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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
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!
"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."
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!”
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.
Banks are regulated with heavy consumer protection, google is not a bank.
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.
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.
I have a Google phone, they have my credit card info for occasional billing. I move frequently between the UK and Japan, changing my registered address and phone number, and it's never a problem. This guy seems have been the victim of a genuine mistake.
If anything it's been getting easier to do this over the years. It used to be that it would look at your locale, see you had apps installed from a different locale's Play store and uninstall them for you. Now it just updates them properly, even if your current local repo doesn't list them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Google doesn't even HAVE support in any meaningful way. If something gets fucked up with any of the usual google services (gmail, calendar, etc) you're screwed and that's all there is to it. Short of having a friend who works for google or being a big enough public figure to shitstir there's no way to contact a human and no way to resolve the problem.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
"easily deployable mini-personal-cloud-server-in-a-box distributions"
I love the sound of this, but the problem is maintenance and security.
Right now: yes, we could sit down and spec out an appropriate PC, choose from FOSS and put together a gnarly software distribution that does what we want and we could start selling these things.
But what happens in 12 months? 24 months? The distribution needs to be maintained and updated and that takes resources and costs money. The business model will become stretched to include that indefinitely, so the only practical way is to use subscriptions, which many don't like. The fundamental problem is, however: anyone savvy enough to want this is also smart/capable enough to roll their own, while everyone else doesn't give a shit and will stick with "free" Google services. The customer is a relatively experienced privacy conscious professional who is too busy to maintain their own. Sure, there's a market there, but I worry it's too small to allow for any scaling that the product will need to reach a reasonable price point.
> apparently they didn't like the change in my IP address.
This did not happen.
And this is why I won't buy anything via Google Play (or the Apple App Store) and most of the apps on my phone come from F-Droid. I won't buy anything that comes with a built-in revocation mechanism for my purchase over which the seller has total control. Would you buy a phone with a contract that said that at any point the seller could require you to give it back (but they keep the money) without providing any justification and at their sole discretion? Of course not, yet people are quite happy to do the same thing with software.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
...and the second time I was buying some "prescription drugs" in Tijuana.
If you go to Tijuana, or Juarez, or any other Mexican border towns, you will find drug stores selling name-brand prescription drugs within one block of the border. The prices are far lower than in America, because the Mexican government negotiates lower prices with pharmaceutical companies, and because of the different litigation systems. You can also buy far more stuff without a doctor's prescription. It is legal to buy most drugs and bring them into America so long as they are not for resale.
Bush #43 specifically passed legislation outlawing negotiating with drug companies. There's your Capitalist free market.