Locked out of Google account

[rodneylaur0]

So I got a notification that one of my email accounts was tried to log into. Google had supposedly blocked the attempt and I thought I'd just log into the account and change the password, etc. After trying multiple devices and even IP addresses, I quickly realized that this would become a problem like no other. Come to find out, Google support is (sorry for the language) total dogshit. Every time it sends me to a generic FAQ page that does absolutely nothing to help me with my problem. When trying to log into the account it gives me the ''we don't have sufficient evidence to prove this is you'' message, but at the same time doesn't even give me a chance to prove my identity (even though I'm going to the recovery page from my own email account). At this point I'm completely lost, feels like I've tried absolutely everything and searched for every possible thing to help, but this is all that's left since Google's own forums and servers don't even want to deal with account issues. 

In summary: can't log in, captcha doesn't work, doesn't give me an option to send a code to my phone etc, no idea what to do. They even tried it twice. 

[Forbidden Wafer]

Last time I had to deal with them also was a pain.

 

Are you using DNS or other form of ad-blocking?

Did they show you the recovery questions?

When they said they didn't have enough evidence it was you, did they ask you about recently received and sent emails?

 

Worst thing you can do is changing IPs while trying to recover your account. That will definitely get flagged.

[rodneylaur0]

On 6/17/2021 at 7:45 PM, Forbidden Wafer said:

Last time I had to deal with them also was a pain.

 

Are you using DNS or other form of ad-blocking?

Did they show you the recovery questions?

When they said they didn't have enough evidence it was you, did they ask you about recently received and sent emails?

 

Worst thing you can do is changing IPs while trying to recover your account. That will definitely get flagged.

I'm using Brave Browser, so that for sure counts as ad-block. Sorry, don't know anything about DNS. 

They did not show me the recovery questions or any form of info because I had to actually log in first. Nothing about any emails either.

I do travel quite a lot and I did try to initially do this from an IP address that most likely wasn't the original one so that might've added fuel to the fire....

[18358414]

An IP address isn't a person, so it's likely that they're just saying the region associated with the IP address doesn't match.  I've had my IP change 20 times in an hour due to an unstable DSL connection.  The last time I got locked out I managed to get around it by using a VPN to make my IP address relatively constant. 

 

Another thing I noticed is that google might not actually find the login attempt suspicious, they might just not like the fact that they are lacking certain information about you.  An example of this is a cell phone number, which really doesn't verify that you are who you say you are in the first place.

 

I once (and yes, this has happened to me on multiple occasions with gmail) managed to get my email back by pairing my email to a co-worker's android phone to confirm "my" identity.  It may also help if you've specified a recovery email address.  If your gmail account is more than 14 years old, you may also have some "emergency login codes" kicking around. 

 

edit: another quirk is that if you fail login so many times, gmail will tell you to "log in again later" which basically means don't try to touch your account for 1 week and then when you try again they won't care if it's really you anymore.  Not sure if it works, but people seem to recommend it.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Yuri Fury
more info

[rodneylaur0]

Well, l think the account is gone for good then. I tried waiting for a while and attempting the process again, nothing. Whoever is trying to get in just tried it again today and well, as long as Google keeps blocking them out, I guess nobody will get the account. Funny how a 1.2 trillion dollar company can't even provide support to it's users. Thanks for the help guys.

[WkdPaul]

51 minutes ago, rodneylaur0 said:

Well, l think the account is gone for good then. I tried waiting for a while and attempting the process again, nothing. Whoever is trying to get in just tried it again today and well, as long as Google keeps blocking them out, I guess nobody will get the account. Funny how a 1.2 trillion dollar company can't even provide support to it's users. Thanks for the help guys.

On your next account, make sure to activate 2FA, it will prevent this sort of things. Someone is doing something similar with one of my gmail account, having 2FA enabled and my phone as my primary device on the account prevented a lot of headaches and issues like this one (in my case they try to recover the account from time to time).

[TetraSky]

On 6/19/2021 at 4:00 PM, rodneylaur0 said:

I'm using Brave Browser, so that for sure counts as ad-block. Sorry, don't know anything about DNS. 

So have you tried.... Not using Brave Browser and using Chrome or Edge instead? (you didn't mention it)
Are you using a VPN, too? If so, deactivate it.

 

Like wkdpaul said, make sure you enable 2FA next time, to at least save yourself this hassle if it happens again.