New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Locked out of Google services with no recourse or explanation Ask HN: Locked out of Google services with no recourse or explanation

Ask HN: Locked out of Google services with no recourse or explanation
22 by nikkwong | 9 comments on Hacker News.
It's probably the fifth time this week that I've gotten the message in gmail: "Unusual Usage - Account Temporarily Locked Down" "To keep our systems healthy, Google has temporarily disabled your account. This primarily occurs when we detect unusually high levels of activity on your account. In most cases, it should take one hour to regain access. In rare cases, it can take up to 24 hours for access to be reinstated." This is not just annoying, it's disruptive and catastrophic for someone like me, who, runs my business through email. Which, unsuspiciously, involves sending maybe a dozen or so emails a day through gmail. And nothing more. It's been a few hours now, and there's never any knowing when I'll get my account back. How is this acceptable? I can't possibly move away from gmail, all my consulting gigs use google for work, i've disseminated my gmail address too far across the web.. But, this happens over and over, and I've begun to feel really helpless. Are there any people at Google that can be contacted about something like this? Or this machine is really running itself and there's nothing that can be done?

It's probably the fifth time this week that I've gotten the message in gmail: "Unusual Usage - Account Temporarily Locked Down" "To keep our systems healthy, Google has temporarily disabled your account. This primarily occurs when we detect unusually high levels of activity on your account. In most cases, it should take one hour to regain access. In rare cases, it can take up to 24 hours for access to be reinstated." This is not just annoying, it's disruptive and catastrophic for someone like me, who, runs my business through email. Which, unsuspiciously, involves sending maybe a dozen or so emails a day through gmail. And nothing more. It's been a few hours now, and there's never any knowing when I'll get my account back. How is this acceptable? I can't possibly move away from gmail, all my consulting gigs use google for work, i've disseminated my gmail address too far across the web.. But, this happens over and over, and I've begun to feel really helpless. Are there any people at Google that can be contacted about something like this? Or this machine is really running itself and there's nothing that can be done?