Gmail mistakenly shuts down user accounts – including mine!
Their motives in trying to crack down on spammers is admirable but in the end, they are messing up big time. After disabling Gmail accounts for suspected spam, Google actually ended up disabling the accounts of innocent users - including myself. I have to say it’s news to me that I am a spammer! I thought I was a writer?
Thankfully it wasn’t my main Gmail account into which five other email accounts flow into (that would have been an unmitigated disaster if THAT account (with nearly 4000 emails) had been shut down). No, instead it was a backup account which I had set up only a few days ago to keep copies of important emails. When I logged into that account, I got the dreaded message that my account had been disabled.
Looking at the email address in question which had been locked down, I can sort of understand why Gmail was suspicious of it. It’s a collection of letters and numbers which I chose because it is a reference to my favorite movie, Star Wars. But it does look sort of spam-mish!
A little more than 2 hours after I filed a complaint through the Gmail Help Center, I am still waiting for the account to be re-instated! I guess I am at the back of a very long line of annoyed users!
But one thought does come to mind – what’s to stop a real spammer from complaining to Gmail and getting their accounts restored too?
If you have an account that has been mistakenly disabled, go to the Gmail Help Center (link is above) and send an email to Google. If anyone has succeeded in getting their account back, please let us know in the comments how it went.
**UPDATE** My account was finally restored along with a canned apology emailed to me. If you use Digg, maybe you might want to digg this link. That page and also the Gmail Group page are good pages to keep up to date with developments if you are still waiting for your account to come back (but you will need an alternate Gmail address if you want to post anything on the Gmail group page).
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I don’t know how long the line that you are in is. There really isn’t much uproar over this so I think it is fairly well contained to a small number of users.
I appreciate all that The Goog does to keep SPAM out of my in box. I have 3 Gmail accounts that I use for different purposes and haven’t had an in box SPAM hit me in over a year. That said, if they were whacking people based on user names that is a little over the top. They don’t need to scan user names, just watch activity.
The same thing would stop an actual spammer from getting their account re-enabled. Activity is the dead give away and The Goog can see who is and who is not a spammer.
So someone who sends a large volume of legitimate email could be mistaken for a spammer?
I can’t imagine so Mark, unless they have their spammer algo wound way too tight.
Good luck hearing back from Gmail support. I emailed Gmail Abuse over a scary suspected identity theft issue and I didn’t hear from them for over 3 weeks. When I did hear from them, all I got was a blank email! I replied, asking for a real follow-up and advising I’d involved the police, and I never heard from them again.
[...] Gmail mistakenly shuts down user accounts – including mine!After disabling Gmail accounts for suspected spam, Google actually ended up disabling the accounts of innocent users (Google Tutor Dec 7 2007) [...]
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My account was disabled on Sunday (my birthday! It was awful) so I sent an e-mail late that night. It was restored to me the next afternoon. The whole ordeal made me rather nervous as my whole life is in my e-mail account. I’m assuming this was by accident, as I am certainly not a spammer.
My account was disabled about this same time. It identified one of three reasons. I wrote them an email and it was 2 days later that my mailbox was reopened. It never disclosed to me why my account was disabled.
I cant’ get my incoming mail out of inbox. Every time I push inbox to access my incoming mail, a blank page appears. I can Compose, but I am unable to receive.
Thanks
Does anyone know the email address to gmail. I would like to reopen my account with them. My email address is outdoorsguy38@aol.com Thanks so much