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GMail account lock-out

LC [PersonRank 1]

Friday, March 23, 2007
17 years ago7,756 views

A few days ago GMail refused to accept a recently changed password when I tried to log in from school. This was strange – I was pretty sure I had not mixed up my password. But then things got very strange. Still signed in at my home computer, I tried to change the password using my security question. It rejected that, as well. It is conceivable that I mixed up or forgot my new password, but it is not possible that I don't know my first phone number. Unfortunately my "secondary e-mail address" at sign-up has long since gone dead. I have written three desperate e-mails to Google, and they have all been ignored.

The two big problems are: 1) losing access to tens of thousands of e-mails when this sign-in expires, and 2) losing the address itself, which is my name, and which a lot of people have.

Aside from "does anyone know what I can do?," my question is this: The GMail FAQ says that inactive accounts are deleted after nine months. Can anyone confirm that? And also, when that occurs, will the address become available again so that I can at least recover that? I plan to set the account to forward to another address in the meantime.

Thanks for any help.

LC [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

And a follow-up: will an account that is automatically forwarding messages, with no sign-in's, actually count as "inactive" (i.e. will the forwarding count as "activity," thus keeping the account alive indefinitely)?

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

"If you suspect that someone else has changed your GMail password, type in your GMail username (without @gmail.com) here [Forgot Password] and click Submit.

Google will send password resetting instructions to the secondary email address you provided during GMail signup.

If you don't have a secondary email address, try the same link again after five days. At that point, you'll be able to reset your password by answering the security question you provided when you created your account."

more info here

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/03/gmail-hacked-when-someone-else-gains.html

LC [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Well, thanks for responding. I went through all of that a couple days ago, though, when I was first trying to sort this out. As I said, it is rejecting what should be both the correct password (pretty sure) and correct security answer (damn sure), and there is no secondary e-mail active any longer.

Since Google appears to say "tough luck" to this, even though from what I can tell it is their software malfunctioning, I am basically in damage control mode. Hence the question I asked (and perhaps even more importantly, the follow-up).

Thanks again.

Brinke Guthrie [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Unfortunately, it appears you are correct about the 'tough luck' part. This might be a part of another thread called 'arrogance.'

They're #1, they can do what they want. And that's ignore their user base, sadly.

BUGabundo [PersonRank 7]

17 years ago #

I know it is stupid but have u tried your old and new password with capslock?

LC [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Thanks. It's not stupid. I've tried every conceivable variation of both my old and my new passwords, as well as the security answer.

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