«inconclusive» and «we're not able to provide further assistance» tells me Google doesn't have anything on this guy. That looks like a subtle way of saying «We believe this is bogus, but can't or won't tell you what we know about "Bob" in public, whether he really is or not a Gmail user».

Pedro, I submitted full details to Google and filled two questionnaire as requested. They do have my details and they do know who I am.

yeah what is the big deal here ?? If theymessed up – then just let the user know that an inevitable incident occured and apoligies- afterall its a free services.

bu after all this brurahaha, Google should not have just sent the std reply to the user.. its like a slap in the face for the user.. how pathetic of Google!!

Typical "corporate bland" response.

well, one of the problems is that it really may be inconclusive. If it the account was deleted, it may be difficult to figure out if someone physically deleted the account, if some script on the computers Bob was using had something to do with it, or if it was a problem with google's servers. It may be difficult now that the account has been deleted to figure out the cause.

or: While that may be true, all I'm seeking right now is a solution, i.e. the restoration of my account regardless of the cause of deletion. But even that isn't being done.

hey Bob, just get yourself an gmail invite and keep moving forward..!!

/pd: I'll do that, but I'm really hoping that Google can be a wee bit more helpful here and try to accommodate me. With essential email being delivered to my account, I do need access to it once again, even if all my emails have been lost.

Bob, So you cant use your old accountID ?? thats strange, if the account and data has been deleted then the Account Directory will not have a pointer to your userID /Email-Id. and therefore should permit you to create one.

Does anyone know what is the aging process that Google uses ?

e.g long long time ago in a far away glaxay hotmail held the userid/email for 30 days before it finally purged out and could recyled /used once again..

/pd: Negative; I can't register a new account using my previous ID. That doesn't come as a huge surprise since Google does seem to "hold" deleted usernames for extended periods of time.

while getting a new account, I would say to continue trying to get a better response from google, maybe something will turn up. I remember someone with yahoo mail having a related but not the same problem where access to an account was needed. It took more than a month, and all kind of people requesting yahoo for help, until finally access to the account was given.

Actually, I've had an account-related issue with Yahoo previously, but they were very gracious about it, and resolved it within 48hours after we exchanged a couple of emails. My experience with them was definitely pleasant. But who knows, this issue with Google might work out. I'm hanging in there.

Bob, create 3 gmail accounts just to be save! Just forward all your mail to account 2 and 3 :P

These are for you:

mail.google.com/mail/a-ebb99a0 ...
mail.google.com/mail/a-ebb99a0 ...
mail.google.com/mail/a-ebb99a0 ...

Not to blame the victim, but situations like this are the reason I use paid services for all my important stuff. It's not that the product is better, but the customer service is a lot more motivated when they want your money.

I only pay seven seven dollars a month for my blg web hosting and email, and it's not nearly as cool as gmail, but they always answer my email and so far they've always fixed my problems. My photo hosting service costs $100/year, and I've received live responses at 3am from the programming staff.

Anyway Bob, good luck, and maybe all this publicity will help you out.

I think if bob were lying he would have left after people started questioning whether or not it was true. The fact that he has stuck around makes it more likely it's true, IMHO

Mark Draughn: I do hope so, although the signs aren't looking good. :/

Jesse: Exactly. My story is valid, and I'm probably one of the many people who've been scalded by similar circumstances in the past. I'm thankful that my story has received comparatively more publicity.

If only Google would only respond in a more helpful fashion.

Sorry – I posted this on the other thread before I realized we were to post here.

Here's a quick tutorial on how to backup your Gmail account using Outlook, just in case anyone needs it. Best of luck to you, Bob.

Link:

betapundit.blogspot.com/2006/0 ...

Let me play devil's advocate here.

When you delete a Gmail account and try to log in, Gmail does not tell you "The account you attempted to access has been deleted." There is a very good reason for this. The account has been _deleted_! (You can delete your account from the Google Accounts page).

Remember the issue of Google keeping your e-mails around for ever and ever? It's a problem. They don't need evidence out there that they are doing it.

There is no evidence period that Google is keeping track of deleted accounts that I have seen.

Where are the screenshots backing up Bob's claims?

Why would Google have a programmatic error message that has only ever been used once? I searched for Bob's error message. It has

a) only been used once
b) been made up
c) only been posted to the internet by Bob

If Google did have such a strange error message for manually deleting accounts, which we would assume would be for a very good reason, why would they offer to allow you to create a new one?

Why, after there is internal company pressure from Googlers who read this blog, would they send Bob a boilerplate error message? My gut tells me they are abiding by their privacy policy, and that there is no deleted account. They would save a bit of face here if they could. I see personal requests satisfied on WebmasterWorld all the time.

Like I said, i'm just playing devil's advocate. I didn't see anyone else doing it. In the process I found a lot of questions that do not have satisfactory answers.

Brian Mingus: What screenshots are you talking about? Error messages? Refer to Philipp's post in the previous 'Gmail Horror Story' thread – he verified my claims. Surely you trust him? He even provided a link to the blog post of another Gmail user under similar circumstances.

No one said that Google manually deleted my account. The fact is that we DON'T KNOW what happened, and that's what we want to find out. And no, I don't know either why they officially responded that way despite [some] pressure from fellow Googlers.

You can view the error messages I did by doing exactly what I described in my very first post on the original thread. They're certainly not made up.

Gmai *DOES* keep track of deleted accounts as far as I can tell. I invite you to create one, and attempt to delete it. Then try to create a new account with the same username. You'll find that the username isn't available.

> Wouter Schut
> mail.google.com/mail/a-ebb99a0 ...
> mail.google.com/mail/a-ebb99a0 ...
> mail.google.com/mail/a-ebb99a0 ...

And this time, don't forget to change the secondary mail address...

To explain, I did not verify "The account you attempted to access has been deleted". What I verified was that emails to non-existent accounts bounce, and that there's this message: "There are no accounts in our system with the E-mail address usermamegmail.com which you entered." (This is not at all to say that the first message is non-existent – I just didn't verify it!)

Philipp , were you sending from another (non) gmail account ??

The response I get from (my) gmail to a dummy/Fictious email account is ;

"This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
   blabhlahblgmail.com
"

The Contents of the Err Msg is totally different from what you are mention. What conditions trigger variants of an err msg ?

Ok I tried something else and I got this as error ;

===================================
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.

I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following
addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<blabhlahblgmail.com>:
64.233.185.114 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 5.7.1 No such user 15si841856wrl
Giving up on 64.233.185.114.

============================

I tracked via Arin.net to verify the source IP- maps into Goog's ASN!!

Hey Bob,

Could you pass me the TRUE state "NO such user <<whatever> ?? Or rather whatever is the ASCII notation of your useid is /was!!

Pd, the error message I cited I received when trying to revover a lost password for a non-existent Gmail account. As bounce message, I'm getting this:

From : <postmastermail.hotmail.com>

"This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

   hellomynameisphilenssegmail.com"

/pd: I don't understand your question?

When I was testing, I sent an email from another Gmail account to my now-apparently-vanished Gmail account. I'm sure I received a bounce message, though I can't remember what it was specifically.

Philipp has my Gmail username; perhaps he can test that?

Philipp, I hear you now – that was PWD recovery procedure err msg.

Still no word from google? This is really bad, did you have any other google services under the same account like news, or search history? If so can you still access them?

earobinson: None at all. Last thing I received was the email Philipp pasted in his post.

My entire Google account seems to have been deleted, so no, I can't access any of Google's services using it.

Does anyone know a Gmail rep I can speak to?

I'd like to sincirely thank to everyone who's attempted to help so far – Philipp L, Peter D, etc. Including the many people who have offered words of advice, and tips on how I should deal with the situation.

Right now it's down to Google themselves. I'm hoping that they'll be able to bend over backwards to investigate this issue thoroughly and restore my account. There are a couple of Googlers who *seem* to be working on this, but I don't know for sure what's really happening behind the scenes.

If you could help in your own little way, please do. From increasing publicity of my situation to bringing this thread's attention to a Google rep – it's all welcomed.

Need help on experiment:

I have created and deleted a gmail test account but I cannot install nor use my Gmail FileSystem on this PC now. I would like to see if there is any way to login via this method.

Gmail ID: 123tester123
Password: tester123

Could someone login with this user/pass using Gmail FileSystem and tell me if you are successful?

Josue, Gmail FileSystem is a 3rd party application that uses the same login method as e-mail users. It doesn't has more privileges.

Bob do u use IE as a browser? I found on:

groups.google.com/group/Gmail- ...

they have menationed in a few groups that the browser one is using may make a difference.

Well certainly there's an incentive for him to create this kind of story. Companies do this all the time to competitors on the internet. You'll find fake horror stories on many consumer reports sites. He's already promoted Yahoo in this thread. I'm just saying...

But I think I'll be downloading one of the GMail backup programs, just in case. ;)

Bob:
I do hope your email has a full recovery and you inform the rest of it soon.

huh ?? David when you download a gmail backup program and get it workin g, let us know what you use.

Actually, I noticed Michael's tutorial for using Outlook to back up GMail into a PST file. It worked very well except it only let me download 250-350 messages at a time, so I had to keep pressing 'receive'. Which took a while considering I have more than 10,000 emails in my account. The other downside is it doesn't preserve your labels, so your emails will be unsorted.

betapundit.blogspot.com/2006/0 ...

Also, for the record Yahoo deleted my entire email account once. I think it's because I didn't login for around a month.

yes the forwarding idea works well, but I am a little hestiate to reach the .pst outlook bloat size limit during the process!!

Neil: No, I use FireFox.

David: I'm one of the biggest Google fans you can find around. Me creating this thread and making up such an elaborate story would be a huge blow under the belt if it was solely to tarnish Google's image. I was simply relating my experience with Yahoo.

I'll keep all of you updated. The timer stands at ~60hours and counting.

   Did you try pop access to your acount?

   My two cents

SAS: Yes, that didn't work either. It's pretty clear that Google no longer recognises the existence of my account. I've tried logging on to other Google services such as Google Alerts, but zilch.

I just deleted an account that you can all use to test:

super.duper.awesome.persongmail.com

I removed my secondary contact first. When I try to login, I get this:

"Username and password do not match."

Using the "forgot the password" system yields this result:

"There are no accounts in our system with the E-mail address super.duper.awesome.persongmail.com which you entered. If you spelled the address incorrectly or entered the wrong address, please click here to try again. "

Note: for some reason I was still logged into Gmail with the deleted account, so I could read e-mails and send them. I just logged out, so I don't think I'll be able to get back in (it seems to just be a flag checked during login saying "deleted"). Now, trying to reply back to that e-mail I sent from the deleted account, I get this:

"Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:"

Finally, when I try to recreate the account, it says this name is unavailable.

Andrew

Andrew: That's pretty much what I'm experiencing, except I didn't delete my account.

Any idea how long they hold usernames for, before they release it into the registration pool?

Bob, why dont you post screenshots of the error messages you get? that might be helpful..

sam: Is that really necessary? Several users above (Philipp, /pd, Andrew, etc.) have successfully reproduced the errors that I'm receiving. And they've already been fully documented in my original post.

And also, a screenshot can be faked easily...

From Gmail help Center

"If you don't log in to Gmail within three months of it being labeled dormant – or for nine consecutive months – Google deletes all messages in the account, closes it, and recycles the username."
mail.google.com/support/bin/an ...

"Once you close your Gmail account, you can't reactivate it, and you won't be able to retrieve any messages. After a certain period of time, Gmail recycles your username, so we can't guarantee that it will be available if you decide to open another Gmail account."
mail.google.com/support/bin/an ...

It does not tell you how soon can you use recylced usernames.... so Bob, expect a nine-month wait – sorry.

Yikes, I certainly hope not! I'm trying to get them to release the username into the pool. There's no reason they should be holding it back if I, the original owner, need it re-registered to me once again.

Josue R., gmail support said nothing about waiting for 9 months. what it's saying is:

if your gmail account is considered dormant (probably log in infrequently), AND you don't login for another 3 months,

OR

if your gmail account hasn't been logged in for 9 months straight,

THEN gmail will close down your account.

Bob said the gmail account is his main account, so I doubt either situation applies to him.

I think what's important to realise is that my *entire* Google Account has vanished – it's not just Gmail. I think I fall under a different set of circumstances.

I don't know why they request so much information only to tell you "Sorry" – As I mentioned before, I went through the exact same thing a while back. I understand how much this sucks, and you have my deepest sympathy on the matter. Gmail is a many splendid thing – when it's working for you not against you.

I posted a blurb on my blob about my/your experience and my current use of gmail. The keywords, here: If you use gmail again, backup your account on your own machine.

my.opera.com/ThePrawn/blog/sho ...

By the way – this happened to me far longer ago than nine months--over a year--and my original address still hasn't been released to the public. (I'm extremely confident it's not something that would be registered by someone else.)

Allen: Well written.

It's shocking to know that your username has yet to be released.

If only a Gmail team member could enlighten us on this issue.

It's not just gmail... you're just as liable to lose your mail on thunderbird, on outlook, your OS X Mail app. in fact, your laptop can be stolen, your hard drive can crash, or your house can be broken into and your PC can be stolen.

for all the people telling Bob he deserved it because gmail is beta – do you think microsoft or mozilla won't lose your data? or maxtor or western digital or dell won't lose your data? what does it have to beta?

backing your important data up in a different physical location is always considered good practice, whether the primary location of your data is web-based or in your physical PC.

the worst part about this, and many other situations I've seen, is google's response – or lack thereof. it seems like you're *lucky* to have gotten that "sorry we're never going to help you" message – at least you know they read your email. most of the time they just seem to ignore people. do they have only one customer support guy for the whole company? or are they just arrogant? it's not like they can't afford to hire more people :P
*sigh* I guess google's just another company. not the magical perfect being we want to see it as. but really, their lack of real humans responding to people is very frustrating.

Josue R. wrote:
> so Bob, expect a nine-month wait – sorry.

Pregnant pause?

Google says:
> 'Gmail is an experiment in a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail

... because Google does it for you?

The one person who said they deleted their gmail account and then created a new account and, somehow, had access to their old account----Bob have you opened a new account in an attempt to see if that is possible?

Hey, if there are features built into a software system, they might work for everyone irregardless...

Just a thought.

Another thought.....I have not gotten SkypeOut for the simple reason that a bunch of forum users said their help system was nonresponsive.

My point...if Google is nonresponsive or at least not helpful---that may not bode well in the future when competition appears around the corner to Google. And, wait, no one can ever believe they are invincible!!

Customer service is always where it is at!!!

You guys all say that Gmail is beta and is still testing.

Google news came out of beta just a few weeks ago? And how long had it been in Beta? a year and a half or somethign like that.

Beta is just Google's way of getting attention to their products

Long, long ago, when the earth was green, it was my job (amongst other things) to train people to do tech support for Another Webmail Provider Who Shall Remain Nameless.

This was about five years ago, and so I don't remember all the gory details (sorry), but I do remember some things which are probably valid for Gmail too and which may be of interest:

1) Every webmail system I've ever head of has been database-driven. Database records get mangled sometimes. If a database record needs to be corrected manually (and to me this sounds like it would, although since I don't know Google's inner workings it's only an educated guess), it's going to need to escalate up the support ranks to someone who has access to such things. That will take time – more time than you would expect. Keep pushing. If someone sees several follow-ups on the ticket, they will start worrying about their turn-around times getting lowered over one ticket and escalate.

2) There are US federal regulations that affect e-mail providers (remember being asked how old you were? That's one of them.). They apply to all e-mail accounts, no matter where the e-mail account holder lives. Be as indignant as you like – I'm Canadian and it applies to my webmail accounts too, if they are run by American companies. There are also anti-fraud/anti-identity theft rules about recycling user IDs as well. Think about it: otherwise, someone could get your password somehow, delete your account, and set up a new one with the same ID before you even had a chance to find out you had your account deleted. Or "bad guys" could delete their account and then launder their ID to cover their e-mail tracks (or at least try to).

One of the rules is about keeping e-mail. The e-mail providers, free or not, beta or not, have to keep your e-mail in case the authorities decide they want to read it (yes, there is a separate privacy debate regarding this, but that's another thread). Again, I can't remember the exact numbers, but I do know that the providers have to keep the e-mail for far longer than they would ever support restoring it to the user in the case of an accidental account deletion. Note again this is a US federal restriction, not a corporate decision.

3) It makes total sense to me that Bob's other Google services for his user ID don't work anymore in addition to the Gmail. From a data point of view, it's most likely all the same record, just with different flags set for each service he actually used. Again, I don't know Google's particular set-up (see disclaimer in point #1), but I don't know how else they would do it.

None of the above should be news to anyone who's thought about how webmail and related services work, and the privacy issues are publicised in all the usual places.

I've created a new Google account, but obviously would still like access to my now-vanished account.

Hopes of a recovery are diminishing rapidly at this point of time. :/

Google doesn't respond to help inquiries............ever. you're lucky if you get a form letter.

That's the one thing that can bring the entire company down.

Arrogance.

Happened to the Roman Empire, and it can happen here.

Believe your own hype, and one day you will be sunk by it.

Ignore the end user at your own peril.

Bob,

I completely empathise with your situation, and whole heartedly wish you the best of luck in retrieving your emails, and restoring your email account.

My suggestion for a redundant system, is to register whatever domain name you wish to have. Have your email redirected to that google account, and download it locally for reading.
Also forward a copy of the email onto a 2nd account of large size (non google, as we are only supposed to have one account per person)

If gmail.com goes down permanently (if the company goes bust) you have your own domain name, and email address on that.

The local downloaded copy of the email provides some redundency for gmail account deletion/outage/acts of god.

If the aforementioned act of god/outage is prelonged, just set the forward to address on the domain name (most good registration companies offer this free email forward feature) to point to a newer gmail/whatever account.

If your local drive fails, restore from gmail.

If your local drive and gmail fails, restore from the 2nd account

If your 2nd account fails, you probably wouldnt notice because you are running off your primary account.

I would also probably suggest 2ndary DNS servers on your website. Just in case you 'miss' mail that is sent.

Long winded, I know. But that is what I currently run. Call me over pre-cautious, but I know what its like, as hotmail has closed my account (due to not logging in every 30 days) 4 or 5 times now.

Once again, good luck mate. Our thoughts are with you.

Cheers
Loughlan (aka Gish)

Bob,
Do you use any other Google services? I recently had something similar happen to me. I used my 2ndary Gmail account to set up a Google pages account. Then I decided to take the page down and I didn't want people to have my username, so I took down the page. When I decided the pages account, it also deleted my Gmail account. :(Luckily, it was just a 2ndary account, I have another one that I use everyday.

Thanks for the tips Loughlan.

jessica: I use Google Alerts, have an account on Google Pages, etc. But I can't access any of these any longer as my entire Google account was deleted.

I didn't do *anything* (that I know of) which might have caused my account to vanish. It's a mystery which Google doesn't seem to want to let us into.

Gadget_girl , good feedback.. me2 is canadian and as an FYI..

1) Pushing the incident from tier1 to tierN support to expert level within an enterprise like google does not work. The Gmail team only has 5 suppport people at the desk. (at least thats what I was told). They dont use enterpise tracking as its of no value to them. Secondly the volume of incident is so great that they just dont /cant wade thru the mess. Thirdly, there are no SLA --as such. (use at your own risk). So there are no charge back costs to the end-user or some sort of company (small businss) for service and incident handling.

2) US Federal law is attached to the last listening post – called as the 'soxs line" . Provisioning and data rentention is mandated to be a min of 5 yrs + current yr. In Canada its 6 yrs plus current and in EU its 3 yrs+ current. As for RU and CN its a totally different propostion. Asia Pacfic's follow the EU mandates.

3) AS for the entityuser data set --it would like something like user(UserId , [Account1, Account2, Account3,.... AccountX]) thats something which is a list of services for a specific user. I think that the userID got currupted and in the bargin all pointers to the usr's data is lost.. thus creating "zombie transaction".. its there-- but just impossible to find, as the pointers would all be system generated linked to a seeded hash key run over ssl.. and me thinks-- that them 5 helpdesk dudes/dudettes will not have the time or spend the efforts to decrypt the whole scenario and issue...

fwiw.. i think this is a unique case..where google are even surprised and are trying to figure out what happened,. I dont think that this incident would be a nice one to occur, once they begin the hosted /paid email services of google.. so its easier for them as a company to turn the "nelson's eye" on the enduser (at this stage) and not communicate anything.

After all, what are they (goog) going to say ?? Life is like a boobons ass-very colurful and full of S#*^ , and we just cont figure out what went wrong ?? shareprices will drop from the $320 mark down to $20!! Its a tricky situation. I actually sympathize with both parties on this issue (googs and bob!!)

Remember the Sox's Line – by virture of being a public company they have to be very careful on how such issues are resolved as well as communicated.

..... its just NOT about Bob at all ..its much much bigger!!!

Gish: i've been doing what you suggested Bob to do for such a long time now its been a life-saver.

There's nothing like good ol' backups with different services. I always suggest people i encounter the same advice – buy one domain ($5 – $7 per year) then create a forwarding address and give that address to your contacts. Should your primary account fail, you have a backup somewhere else.

Since i've started to use this method, spam has reduced by 70% on my old accounts, because i no longer use or give out my real inbox email, just my forwarded address. Yes i know, i gave alway my trick to all you damn spammers (screw you and your annoying spam emails!).

O boy! This is really horrible to loose your account. I am trusting google and pouring all my mails (imp, semi-imp and non-imp and app pictures) This is truly eye opening story and didn’t realize that how much my life evolve around google. And now google is coming with online storage. Looks like they are committed to store whole world’s information. This is very scary!

Good luck Bob!

technologymadness.com

hi all techies,

Bob, really sorry for you. I am also having my primary email ID as gmail and neither I have any backups.

Further, now, I have got about 800 MB of email data, which I will have to backup. Which is the pain to download. So was just hunting for some alternative I can find. I just realised about yahoo pop feature, which allows you to collect mails from other pop's. (Not promoting yahoo in anyway)

So gave a try. But it's not able to import mails. Have done all the things corretly in gmail settings, problem seems to be out there at yahoo setting. Can someone guide. I feel, many will be helped by it, who can;t afford to download all emails for backup on slow connection.

Thanks
vijaymehta.blogspot.com

Josue: Funny enough, I used to own a domain (still do) and gave out my email address based on that domain to everyone. The trouble is that I was using my webhost's email services which were frequently giving me problems. I considered forwarding emails from that address to a service like Gmail, but then there would be problem of having a different From address from a Reply-to address. It can be done most definitely, but pretty messy once people start sending emails directly to my Gmail account, etc. Eventually I completely migrated to Gmail and with the hype around Google, I naively thought that my data here would be safe and secure. I was proven wrong evidently.

If it's any consolation to me, heh, I'm glad that my story is helping people out there take precautions so they can avert a similar disaster.

No word from Google still at this point of time, and to be honest, I don't have any hopes left.

As much I think Google is being irresponsible, I can only blame myself for not forseeing such an event, and taking the necessary steps to mitigate any possible damage.

Oh well.

I and Sergey are very disappointed in our company. It really is terrible that we did this and then didn't do something about what we did. I think we will have to quit and start again. Damn.

Bob said:
>>> considered forwarding emails from that address to a service like Gmail, but then there would be problem of having a different From address from a Reply-to address. <<<

FYI that was my problem for a while too. But recently Gmail has added the facility to specify a different From address (in addition to specifying the Reply-To address if you like). You can create a number of From addresses, specify one as the default and choose a different one from a list on an email-by-email basis.

So you can keep your personal domain but use Gmail behind it in exactly the way you'd like. That's what I do now, and it's fine.

Owen Phelps: Yep, I'm aware of the recent feature introduction. If it was implemented earlier, I probably wouldn't in dire straits like now.

So sorry about the reply google gave u Bob....

Well about the account deletion....like I deleted a goolge account of mine...including gmail sometime in October 2004. From what I remember, Google Help said that all account info will be held in their database for 6 months and then purged and the username given out to the pool.

I have tried couple of times to register that name again but it says that the account is not available. Infact, I tried it once again jus a few minutes back but it still sayas the same. So, i jus not sent a mail to that <old address>gmail.com and I got a Delivery Status Notification mail saying "Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently"

I am really not sure why that username has not been released to the pool even 1 year after it was supposed to be deleted.

Bob,

If you're so disappointed with your experience with Gmail, then why do you continue to use it?

Could it be that, despite your disappointing experience, it still happens to be the best free internet-based email system out there? If not ... why don't you shop elsewhere.

If you don't like the service you've received, take your business elsewhere. Simple.

You relied upon a system clearly labelled as undergoing Beta testing without a backup. Your data got lost, and now the creator of the system is essentially saying "too bad, so sad".

You know this now ... don't keep all your eggs in one basket ... keep copies of your eggs everywhere. Now stop polluting the internet with your whining about your loss of data at the hands of Google.

You probably hit the delete link yourself anyway...

The data you had saved in your email account was of type mp3/divX etc.? Some authority might be investigating you and your account and it might be suspended/blocked for this reason.

Gnascher: Your statements are simply put ridiculous and unwarranted.

Just wondering: I had at the very most 1 or 2 mp3s, although chances are I had none. I don't think they're investigating me for that.. they've got way bigger fish to catch.

This is a weird suggestion, but... have you tied going through consumer advocates, such as Consumer Reports, the BBB or even better one of those "Channel 7 On Your Side!" news features where the news reporter will help investigate the problem and hopefully get the issue resolved?

Often big companies won't listen to one person, unless that one person has a major news organization backing him up ready to write a story about it.

Well, it's already made the front page of DIGG! (www.digg.com). That should get some people looking into it.

Bob was not foolish for trusting Google with his critical data. On the contrary, Bob was doing exactly what Google invited him to do.

Google is offering a vision of the future of computing where applications move from the desktop to the web and all of your personal data is stored, safe and secure, on Google servers, where you can access it quickly and conveniently from anywhere.

Google want us to trust them. They want to store our email, our search history, our documents. They want to store all of our data. This is Google's avowed mission: to organise the world's information. All of it. They want to be the stewards of all of the information in the world. If they can't even be trusted with the integrity of one man's email, their vision of the future takes a couple of black eyes.

Bob may have been foolish for trusting *Google* – but not because it was stupid to keep his critical email on a web-based service, or on a "beta" seervice. If there was any foolishness here, it was for trusting Google to keep its promises.

Oh, and the silly flames from the Digg crowd. Those were foolish too.

dugg innit. 10's of thousands of people around the world all sympathizing for you right now innit.. ;-)

good luck,

I hate to break it to you, but Gmail is a FREE service. Unless you were paying for a service-level-agreement (SLA) on your mailbox, those nice folks at Google don't need to spend time trying to fix every mailbox issue. As an fellow email administrator, I can appreciate the time and resources that it takes to keep a system like Gmail up and running. There will ALWAYS be unexpected things that occur, and it is up to us to minimize those occurrences.

As a person who utilizes free services, you need to make sure that you have good backups. Never leave important data solely in the hands of such a provider. Having an SLA helps, but having your data in multiple places is invaluable. The thing to note is that Google has no obligation to internet users, they do their best to satisify the majority of their clients, and to make money in the process. It may not be a perfect arrangement for us individuals, but it sure beats having nothing to use.

-danfromfla

While I feel for you Bob and I hope things work out for you, I also place no blame on google. The fact of the matter is that if you are using a beta as your primary mail resource it is YOUR responsiblity to back up your data. Take the responsibility and stop trying to put it on google for offering a free beta service that you used as if it were a production ready product for which one might expect to pay actual money...

Gnascher you and every other person here telling him he is stupid and it's his fualt makes me disgusted to be considered part of the human race

what ever happened to being kind to people

oh yeah, greed and power and most of all arrogance

Bob,

I hope everything works out for you. I have a gmail account as well but luckily haven't had any real problems with it. Don't mind the people saying the same junk over and over. They obviously don't have much to do today and don't have anything constructive to say.

Look...I understand your dire straits....but why on Earth would you trust a FREE web-based email system as your primary? That is crazy!!

What is the world coming to when talking about personal responsibility is considered cruel?

LOL

I use gmail as my primary e-mail and i think that Goggle is at fault. it shoulent matter if you pay for it or not....Google advertises gmail and they should take responsibility for what happens to it. it is a beta but the fact is that they are still offering it without any warning about it not working well. the only way you can tell its beta is by the little beta at the bottom of the logo. i dont think your wrong for wanting them to fix their mistake, i would do the same thing. Google is a good company and i have all the trust in the world for them. they will take over the internet soon.

I would like to hear Google's side of this. There has to be more to this story than what we've heard from Bob so far. Why would Google blow away an account unless it violated the TOS in some way?

I trust Google's free web-based email system as my primary, and I wouldn't regret it if I were Bob. Like Bob, I'd wait a while in hopes of getting the old one back, but then I'd sign up for another one. Why? Because Gmail is the best thing to happen to email in a long long time. In the past, checking email was a chore. Gmail helps a ton with the idea of archiving and the conversation view.

I hope you get your account back, Bob.

Finally someone else is human and has sympathy for Bob.

Everyone, please stop telling this guy the same thing over and over again. He is not trying to blame Google. He just wants a little help from them. Sure this is a free product but Google still gets their money from it even if it is not direct. He knows he should have backed up and I am sure he will in the future. Let it be. Move on. Google is a good company and Bob is a good person. Let's just stop with the blame and focus again on why Bob first posted... simply to get help with his email. Bob, good luck with everything and with all the stress and you are dealing with you have seriously earned a nice night out with possibly a steak dinner or something (or all you can eat shrimp... wow that sounds good). Please send me some rolls and mashed potatoes.

Sorry guess I was a little harsh, I see that you have contacted google and they offered you NO help at all...I say don't let it end there though take it a step further until google either restores your account with all your data intact or until they give you a proper explanation of what happen to your account and why it can't be recovered, good luck buddy and sorry for being so rude the other day.

Best of Lucky..
The not so obvious guy. =)

Have you considered suing Google? You have enough written evidence (both from you and other bloggers) to suggest that you were wronged by Google. Regardless of whether you win or not, it will be a sure fire way to bring this issue into the fore front so other users are treated with respect in the future.

It's really a shame...not just that your email was lost, but that Google's response was so inappropriate. On the one hand, it is a free beta service, and that comes with a certain amount of CYA. On the other hand, I think most people have come to have a certain amount of trust with Google's services, and it's really out of character for them....not to have a glitch (that can be expected with any computer service), but to handle the response so poorly.

Everyone who is screaming to sue them, though, should just back down. I think that even our unfortunate host knows he wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on with a case like that.

Yeah, a lawsuit. What are you twelve?

mail.google.com/mail/help/term ...

Read section 1.

I just dont believe his story. Google deleted his account, and no other people have come forward and said it's happened to them as well...

makes me think one of two things:

1) you are doing this for attention (self deletion)
or
2) you got hacked.

either way, it's your fault. If your data was really that important you would have backed it up. If this really happened to you, you WOULDN'T have made another gmail account to use. Seriously now...
I think its sad that people are sticking up for you when there is no way right now to say one way or the other what happened. Hell, you even said you don't know what happened.

Something about this story doesn't add up. I think Bob is leaving out something.

Based on the alleged response he received from Google, it sounds like Google purposely deleted the account. It is highly unlikely that his entire Google account just vanished by accident. I'm sure a single Google account is made up of information from mulitple databases. If it were just the email account that was gone, it might seem more plausible.

Having worked in support for many years, it amazes how often people will swear up and down on their children that they "didn't do anything", only to find out that they did. They either forgot, thought it was unrelated and chose not to mention it, or lied.

My guess is that Bob was somehow violating the terms, or some else hijacked his account and was violating terms. Bob seems genuinely perplexed...but this is the internet and we have no way of validating anything he has said. No one knows if Bob ever had a Google account.

Regardless, Google has the right to delete any account at any time for any reason with no explanation. Sh*t happens and posting this on the internet to garner attention is pretty pathetic. I've lost years of data because I didn't back things up, so I can empathize with the loss. However, it's your own fault. Time to move on and chalk it up as a lesson learned.

i have a g-mail account, and I didn't like how it worked, anyway.

Also, it's not the first time Google does something evil. Remember click fraud? I've read in many places that google has deleted adsense accounts for "click fraud".

Whenever I see google i just read g$$gle. They've become nothing but a corporate monster. Screw them.

The best thing you can do is get a yahoo plus account and download your mail via POP. Thunderbird is an excellent mail client, and this gives you the power to backup whenever you want to.

Is GMAIL still in Beta?

[You Get That For What You Paid]

GMail IS A marvelous thing, but, well, considering how much we PAY for these accounts, we do get a great deal more in return.

Should this have happened? No. Did it? Yes. Should Google at least PRETEND to care more? Sure, but, well . . .

Bolob, the proper spelling is "Internet".

All my stuff is in my gmail account and I never backed it up. Also, if I lost my wallet I'd be screwed.

Meh

This is not about magic words, it is about something you have to express your agreement in order to get a gmail account. That is you agreed that google is not responsable about anything you loose because of any kind of failures on the service.

[sorry]

Sorry guess I was a little harsh, I see that you have contacted google and they offered you NO help at all...I say don't let it end there though take it a step further until google either restores your account with all your data intact or until they give you a proper explanation of what happen to your account and why it can't be recovered, good luck buddy and sorry for being so rude the other day.

Best of Lucky..
The not so obvious guy. =)

Bob –

I would call Keith Coleman at Google. He's currently the product manager for gmail.

KHE

Gmail in Beta? Please. Show me a way to submit bug reports to Google. Bug tracking is standard for any Beta stage product. I just don't see it.

Here's a quote for Larry Page:
"It's kind of an arbitrary thing. We could take beta off all of our products tomorrow, and we wouldn't actually have accomplished anything...If it's on there for five years because we think we're going to make major changes for five years, that's fine. It's really a messaging and branding thing."

A messaging and branding thing? So they're not really testing, it's all about the image. It also means that google can get away with not offering support for any of their 'Beta' products, they're not responsible for loss of your data, and so dont have to waste resources fixing it.

The term Beta needs to be rethought, if companies are going to stand behind the Beta shield to protect themselves from responsibility they should say so right up front, not buried in the Terms of Service Agreement. Beta means nothing to the average user, If it's on the net and widely available people will think that its stable.

Bob, Gmail has a huge hole. Did your Gmail Account have "." (dots)? If you did, and you put your username without the dots with the right password, it let me in. I didn't create that account. I don't know how this happened... If your username didn't have dots, try it with dots and see what happens. Just a suggestion....

This may have been suggested before, but have you tried logging into gmail from a different machine. You work machine perhaps where it worled before?

Maybe there's something funky going on with your home box. It's unlikely but it's worth a shot.

I can't believe how unhelpful Google is here. I was the victim of a phishing scam a couple of years ago and had my hotmail account stolen from me. I notified them immediately and they rsto