On Friday night, I and a dozen other people had our GMail accounts disabled. These are all friends of mine, most of them living in the same close knit community. Google offered no explanation, and provided no way of contacting them that seems to work (messages sent to them at the address indicated at login are politely returned with the comment that they cannot respond to individual emails). We are not a bunch of hackers violating the TOS--we're just middle-of-the-road people ranging in age from 12 to 70, who all happen to know each other (most of us live in the same building). Most of us are also on the same mailing list (a yahoo group). This has us greatly mystified, and not a little traumatized, as we all depend on our email in various little and big ways. What can we do to get a response from Google?

This happened to me too, and the person who invited me to gmail. If you discover a solution, please let me know. Thanks.

When did this happen? How long have you been disabled?

I noticed it Saturday morning. I use my gmail everyday so there was no period of inactivity. Have tried doing everything they've asked to no avail. This is the email on my resume so I'm in big trouble. I will be livid if they just decided to drop people. I've read some blogs and it's happened to other people throughout the year.

So it looks to me that it probably happened to you at the same time as to me and the others.

Yes, and it's still not up. If yours gets fixed, please let me know.

Same issue, and 3 of my friends as well.
I know other Gmail users that are fine.
I noticed the problem first when I tried to log in on Friday night, around 11 EST.

I know this is Beta version, but google could at least release an explaination on one of their website/blogs.

Location : Belgium.
Ppl affected: 'bout 10 I know, all friends...
Since: friday (don't know specific time)

Hackers/abuse? NO!

We all use our address for job vacancies, online shopping etc... Kind of sucks, I just hope that i'ts only a disabled account, and not an erased account/content.

That's frightening!

I still have my account, but if that can happen to anybody, that's really frightening!!

   Is this block a christmas gift? Irritating

   Is this block a christmas gift? Irritating

Yep, our accounts are still down. I'm not absolutely positive, but I'd bet that all of our accounts are probably related by how people got their accounts in the first place (by GMail invites). I know that I probably invited 2/3 of them. The others may have be invited by others in the group. The person who invited me and another person are both disabled as well.

Mine is working again at approx 11:30 MT.

What this is, is group blocking.

Basically someone higher up does something (usually selling there gmail account on ebay) this gets them blocked. And Google then decides that all the account made with invitations from the first account must be from the same person. And bans them all going down the tree. They must have accidently hit a large tree. Nothin new.

I live in israel and my gmail was down too for several hours, today I can get in off and on.

Our accounts are back! Not only that, but Google sent a note with an apology in it. They didn't say why the problem occured (whether it was just a snafu, or what), but at least they did respond.

Hey,
it never happened to me. But I use Gmail every day and losing my mail would be awful. Is there anyway to contact google and ask them for a reason for this?

Someome should take screenshots and send them to a bigger newspaper. I bet they are interested in this story.

We need to do something. I really fear to lose all my mails.

Have fun and take care

Tom

It happened to me and there was some explanation about 3rd party software..including greasemonkey scripts. I removed a gmail delete button I got as a firefox extension, and now I'm back on...but it was all very weird.

Interesting that it was not isolated.

-Dianne

Tom – no one is saying they lost their emails, they just weren't able to log in for a few days. I mean, that's a pretty big deal, I'd be complaining too, but no is saying they permanently lost anything, just didn't have email access for a while.

Happened to me also ..my account and everyone I ever invited got disabled .. got the account back the following tuesday.

I was using GDrive the gmail extension so this might have been the reason.

just happened to me now. I was invited by an honest work colleague; I wonder how far up the chain is the root problem in my case. The invitation model suddenly breaks down, unless they make allowances that you can't know everyone at a party.

happend to me also, i was invited by an honest friend and i invite some friends.
at first i think my account was disabled because i and my friends live in IRAN , but now i see some people in all around the world have this problem.
i hope google team , that some famous officers that work with this team, are IRANIAN ,solve this problem as soon as possible.
maybe google wants to disable some accounts forever,i want that google take an opportunity to all users, take their important mails out of gmail. thanks

This is just a case of mistaken correlation.

It sounds like you guys went on a newsgroup and your emails were hijacked by a web bot. This happened to me with a yahoo account. The fact that you had the same invites in gmail was just coincidence. You travel in the same circles so your emails can be gleamed because people send the TO or CC or BCC listing out all their friends etc in a mass mailing hello there. Someone does a reply to all and adds a newsgroup email on there and walla. Everyone is screwed.

Google cancelled the accounts because of the abuse by the spammers, using your emails to send malicious code and ads, etc, not because you were in the same gmail invite.

My gmail is disabled too. Why? How can I get it back to work? Who can tell me the method? Thanks a lot!

im disabled and a few of my friends are too, who i must have sent invites too

what can i do, ive contacted google from the web site and useing there email, had no reply and no help

can anyone give me any advice am lost with out my gmail

email me at johnjrobinson0.freeserve.co.uk

cheers

what's going on!??? my account disabled too. I don;t know why they do sth like this ... they don't response me :(

Hi – I'm the UK and my gmail was disabled yesterday at 5pm. My error message read:

"Sorry, your account has been disabled. For more information about Google Accounts, please consult our Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/accounts/."

There was no unusual activity on my part. I had been happily using the account 15 minutes before the issue with access.

Logged a report and they sent a generic email about making sure username and password were correct (they are). Have replied to that ASAP outling the issue again.

Also tried to fill in the form I found here –
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?lockout=1

But that returned this error:
"Bad Request
Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request."

...which is reassuring.

Unsure what to do now. I guess it's wait and see.

They turned my gmail back on :)

Received this later the same day:

"Hello,

Thanks for your report. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. The issue you described should now be resolved. If you continue to experience difficulties, please respond to this message, and we'll investigate further.

Sincerely,

The Google Team"

Same problem for me as of this morning: "Sorry, your account has been disabled. For more information about Google Accounts, please consult..."

I've taken the same course of action as Drew.

My username is hotspur.vik

I hope my 18 months of stuff isn't gone forever... :(

Nine days on, no change :(

Same for me : Account disabled. The suscriber's account that invited me is still working correctly.

Sent all that "need rescue stuff" to Gmail but only got anonymous replies "thank you for your message. Our team is currently... Blah Blah , Blah".

I have all my data on this gmail account. Is there any telephone line or ay mean I can get to them. Or help fix the problem by my own ???

email at
ludopasgmail.com

i GOT THE SAME, DISABLED
i THINK WE SHOULD ALL SEND A COPY OF OUR EMAIL TO A SAFER EMAIL
OTHER THAN GMAIL. HOPEFULLY IF I GET MY EMAIL BACK!

I had the same message as Drew and have no idea why account has been suspended.

"Sorry, your account has been disabled. For more information about Google Accounts, please consult our Help Center at google.com/support/accounts/. ...

and am now wishinh I had not signed up to Google mail.

I got the same disabled message as Chet. I had my computer stolen last year; lost the emails on my 'mail' account and with Gmail I thought that this would be a great way to safeguard work and emails.

I think they perceived my mailing as a spam – I don't believe them anymore when they say they don't read emails! They can just put a block on the email going through – they don't have to suspend accounts.
  
I'm a freelance editor – I have my work/other people's work on gmail / the most up to date version of a book/ around 900 contacts – including long lost, then found family members. I thought gmail was safe. They must know how much they are messing with people's everday lives, no matter in how big or small way individuals use it.

I've tried phoning – they have no 'live people' customer service; tried faxing, not going through.

I've sent out about 30 invites; around 10 of those, I know have been disabled – I was the only one stupid enough to start using it as my main account! I'm just about to set up a Mac account – paid for – with back up!

Maybe that is the answer as this gmail behaviour is ridiculous. Has anyone permanently lost their emails on gmail because of this?

I also facing the same issue. The worst point is i have made this as my primary email account. I should't left yahoo and hotmail behind.

Now, I just hope i can get back my contact detail and some important email.

My account was disabled as well, about a year ago! Just now I decided to do something about it, because it is my signature email and I LOVE IT :)

I submitted that form just like drew a couple minutes ago hope there is some positive results.

Other than that anybody got some advice for me? if so email me...
xion15gmail.com