It is not an exaggeration.

It has happened to me - I lost everything, calendar, email, g+ (which I had not ever updated and had no ToS violations on), absolutely everything.

In the next two days I googled (yes, I did) for answers while receiving automated messages that seemed to indicate I was never getting my accounts back (submitted the form they asked me to, but nothing came of it).

I lost my appointments, contacts, and had business people doubt my veracity, as I'd just given my gmail to several new contacts and their initial emails all bounced.

If I hadn't had multiple friends inside of google I might never have gotten my accounts back, and I heard they weren't even sure what exactly happened other than a confluence of events. I then learned how very very common it is to lose a google account and never know why, and never be able get back anything on them (family pictures, phone numbers stored in contact lists...)

I'm now mostly divested from google and the things I still have there I now have backups and redundancies for.

My mother had her account hacked.. she never got it back, despite trying repeatedly.

And she had all of her digital life in there.

She made for herself another Gmail account which she has safeguarded a lot more, but it's still chilling to know that you have no recourse.

Gmail is so convenient, that it's hard not to use it, but I'd pay for customer service.

Your mother didn't have multiple friends inside Google.

This is the story we hear again and again - you CAN get customer service from Google if you have contacts inside or you can raise a big stink at some forum that Googlers read.

> but I'd pay for customer service.

So pay for it? I'm not saying that it's right for Google to do this, but they do offer that option. With a Google Apps subscription, you get support.

Many, many times we've heard these stories from even paying customers of Google.

Generally, if it can't be implemented by an algorithm, Google's not going to do it, ever.

Confirmed. When I say Google supplied me with the single worst customer service I've ever had, I do mean customer. Not user. Customer.

e.g. "24/7 Support" meant I was free to sent them an e-mail anytime, day or night. Or I could call the 800 line and leave a message ("Calls are usually returned within two business days!").

When I did get through this way, I had to run a gauntlet to convince the asshole (and he was an asshole) that I'd exhausted every imaginable self service option before having the audacity to call for help directly - even though this was the exact service I was paying for.

Seriously, you'd think I'd called 911 to report that I was running out of milk and eggs. In reality, my accounts had vanished completely. Business accounts, I might add. Not that it mattered to Google.

Like an earlier commenter noted - if you use Google for anything that matters, you'll probably be okay. After all, the odds are in your favor. But if you do get screwed, you get screwed completely, suddenly, and without warning. And that's true of customers and users alike.

With paying customers? That will continue until they face their first lawsuit...

Lawsuit for what? Google's terms are set up such that "we algorithmically decide to provide you with nothing whatsoever in exchange for your money" is perfectly within their rights.

Not in many countries, there are consumer protection laws.

That's what I thought. When Google Apps for businesses came out I was interested in subscribing, so I asked their customer support about what migration paths they offer. I never heard back from them.

Uh, have you even read the linked article?

a PAYING customer of gmail lost his account.

He's paying for Gmail+Docs storage, that's not the same as Google Apps for Business. If he were paying for Google Apps for Business then he has a 24/7 support phone number that he can call.

A phone number that apparently isn't so great: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3840287

hum, i stand corrected on the technicality.

but still, he is having problem with his account used for gmail, which he pays.

why does he have to pay yet another product to have support for the one he is having problem with?

do you have to buy a 2liter coke to be able to complain that they delivered the wrong toppings in your pizza? makes no sense.

yeah you shouldn't need to have friends inside Google to get basic customer service

It sounds more like your Google account was disabled for some reason and it had nothing to do with your G+ profile.

Even if the stories are an exaggeration (which I doubt), the complete lack of any sort of human support is problematic. I get why a company of google's scale relies on heuristics to identify issues, but it's /really really important/ that when those things go wrong -- as they certainly will -- there's some sort of recourse.

The black box google currently presents makes me uninterested in trusting them, since to do so would present a lot of risk (losing my email) with very little reward (a sort-of-better facebook clone).

Yes and what Google does not seem to realise that there is a lot of legal precedent and custom and practice that expects that if someone is penalized there is some sort of appeal process.

Well there was that kid who lost access to his gmail account once he put his real birthday into G+.

Because he was underage and it was illegal for Google to serve him email?

I don't think that it's technically illegal to serve email to someone under 13 years of age. That's just the conservative take on the law that most sites have taken.

[You may be able to allow < 13 year olds with parent's permission, but most sites probably feel that it's too much effort/risk to do that.]

Linked article? Other people in this thread?

"Examples" and stats aren't worth a damn thing when it happens to you. When Google tweaks things and you're caught in the middle, 100% of your e-mail, Adsense, Adwords, Apps, GAN, Docs or whatever is cut off with almost zero recourse.