Thursday, January 19, 2012

We're sorry, but your account as been disabled...

Imagine my horror as I was merrily reading blogs and commenting Monday evening, when I hit "reply" on a blog, and I was redirected to a google page saying that my account has been disabled due to a violation of the terms of service.  Um.....last I recall, I don't think I put up any porn on my blog...

So naturally, I freaked out.  It said if I don't believe I violated the terms of service, to fill out this form and I MAY get my account back.  And they MAY or MAY NOT contact me.  (This was my email and blog, btw).  Holy F%@! I could totally get my email account and my blog deleted!  What did I do??  I am just a little 'ol wholesome pregnant lady trying to chronicle my life as a struggling aspiring novelist! (Which, if you didn't know already, DO NOT piss off a pregnant lady.)

So naturally, I freaked out even more.  After much crying, hair pulling, and gnashing of teeth, I clicked around google (desperately searching for a phone number so I can talk to an actual PERSON, to no avail) until I came back to the email login page and there was a link to click if you have trouble logging in.  So I clicked on that.  Then, it brought me to a couple more steps in which I had to fill out some more forms and get a code texted to my phone, change my password, promise my 2nd born child, and FINALLY I was able to get back on.  It said my account had been compromised.

So, after that near-death experience, I'm back and everything seems to be fine.  Still a bit nervous so I upped as much security and account recovery stuff as possible.  But whew, that was close. 

Anyone ever experience this with their blog or gmail account?  Did you almost DIE? How did you get your account back?

18 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Hasn't happened to me, but I know someone who lost her blogs after combining her Google+ and Blogger profiles. Guess it was just a technical glitch.

April Plummer said...

That hasn't happened to me, but man would I freak out if it did! I have thought I lost all my WIP before...the panic that attacked my heart had such force I thought I'd die. Seriously.

Luckly, I didn't lose anything after all.

Glad you got your blog back! We'd miss you!

Kristin Rae said...

omg that's terrifying!! I'm going to have to go through all the security stuff and see what else I could be doing. I recently changed my password, and I backed up my blog (I think--it was weird). Glad you got it all fixed!!!

Colene Murphy said...

SO scary!! I donno what I would do. Glad you got it all fixed, though!!

Matthew MacNish said...

This happened to my friend Carolina Valdez Miller recently. Also, Old Kitty. Apparently it has to do with spammers hacking into your email account.

Glad you got everything worked out!

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear you had to deal with that. Like Matthew, I remember Carolina going through something similar. I hope you don't have anymore troubles like that to deal with.

Jennifer Hillier said...

Hasn't happened to me (yet) but I would have reacted exactly the same way! Wowza, scary!

NiaRaie said...

At first I thought you were going to say that it was a GOOGLE joke ( A few websites were "blacking out" because of the whole SOPA issue. But wow that's very real and sounds horrible!. Glad you got everything back!

Angela Brown said...

I didn't get the "violation" bit, but when my gmail was comprised some time back, I had to go through some form hoopla then got my stuff back.

I'm glad you were able to get your account back up properly.

DL Hammons said...

That happened to me during the last blogfest I hosted. I generated so much blog traffic that Google disabled my account due to unusual activity and I had to follow the same steps you did to get it back up. Have a had a surge in blog activity lately?

Meredith said...

Yikes, I would totally freak out! I'm off to make sure all of my info is up to date now...

alexia said...

Super scary! I got hacked once, but that's been the worst thing.

Unknown said...

Freak out!! Fortunately that's never happened to me... Do you know what the actual problem was?

Lydia Kang said...

That would terrify me, after all the work I put into my blog! I have to remember to download it once in a while...

Michael Di Gesu said...

WHOA... That would certainly FREAK me out...

I am so glad you got it back.

CONGRATS on the new baby! This is the first I am hearing of it. You must be SOOOO excited.

When are you due? Spring or Summer?

Talli Roland said...

Oh yes. It happened to me last April, and like you, I nearly LOST it!

Lindsay N. Currie said...

THat happened to me last year! Someone hacked into my gmail and started spamming everyone in my inbox. Gmail realized the problem and shut down all google related accounts. I curled into the fetal position. LOL, like you, I kept hounding people until it got fixed. Glad you're up and running again!

Dreadnaught said...

WOOOOOOOOOW

That would make me shit bricks. I know google is touchy and sometimes makes false claims, especially with their adsense but wow. Im glad it got resolved.

Gotta keep those passwords complex!

*(Y7NG^rDEU8rey7gy is a good example lol. But its overkill.