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Ask HN: Is it possible to get help from a Google employee?(for G+)

4 points by doubt_me ↗ HN
I am 100% unable to recover an old google account (after the past 6 months of trying over and over and over and over) and as a result my old google profiles page (before G+) is still up and I do not want my information public any longer.

I have already created 2 different Gmail support forum threads with exactly zero help from anybody. Even after spamming over 30+ google employees a link to it on twitter (which I really did not want to do, but I was still ignored anyways)

STEP 1.

A. Find old Gmail account used to create my old google profile page

B. Try to login into the Gmail account

C. Fail at logging in

D. Attempt a recovery of the gmail account

E. Do not have access to old phone number (over 6 years old)

F. Do not have access to the email recovery

G. According to the automated recovery form I do not have enough information to get access to the Gmail account (YES I HAVE TRIED THIS OVER 50+ TIMES STOP ASKING)

STEP 2.

A. Attempt to login to the recovery email (its a Hotmail account)

B. Fail at logging in

C. Attempt to recover the recovery email

D. Do not have access to an old phone number (10+ years old)

E. Recovery email uses an 11 year old Gmail address for recovery that I do not even remember creating and since Hotmail never actually needed verification back then I assume its made up because I didn't use Gmail until I signed up for google wave beta in high school which is the account I am on right now

F. According to the automated recovery form I do not have enough information to get access to the Hotmail address (again I have tried this well over 50+ times)

G. Talked to 4 different Microsoft customer support techs and it took over 3 months to get the login issue elevated to a support engineer

H. The Microsoft support engineer specifically told me I have no other option to recover the Hotmail address other than the automated recovery form

8 comments

[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 28.5 ms ] thread
jeffmould
Is this a Gmail account or a custom domain? One idea, although it may be a long shot. If it is a custom domain on Google, you may be able to convert the account to a business account. If it is a regular gmail account, you may be able to signup for a google business account with a custom domain (you can do a 30-day free trial, although you may have to pay $5, or at least put a credit card on file, to gain access to the free support).

Either way, with a business account you will then have access to live Google phone support for free (which is actually pretty good from my experience). Call them and tell them you want to move your mail from your old gmail account to your new business account, and use their support to see if they can help you gain access. Again, not sure if it will work or not, but at least it would give you a direct line to their support teams at little to no cost. Then once you have shut everything down, or have completed everything you what you want to do, just close the business account.

doubt_me
Its a regular gmail account that I haven't accessed for over 4 years.

Thanks for the suggestion I am going to try it right now. (I literally have no other options)

doubt_me
I successfully signed up for google apps and talked with support where pretty much they have zero access to general google accounts and are only there for supporting google apps.

It was very much worth a shot though thanks for the idea again

jeffmould
Damn, well sorry. That was the best I could come up with on that one.
gesman
It may be more expensive but involving lawyers sending letter to Google legal by stating that "person is under threat due to google exposing misleading information about the person".

At least this may pierce through the thick google walls to the right person to do at least minimally required work to help you.

doubt_me
I already tried reporting the page for sexual content over 3 months ago so I assumed that didn't work.

I had just submitted a DMCA complaint with their automated form a few days ago and with google being so big I can't imagine that getting anywhere.

I asked reddit.com/r/legaladvice if I had any ground to stand on by getting a lawyer involved and they pretty much just told me oh well there is nothing I can technically do. But I am not done looking into it

gesman
I'm sure presence of false and misleading information hosted by google and advertised to the whole world is something that lawyers would be happy to tackle.

I think going with well-known firm (lawyers do know the difference between joe-blow-the-consultant and well known firms) albeit hiring them just to write a scary letter will invite a response from otherwise unavailable person at GOOG who will be more than happy to make this matter to go away.