that Google just shut down your account on a whim.

Art

^^^ Ditto.

What's the resolution then please?

I'm still trying to figure out what was causing your computer to go haywire? That's either a security breach, or hardware failure.

Make sure that Google indeed closed your accounts because you may have been hacked by somebody else.

There is a lesson here, I'd say. I see the accusations about PayPal, Google and others, but I think you have to take them with a grain of salt. Problems happen for a reason (not mysterious actions by the companies), and it is up to individuals to solve them without playing the blame game. In this case the OP said, "I know never to trust Google with anything important again." Besides the "Duh" factor, all the blame was on them without consideration that his email might have been hijacked.

However, if you look at the posting time between the original post and #28 (the resolution), only about 3 hours and 45 minutes elapsed. Looks like Google did a great job of resolving the matter. PayPal and other companies must protect themselves, and that fact needs to be respected.