Tell HN: Google suspended my Gmail account for no reason
14 by zachrip | 3 comments on Hacker News.
A few months ago I tried to sign up for a developer account with Apple with my .nl email address (let's call it zach@biz.nl for this post). For whatever reason, Apple wouldn't let me use that email - while frustrating, I was able to get around this by creating a gmail account for my business (let's call it biznl@gmail.com for this post). Fast forward to last week, I try to log in to the gmail account and I'm met with a message like "your account has been disabled because you violated terms of service." Odd, I think - I haven't done anything weird with this account, all I used it for was the Apple developer account. So I appealed the decision - the form asks me to explain how I was using my account and more or less asks me to defend my actions. Except the message doesn't tell you which rule you broke. So I explained how I was using the account and submitted. I think to myself "I probably just got caught in some filter, a human can fix this for me." Wrong. A few days pass and I get an email from them - my request has been declined and there's nothing I can do about it - it's from a noreply address. They offered me a takeout download of the email and I downloaded it to see if maybe I had been hacked or something - the list of emails in the mbox are as follows: - Your Google Account is live – now help your business grow - Verify your Apple ID email address. - Uw bestelling wordt verwerkt *** - Welcome to the Apple Developer Program. - Welcome to App Store Connect. - Uw Apple factuur nummer ** - Update to taxes on Apple Books sales in British Columbia. - Correct your banking details to receive payments. - Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases - Upcoming currency change in Croatia - Upcoming price and tax changes for apps and in-app purchases Clearly I'm abusing the system. So now my business Apple developer account is locked up in an email that I lost access to for no reason. Some notes: - I have my biz email: zach@biz.nl - I pay for gsuite on this address - I created biznl@gmail.com so I could sign up for Apple dev - I have only sent one email from the gmail, it was a test email to zach@biz.nl just to make sure I had setup mx records correctly If anyone knows a way I can escalate this or something I would greatly appreciate it. I'm also working on the Apple side to try and change my email to my real email so I can dump the gmail account. If anyone can help me with this I would be very grateful, I've requested a change but I'm worried they won't allow it since I don't have access to the original email.
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