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."

Comments

I think he just got scammed .

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:I think he just got scammed .

[Mitreya]

he scanned his dl and credit card into a google site ??

No, it just looks like scam, but companies are that brazen nowdays.

Both eBay and PayPal have, at various points, requested a copy of credit card and driver license sent to them because of some verification they made up. My electricity provider and my dentist even wanted my SSN! Of course I told them off.
Someone I know had been locked out of the eBay account because eBay would not even accept a European DL instead of US one.

Re:I think he just got scammed .

[taustin]

My electricity provider and my dentist even wanted my SSN!A

No problem, as soon as you sign this, which indemnifies me without limit for any misuse if this identify theft qualify information. In other words, if someone breaks into your computer and steal this, you pay all costs related to straightening it out, including, but not limited to, costs of credit score monitoring, all actual costs due to fraud, any increased interest I might have to pay on loans as a result of damage to my credit score, legal fees, lost wages, etc.

What's that? You're not willing to accept responsibility for this information that you require but have absolutely no use for? Then I guess we won't be doing business.

Re:I think he just got scammed .

[Schind]

Been there with PayPal.

Moved to another city and PayPal decided to freeze my wallet. First of all: there wasn't any kind of continuity in discussions I started to regain my account since one could only message via some feedback form on their site - not by mail. The answer was given in a mail that couldn't be replied so all I was left with was to fill another form and paste the past discussion to the form since everytime a different person was answering each of the feedback. Just frustrating.

Only way to regain the control of the accoung (and my money) was to scan a passport and a fresh bank statement and I refused to do so since this was just dealing with a "toy bank" PayPal. Instead; I decided to wait for my credit card to expire because then all the money gets transferred to my bank account. Avoided PayPal since then.

Re:I think he just got scammed .

[Geeky]

That's more or less the law in the UK - if a company stores personal information about you they are legally obliged to keep it secure and therefore may be liable for damages if they don't (although proving it would be the challenge). You are also entitled to know what information they are storing for no more than a nominal processing fee.

This is kind of ridiculous...

[ZorinLynx]

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!

Re:This is kind of ridiculous...

[AmiMoJo]

With Google, you're the product, and they really don't care, because eyeballs are fungible.

This is of course complete bollocks. Otherwise why would they even try to make a good user experience?

Google sells advertising. You can use their services for free, or choose someone else's, or pay to have the ads removed and get some extra features. Some services don't even have ads at all, like Docs, because they make their money from business users. And of course, some of their products are not free, like their phones, and some are just there to provide a gateway to other services like Chrome OS.

Notice how Chrome OS doesn't have ads baked in, unlike say Windows 10 or Ubuntu. Microsoft make you pay and look at ads. Are you not Microsoft's customer, even though you paid for Windows? Do you think they don't care if you use someone else's OS?

rights

[phantomfive]

"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.

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

This can not be repeated enough.

I concur. Google has a history of completely shutting people down like this. This week we saw them apply the "internet death penalty" to people who (admittedly through their own negligence) violated a policy on ordering Pixel phones. Now there's this guy who did nothing wrong at all, and there are plenty more like him. It's been a real problem for Android developers. Accrue a random/arbitrary TOS violation against any one Google service, and they wipe out your _entire_ Google existence, including your Play Store developer account and all apps it owns. Google Play, GMail and calendars, Google Drive, Docs, Voice, Wallet, AdSense, Hangouts... _All_ of it is shut down for allegedly violating the TOS of any one service, and the only avenue for appeal results in either radio silence or a canned autoresponse.

This mirrors Google's abysmal track record at handling YouTube complaints. Anyone can file a "strike" against any other user for any reason/bogus reason. A single user can generate multiple strikes against one target. If your YouTube account gets locked out, and you aren't famous enough to generate a big public backlash (h3h3 ETC) against Google, you're screwed.

Savvy developers are now essentially minting a new identity from which to publish apps. New burner Android phone with a cheapo plan and clean number not tied to any other Google service. New GMail account activated with the burner phone. Google Play developer and merchant accounts registered to a family member's address. Install Android SDK and Chrome into one VM configured with a VPN, and never run SDK or Chrome anywhere else. ETC... At least this way if someone registers a bogus complaint against your app, you might lose your app but you don't lose access to your entire personal Google world and all of _your_data_ stored therein.

As Google continues to automate away the burden of interacting with their users, it will only keep getting worse. I'm honestly surprised this guy got in touch with a human being.

Social media saves the day

[fustakrakich]

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.

Too big to fail

[nikkipolya]

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.

Re: Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Banks are regulated with heavy consumer protection, google is not a bank.

We need legislation to stop this sort of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:never gave them credit card number

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:never gave them credit card number

[Anonymous Coward]

> apparently they didn't like the change in my IP address.

This did not happen.

Re:never gave them credit card number

[TheRaven64]

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.

Re:Google

[ShanghaiBill]

...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.