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Android User Locked Out Of Google Accounts After Moving To A New City (itwire.com)
Slashdot reader troublemaker_23 shares a post from ITWire
An Android user has been locked out of his Google account apparently because he moved... The explanation offered by Google support staff was that since his address details differed, billing information with Google wasn't current and hence the user's purchases could look fraudulent... During his interactions with Google support to find out why he had been locked out, he was told that "It is our policy to not discuss the specific reasons for an account closure"...
He was initially directed by Google staff to a site where he had to scan his driver's license and credit card and told that he would have to wait 24 hours to get his account unlocked. But after this time passed, he was told that the account would not be unlocked and Google would not tell him why. He was advised to abandon his old account and start a fresh one. However, this meant he could not use the credit card that he had used on the old account...
The affected user called this "a warning to others not to put all your eggs in one basket, because these days, you have no rights over that basket whatsoever." But Friday the user posted an update on Reddit, quoting a Google staffer as saying "we routinely monitor account behavior on Google Play and take action on potentially suspicious activity. Unfortunately, in your case, your account was wrongly flagged and suspended. I have just reopened your account... I sincerely apologize for the stress and inconvenience this has caused you."
He was initially directed by Google staff to a site where he had to scan his driver's license and credit card and told that he would have to wait 24 hours to get his account unlocked. But after this time passed, he was told that the account would not be unlocked and Google would not tell him why. He was advised to abandon his old account and start a fresh one. However, this meant he could not use the credit card that he had used on the old account...
The affected user called this "a warning to others not to put all your eggs in one basket, because these days, you have no rights over that basket whatsoever." But Friday the user posted an update on Reddit, quoting a Google staffer as saying "we routinely monitor account behavior on Google Play and take action on potentially suspicious activity. Unfortunately, in your case, your account was wrongly flagged and suspended. I have just reopened your account... I sincerely apologize for the stress and inconvenience this has caused you."
he scanned his dl and credit card into a google site ??
yeah .. i think he may be in for a bit more inconvenience other than being locked out of google
I have android phone, use google mail for some things (monitoring alerts) and of course google play for free apps..but I won't give them credit card number.
Guess I won't have this particular problem
Eroding trust one step at a time.
Something minimalist and ultra performant like the beOS + bitcoin of cell phone, decentralized, no user account.
It's frustrating that you pretty much have to go to the media/public and embarrass a company before they will fix issues like this. Not everyone has the time to do this, and not everyone will be able to get enough people to listen to raise a big enough fuss to get the company's attention. I wonder how many situations like this happen that we never hear about and never get resolved?
"he was told that the account would not be unlocked and Google would not tell him why."
If your account is disabled you should have every right to know why and there should always be a path to correct it. What the hell?
I'm an Apple user; if they pulled this crap with my Apple ID it would be extremely irritating; you can have a lot of money wrapped up in these accounts in the form of purchases!
Maybe he tried to sell a google pixel
http://www.pcmag.com/news/349675/resell-your-google-pixel-get-locked-out-of-your-account
"warning to others not to put all your eggs in one basket, because these days, you have no rights over that basket whatsoever."
This can not be repeated enough.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
i had a similar issue with two step verification that only uses that as the method for recovery. was not google in this instance though.
There's no way to contact google support if they close your account. I found this out first hand years ago. I call shenanigans.
Obviously he used the phone improperly and not according to clearly defined specs and guidelines. Nowhere in the TOS does it say he has the right to move or relocate in the duration of the contract.
The difficulty these days is in getting corporations to fix their shit. In Google's case I suspect that, because the number of products that happen to be users is far bigger than the number of products sold to users, customer service simply isn't part of their mandate. It probably isn't even on their radar until somebody rubs their nose in it publicly.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Tens of thousands of large businesses subscribe to this database and can follow their customers when they move. If Google simply checked this, then they'd be able to validate that the customer really did move.
I had something like this happen to me when I changed phones. Google thought my new phone was someone stealing my account and locked it up. Then I could not send a text to unlock because I had to change my phone number too. Come on google, fix this so we can access our information!!!
It's kinda similar on how my credit card declared my card stolen... when I ran out of money on my phone and refilled it, it was flagged by my credit card company, therefore they declared it stolen and I couldn't do any transactions on it... off course, they tried calling me, but it wouldn't work because there was no money left on the phone for me to receive calls... I need money to make calls, I need to make a call to put money on it... so ridiculous...
This is google's form of a real name policy. I have intermittent access to an old Google account (the last one I still have) because I used fake information and I generally use a VPN. If they can't get a good grip on your real identity, they lock up your account for "security."
Obligatory: Fuck Eric Schmidt and Fuck Google.
He had to go public to correct the situation. Just like with security flaws, full disclosure is the only way, or it won't get fixed.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They do not care about the customer, the only thing they care about is the bottom line. Of you do not have a way to publicly embarrass them after they screwed you over, they will just keep doing it to you. If you can, stay away from their "services" altogether.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I suspect there might be more to the story. Maybe a transaction was attempted on their credit card before they updated their address. In any case, Google needs to do a better job in dealing with these situations. It is not reasonable to be forced to create a new account and lose all of your purchases. It does highlight a critical weakness in buying virtual media through online services, like Google. If you've purchased apps, music, books, movies, etc. through Google and they disable your account, it is all gone. Buying physical media is still safer because it is harder to lose your CD/DVD/paper book libraries.
I moved a while ago and this story prompted me to take a look at the address details Google has on me... The scary thing is that one of the two credit cards still had my old address but that wasn't shown until I chose to edit that card because the web interface just shows a large icon for each card with only the type of card, part of the number and expiry date, no address details. Going to change my address for that card offered a drop down with my new address. The address on the other card was correct. Digging further showed my old address in "payments profile" which might have caused problems. I my case, I would have had to update my address in three places which seems strange. Other sites I use will list all of the addresses I have registered on file in a single place, separating them into the various billing, residential and delivery addresses.
Now a days tech companies are all about creating too big to fail entities. Be it Uber, Amazon, Google, Facebook... The amount of trust we are placing on them, our dependency on them, can turn out to be dangerous in the long run.
I reached the end of my love affair with Google long before now. "Do No Evil" sounded sincere 20 years ago, but it's pretty hollow today. It doesn't matter whether this was an accident or not. Not owning my own data is just bad medicine by any account. I won't do it.
I've wondered, instead of funding the Googles/Microsofts/Dropboxes of the world, we need to work on easily deployable mini-personal-cloud-server-in-a-box distributions. Email/webmail, iCal, rsync, with your own blog thrown in for good measure on personally controlled virtual servers is eminently doable. I mean, sure, I'm savvy enough to do this all with Debian, I've been doing mine for years. But it's got to be able to be made far more push-button that it is now. Something where you pay your $20, feed in a domain name, and you get your own personally owned cloud services. It won't keep the NSA out of your business, but it will keep people's data more firmly in their control.
Too many Internet giants have this mentality, that they don't need to give you an explanation if they close your account. You may say that the account is on their service. I say that if they want to be so central to modern life, they have a responsibility they're trying to avoid.
They've had plenty of time to come up with their own solutions, internally or as part of associations. It's time the government stepped in.
Please. Out of any company I can imagine (even including Microsoft) there is no other company that suffers from NIH than Google.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It's like people are so used to computers and interacting with the face of monolithic corporations, that they've forgotten that fallible people are on the other side flipping the bits with spatulas... and sometimes those bits might get a little overcooked.
I have a hard time feeling bad for this user. The same has happened before with a lot of big companies, and I'd expect even regular users to have caught up to the fact that we are nothing more than statistics to them. Don't lean on a broken branch, and you won't fall as much.
Google has literally no interest in catering to a single user's wants, and they have no legal obligation to do so either. Why are people so surprised when big companies take the path of least resistance, like everyone else ? Altruism doesn't pay the bills, and it's not rewarded as much as being an a****le in this economy.
If you really want Google to stop abusing its powers, don't give it that much power to begin with. If several million people suddenly closed their accounts in protest, that may prompt Google to reevaluate their customer retention strategy. But, if history is any indication, people won't close their accounts, and instead will keep using Google products until the quality of service drops so much that a free service will seem better in comparison. Then the next Google will rise up and the whole bloody cycle will start again.
Wouldn't that be one of the first places a real identity thief would change your address?
They were jerks about it and I had no way to appeal. I did nothing wrong but I believe my chinese android device did something verboten behind my back, I have no way to know.
Google gets its fraud detection software up and running, and assumes everyone it finds is a fraudster. Hooray! Of course you don't give fraudsters any information about how you detected them, they'll use it against you in the future! Just a blank wall...let them eat THAT! So satisfying for the millennial developers at Google.
The idea that false positives might occur...well maybe, but it's not a problem. Locking people out of their accounts? Someone else at Google will resolve it. Google offers these accounts for free and you want quality! How about we give you a full refund instead? Cue scornful laughter. Screw anyone who sets off the detector, it's their fault for having a non-standard life.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Mega.nz with their 50G of zero-knowledge encrypted storage is what I use to backup my ~15G of Google account data backups. Yes, it's a pain to have to do this, but at least I have my most important data backed up.
This is another "handle things yourself" situation. I have an Android Phone. No Google Account is attached to it. Google Can't lock my Phone. Google can't track my Phone. Google can't bill me, Google doesn't know my Phone number. My phone, and the apps I have installed on it, are my business, my Contacts are stored in my OwnCloud on my system. As are my Calendar events, as are my places. I don't use Google's Location services, I use Passive GSM Beaconing and GPS. and I get my Maps from Osmand Open Street maps.
There are still come android users who are not locked out of google accounts ????
what ?
aaaaaaa
FIRST!
...he probably moved by looking at Google maps.
The idiots at google always think they know better than anyone else. I used VPN a lot, and I tend to round-robin-ly connect to one of the many servers around the world, google keeps annoying me and even shut me out many times, despite that I keep telling them that the login was me and there's nothing suspicious. Those idiots have no idea there's something called VPN or proxy server. Needless to say, I login to google less than twice a year. The other idiotic company is paypal. After my account was shut down, I went 60 hours of explanation and providing all kinds of proofs. They even acknowledged that I had the right password. But they would budge. I still had $150 in that account. I gave up. I used to spend thousands per year via paypal, they'd rather rob $150 off me instead of having my business. I do no more business with in the six years. I hope more people would stop dealing with these robbers too.
11/21/16. I got locked-out of my gmail account a month or so ago because a dastardly sneak had tried to log in to it. That was me, in the previous night's motel. There was no appeal, no fixit.
The thing was reinstated within a week, but not before I'd moved 3 or four things like amazon to my solid respectable AOL email. I now only use google for chit chat. During the process, the stupid google robot never suggested -- or allowed, while I was locked-out -- I change my password.
Funny Google act like bully untill press gets the story... Also in my country officials clearly sate that you should newer scan your id/passport/creditcards to any website... Google really should work their customer service... You cant just close something and not tell them why. This sort of moving city is perfect example what can go wrong...
The first tip was this: "During his interactions with Google support"
Other gems that show that this article is bullshit are these:
- "scan his driver's license and credit card"
- No evidence. The source material are conversations on reddit.
- The news source is bullshit. It's a thin Joomla template.
Can we agree to put news on Slashdot from reputable sources?
Google scraps something that is broken instead of trying to fix it, as that allows to use automated scripts to maintain its products, instead of costly personel.
Being google product sucks...
Google stuff is free, why would they need your physical address or billing info?
This is why I choose to never do any business with Google. Fuck their entire company.
Paypal isn't even this bad. Fucking Paypal.
I download all of my email and store/browse it locally, and try to do so with any of my accounts, depending on them only as a temporary method of caching my items until I can fully capture and store the transmission, and then delete them online, relying on my own backups. I don't feel I can ever rely on online storage, and try to be prudent in what I leave online to be possibly accessed by others, and as a precaution try to keep everything online and remove any online copies under my own control as soon as I can store them offline.
Twinstiq, game news
"may be liable" sounds very tenuous and hardly binding
This is another "handle things yourself" situation. I have an Android Phone. No Google Account is attached to it.
I had a supervisor who started having problems with his Verizon android phone crashing frequently. Couldn't figure out why at first, but it turned out there was some aspect of the phone that would crash with no Google Account attached. He barely had any apps installed, so it was likely something that came in the ROM. No Google Account for him of course, he never made one not being a tech savvy person (he didn't even have his own e-mail address, his work e-mails went to his secretary, and any personal emails you had to send to his wife).
I doubt he would have wanted to root his phone to get rid of whatever crap was crashing (it would have been difficult to explain to him what "rooting" was in the first place), so I just showed him how to set up a Google Account (with everything turned off or forwarded elsewhere), and that fixed the problem.
If you want to understand the technical reasons how and why this happens, reading about OPSEC on darknet trading sites provides some insight. For example alphabay The activities of 'carders' who set up fake paypal accounts and then cashout to money mules using ATMs means that even a 'middleman' paypal account has value. The 2015 Flashpoint whitepaper is a good introduction.
The first link you give doesn't seem to work.
(second one does, though).
I used gmail. I went in Marocco for vactation, and I couldn't access my email from there (using smtp).
Upon my return I had an email from google saying "someone has your password, we blocked access" listing an attempt to login from marocco. (Gee, I wonder who that was)
Later, I went to China. Same story.
I stopped using gmail.
In some way that's a "do whatever you want - it's wrong" for Google:
Case A: someone gets scammed and the scammer transfers the account to a new address, using it for malicious purposes
Case B: someone moves to a new address and Transfers the accoutn to it.
How can Google differentiate between These Events? Only by having some flags triggered by "unusual behaviour" - the same as banks do when you suddenly draw large amounts of Money from overseas when you never left your state before. The only Thing possible is then to lock the account and have the correct owner prove he is himself - in a way no scammer should be able to do.
TL;DR: the alternative would be "SOMEONE STOLE MY ACCOUNT AND GOOGLE DOES NOTHING!!!11!!11111!!1!"
All I can think of now is that if someone gets the Google Home as a home hub, google can cancel all your services INCLUDING your home hub for no reason whatsoever. Thats too many eggs in a basket for me.
Welcome to the world of cloud computing... where all your data belongs to someone else because you gave it to them for your convenience.
--
Steve
>...his address details differed, billing information with Google wasn't current and hence the user's purchases could look fraudulent...
>... "a warning to others not to put all your eggs in one basket, because these days..."
Yes, google is a service provider- and provides a great search engine and decent email. But it should be walled off from other parts of your life. If any company offers 'so many attractive services' please be disciplined enough to separate your many needs to other providers. It's for your/our own good.
Bank here, do insurance there, and credit card somewhere else. If you really really like one company it had better be a place you can walk into and meet someone in person.
If I provided my credit card to an account and made purchases with it... I will demand the reason for closing my account. That's a consumer right, a right that no provider is allowed to challenge... I dont give a damn about whatever policy Google has about "not discussing reason for closure". If they have such a policy, it's illegal and the stupid people that wrote the policy should not have a job for the rest of the life.
Was fuck you.
And Fuck Google.
put these 2 cocksuckers together and you a retardedness humanity has never encountered
A puny monkey named Khyber (in a cage) http://openpasts.com/PublicRec...
Google is too important to too many people. Yet they operate with callous disregard for their users, and near total impunity for harm they "accidentally" cause. It's time to impose democratic accountability on this de facto public service.
Resist.
They want to geolocate you and verify your identity. This cannot be good, and is the definition of 'Doing Harm'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Our private posts, messaging and content on all systems are subject to 4th Amendment protections. It does NOT belong to the provider, and can NOT be provided our used by any Government or NGO to target us or otherwise collect data on us.
Explain why Microsoft was subjected to Anti-Trust by the Clinton Administration (Bill) for packaging a BROWSER with an OPERATING SYSTEM but google and apple are allowed to own phones, media distribution and messaging platforms?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
Maybe it has something to do with collusion with our benevolent federal government?
http://googletransparencyproje...
Also, beyond Anti-Trust, why are FCC rules on cross-ownership of mass-media not being applied? 'Fake news' you say....what if that's the only news you can get!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Resist all this. Think of the Orwellian impact of small numbers of elected & unelected people having access to where you are, what you think, who you know and what you are doing about it. No good can come of that.