How I lost everything And Then Got It Back
Last one week was very hard for me, I thought I had lost everything I got, but thank god I get back everything.
On 20th Feb morning when I was trying to login to my Gmail account to check my mails, I was redirect to a different page showing an alert message which nobody would like to see;
“Sorry, your account has been disabled”
It was a shock for me because I was using my Gmail account as my prime email ID for my business. I never thought that it is belong to Google and they can disable it anytime without telling me the reason.
Lesson No. 1 : Never use a third-party mail account for official purpose, it may ruin your business one day if you do that.
That was a big loss for me, Google disabled my account with all its associated services;
Just think about what I lost;
- I Lost my shankerbakshi unique ID with Google
- I lost all my valuable mails received in last three years ( nearly 27K)
- I lost all my contacts
- I lost all my feedburner subscribers
- I lost my five blogs hosted on Google’s bloggers, including shankerbakshi.blogspot.com which i initially started on blogger.com and then shifted to self hosted WordPress blog.
- Lost my Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools data for several niche sites
- Lost all my saved passwords and login information to different affiliate network
- Lost my ID used for receiving PayPal payments
- Lost subscriptions to all super affiliate blogger’s feed
- Lost all Google Readers followers
- Lost all Gtalk contacts
- lost my Google “Youtube Channel” and all followers and control over videos posted there.
- Lost my Orkut account
- Lost Picasa album
- Lost membership to various Google Groups
- lost chances to retrieve password, as I told you I used Gmail ID for signing up with most of the network and if you forget password they simply mail it to registered mail ID. There is no way you can get it back if you also lose your prime ID.
- Lost Google places mark for business.
But these were the losses i can think off initially, the actual loss may worse than that, which you comes to know as time progresses.
Google has a policy not to disclose why they are disabling your account, they just do it and inform you through a standard message design for all occasions, but the possible reason could be when I was trying to sync my Google account on my new Apple iPad
I talk about this with my blog buddies and close friends, the only solution they suggested was to write about it in related Google forums which I already did after I got this message from Google. Well if you really ask me you can’t much about it.
Yes, after giving me deep mental pain for five hard days Google released my account and like they never inform you when they disable it they also don’t bother to share with you the reason when they reinstate it. So I may consider it as their own fault in disabling my account which they rectify by restoring it.
All well thats end well, but a million dollar lesson learned.
this could have been really worse… if i loose my Google accounts that means my identity has been erased… It’s really a Million Dollar Lesson..
This was the lesson I learnt in June 2010 when blogger deleted my blog which was receiving more than 4K hits per day. No third party things while building a business. It really sucks. Gonna switch to custom domain asap for my current blog too…
And its really good to know you’ve recovered your account.
every good lesson is always learnt the hard way … like our dependency on paypal , google
Sourish
A great lesson from your experience and it is very mile stone for a newbie like. Thanks for sharing your personal experience.
Really, a torture. I can’t Google does this. But thank GOD you’re safe now.
Hi shanker
I too lost my Google Account once.I had to rush to Google offices in CA to get them enabled
Regards
Ugh! I would never thought that Google might one day ban my Gmail without reason… you are right. I should start using my domain’s email account rather than using my gmail as the primary contact
You must start it from today, they can disable your account without telling you why they are doing so.
great lesson for me ..i am also using third party account but now i am going to change it with my own ..thanks shankar for alarming me about this big damage ..keep on informing..i found this post very useful for me
Oh, That scares me, I should also move my primary ID from gmail
You should start using your own ID
Have already started the same, but facing some problems while importing contacts ro my cpanel based email client and other google accounts related stuff (viz bookmarks and all)
This is serious Shanker. We all know that we are very heavily dependent on Google but never thought something like this is possible.
This doesn’t seem to be a good week. I have been hearing of such incidences a lot on Twitter. Notably, Amit Agarwal of Labnol got his Facebook account hacked and Google have listed his site as ‘Content Farm’ in the recent update to improve rankings.
I believe it is right time now to get the 2-step authentication process of Google implemented. Also, as you suggested in the lesson, we should reduce the dependency on Google. I will shift all my major accounts to my own domain-based email. Gmail provides a service to fetch mail from other accounts which can be used as a data-storage (best use of Gmail).
Hope to see you back in action soon fit and fine.
Abhinav
Oh Really I never know about Amit’s site being marked as “content farm”. Its a news for me, and i don’t think this is right.
Thanks for the million dollar lesson…Will change my official email soon
I never really thought losing a gmail account can be that painful.. now I have realized how precious my gmail account actually is… thanks for sharing. i’ll be careful next time
Oh that would been a major problem but thanks to Google they reactiavted your account. But problem with email@domain.com is we cant make use of it to signup on orkut, or faceboook or such things. So we have to rely on 3rd party email account as well.
I’ve lost an email address before and I still have trouble accessing some things online, luckily now I have my own email set up so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Glad you got everything back!
Really that was a shocking moment for you.I can feel.I use different Ids for my business.Not reliable on one.Thank God you get all back.Always try to give proper secure information when it required.You can also give alternate email Id.Hope it won’t happen again…..
Yes, it’s very scary when you give all your controls to a third party service! So always have backup! for EVERY THING in life, not just data!
Thanks for the head up, awesome that you where able to get your account back. I plan to change the way my email accounts are setup with third parties after reading this post.
Congrats to got it back …but thanks for the post for alarming us about these mistakes
My Google account is currently in the disabled state, and like you, they have provided no reason as to why or even responded to my many emails.
It has now been 5 days since my account was disabled and I’m really hoping it gets resolved soon. I’d hate to think about starting with a whole new account all over again.
Any suggestions to speed the process or pass the time?
My google account was suspended on monday, march 14, so it’s also been 5 days. this is very distressing. i no longer trust google at all…
Seriously its a very painful if we lost our gmail account. thanks for sharing.. i will be careful.
Hi Bakshi,
It is sad to hear that but glad that you got back you email. However I have been using both free mail and professional email..
Thanks for informing all of us in advance.
-Imran
Thanks for informative mail which u share u us. i will take care my gmail account.
That’s really horrible, thanks for the warning. I use an account on my domain for most of the things, but I do have a few, that depend on google. I will fix this
Thanks for the tip.
Relying on google for everything is really dangerous..I would consider the above post as a warning and try to distribute the risk …Anyways lesson learned!!!