I Am So Lost (Google Account Issue)

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Yesterday, I wrote a post about how my site was failing Google Verification.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/cld111/blog/google-verificat...

Well, that probelm went from molehill to mountain.

I decided to try to change my password just in case someone was trying to get into my stuff.

BAD IDEA.

For some reason, the new password worked on my computer, but not my phone. So then I had to do it again.

Then I saw a suspicious activity come up after I did that.

And I reported it.

SUPER BAD IDEA.

I am completely locked out of my Google account. No matter what I do, I can't get in. I have tried resetting the passwords again and again.

I am totally lost.

My whole world is connected to that account.

Including my website.

There is no way to even contact them to explain.

I have no idea what to do...

Next time, even if there's a hacker, I'm not changing a THING.

I hope this may help some of you out there. Be really careful about your account.

- Christina

P.S. On a positive note, i was able to copy and paste a bunch of emails from my app on my computer. So at least I have information that I need.

On another positive note, I realized how much STUFF I was holding on to that I don't need. :)

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Recent Comments

31

This is so disappointing Chrintina.

So while your website will still remain active, what happens to your search console, analytics etc?

I wish I had a solution for you. The only thing I can suggest is to contact Robert (Boomergp08). He's written a few posts about a friend of his that works at Google. Maybe this contact he has, can suggest how to progress with getting your account reactivated.

Hope you get it sorted.

Yes, I don't know. My analytics are connected to this account, so I guess I have to start over?

OK, I can ask Robert if he can offer any help / advice.

Thank you!

- Christina

Hoping you are able to work this out Christina.

Thank you! I have NO idea at this point, but I'm trying as many things as I can.

- Christina

Hi Christina,
Wow, so sorry this is happening to you! I figured I'd see if I could find anything to help you out and found a YouTube video that explains a bit about it. However, it seems I can't share the link here, but if you look up GOOGLE COULDN'T VERIFY THIS ACCOUNT BELONGS TO ME! by SimplyZee that might help you out.

It sounds like too, according to the video, that he complained about not being able to recover his Google account on Twitter...and, Google noticed it, and made things a bit easier to communicate with them by what I understand.

I also went to the Google forum mentioned in the description of the video and found this...I'll share part of it below:

"The recovery process is more successful if done from a computer or device normally used to access the account. In fact, just one or two correct answers may be sufficient. If at all possible, attempt recovery using that same computer/device, giving preference to a computer/laptop over a mobile device."

Another thing that may or may not help, is I was able to find you on Google Plus, and yes, I was nosy, and read some of the earlier comments here wondering if you had any kind of answer, and noticed you needed a date to verify, and although it may not be the same date as your first post on G+, maybe it is around the time you joined with that account...March 2013, is the earliest one I found, although that's probably a long shot, but worth a try maybe.

I hope that helps in some way and let us know how it goes...Good luck!
Best wishes :) ~Sherry

:

Sherry, thank you very, very much! I'm going to watch the video you mentioned for sure.

Thanks for checking into my Google + account. I know I have emails from 2005, but I tried to enter that date and it wasn't correct. You need to know the month and day and be pretty darn close to it.

It's seriously so frustrating. I'd rather have my account hacked than this!!

- Christina

Oh, wow, I didn't realize you needed the month and day too. That is ridiculous! I'd never remember it either, even the year I joined I'd be lucky to remember...yeah, so frustrating I know!

Sometimes the security precautions certainly can be annoying when we can't access our own account. Well, it's downright maddening I should say. They really need to make it a bit easier for someone to get help at least to recover their account.

I hope you can get this resolved somehow, and if I happen to find any other answers, I'll let you know. Good Luck!

Thanks so much! I have read to wait a week or two and then try again. Although, I still have no idea when my account was created and I would still need to know that answer.

- Christina

Sorry this happened to you. Did you ever activate a google adwards account? The adwords billing team have EXCELLENT customer service. Perhaps you can ring them up and say you want to run a PPC campaign but are locked out for the reasons listed above? Give it a go and see what happens.

I do have an Adwords account. Yes!! I will try this tomorrow. Great idea! :)

- Christina

I don’t have any revolutionary ideas or solutions to help you. I would though, like for you to let the community know how you were able to solve this security error, if and when you are given the keys back to the drivers seat again. Thank you for making us aware that sometimes it’s not our fault.
Ken

Don't give up, Christina!

Google has too much invested in users like you to just write you off. The trick is to figure out how to get their attention to get past the bugs in their security recovery process. I'd be willing to bet that they have a human customer service work around if you can get this escalated enough. The trick will be how to get it escalated. Maybe phone calls to corporate, or contacting some individual or business in Mountain View or Palo Alto that can walk in the front door and talk to a human? You might even be able to find an internal google security person via a blog, forum or article and see if they can advocate for you. Here is an article I found on the topic, but I'm sure there are others: https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/22/that-time-i-got-locked-out-of-my-google-account-for-a-month/

This is a google flaw, and if you hang in there and do what it takes to educate google on it, you can recover your valuable investment and google will owe you. Please slap them around to get their attention - they REALLY need it!

Let us know how it works out - I know you can do it.

Cheers,
Steve

Thanks so much Steve! I'm going to read that article for sure!

- Christina

Glad to help Christina,
We all have a stake in this if we depend on google; who doesn't?

You might want to skip to the end of the article where there is a link to another solution that might be a quick fix.

Best,
Steve

I read that, but it looks like I need to get into my account to set up Google One. It didn't seem to work the way that he said it would.

- Christina

I had/have a similar issue. I think some of us could use a Google training early on about setting up accounts , passwords and especially managing multiple google accounts. I was literally in tears and spent days trying to fix it. Still not in a great place but better. A member here took the time to help and I’m not even sure how he got me back in.

I wish I could have spoken to a Google rep but there is no way to do that.

Be very cautious with your Google accounts everyone! And write down everything you do when setting up or making changes.

Yes, if I could just speak to a HUMAN over there to explain what happened. UGH. I feel your frustration. I was in tears this morning too. I've had this email since at least 2005. Everything is connected to that email.

- Christina

Hi Christina,

I did a google search on "locked out of gmail account" and found this. Hope it helps. If not, maybe one of the other results will help.

https://support.google.com/mail/troubleshooter/2402620

You might have to add ?hl=en to the above link. When posting URLs here, they cannot include parameters.

Good luck.

Thanks so much! I've been through all of that...

I appreciate the help though.

- Christina

Don't know if this will help, I had a problem with my Gravatar account a while back (I wanted to log in and have a few additional emails associated with my Gravatar image) and could not remember anything (the email and the password). So I used different emails one by one in its "forgotten email" send verification details.
It turned out that the email that I was using, forwarded the email to an outlook account of mine. Well, I never found those emails.

I put that on the back boiler as I had other things to do and came back to it, weeks later. I then changed the email address to forward the emails to my gmail account (instead of my outlook account) and I repeated the process of "forgotten email" send verification details. I received that email in my Spam box. I was then able to recover that account and do what I needed to do.

*** You probably have already done this, but if not ***
Check if possible that google can email to your backup email account. Maybe create a test gmail account for this purpose.
Check the "spam" folder and the like in your backup email account, in case it found its way in there.
If the backup email account is a forward type of account, forward any emails it receives to a different email provider (if forwarding to an outlook account, change the forward to forward to an gmail account that you have access to)(may have to delete old email forwarder and create new email forwarder to do this)

Good luck.

Thank you so much for the suggestion. Google can definitely email to my backup account. They also used my husbands email, and that worked too. But I still couldn't verify my account.

I completely appreciate all your help! This could someone else in the future, too!

- Christina

Hi Christina, I really hope someone here can help you. Something similar happened to me when I started here a few months ago (the first time back online for years).

I can't remember what happened exactly but I know I had to wait a few days and get an approval code sent through to an old mobile phone number. I will try and see if I can find out what I did.

In the meantime, sending positive thoughts, good luck

Kevin

Thanks, Kevin! I'm just moving on. If it can't be recovered, it can't be recovered.

- Christina

Hi Christina,

I'm so sorry to hear about this, I imagine how much it sucks... =( What suspicious activity did you see after changing your password? How did you report it?

Can't Google send you a text message with a verification code to your phone to help you get your account back? Or isn't there a way to get your account back by using your old passwords (to prove that that account is yours)?

Hopefully you get your account back, best wishes!

There was a notice about being connected to a new Sony Google TV. We do have one at home, but we weren't home at the time, so I was confused. However, it was a mistake. A BIG one.

I have tried every which way to recover my account with old passwords and sending codes to my phone, and to my husband's email (his email is my backup) and nothing. They can't verify it.

One of the issues is that they ask you these verification questions. One of them is when you started the account. They want a month and year. I have NO idea. It was years ago.

I think it's lost forever. Thankfully, I was able to copy a lot of the emails from the app on my computer. I just have to change ALLLLLL my accounts with my new email.

Crying.

- Christina

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