Anyone here ever been locked out of your own Google Account for suspicious activity? How’d it turn out for you?
I have an account that I use to manage an Android phone for my elderly mother-in-law. A couple of weeks ago, it prompted me to add a backup account, so I did. A week later, it locked me out of the account, and the only thing I can think of that might have triggered this “suspicious activity” lockdown was the addition of the backup account.
It’s a tad inconvenient. She doesn’t use the Google features, but she’s currently in a rehab facility, and if her phone were stolen, I would not be able to use the Find My Phone feature to lock it down, since I can’t access the account.
I began the account recovery process and was told I had to wait 30 days for it to be unlocked.
It has never happened to me, but I’ve read any number of horror stories.
Don’t bother asking what you did, they will not tell you.
You can only jump through the hoops they set before you and hope that they let you back in, which is neither guaranteed nor particularly likely. I have read occasional reports of people getting back in, so it does happen now and then.
I’ve read a lot of these stories on Reddit – there are some subreddits that you could probably search r/Google r/Gmail. Most of them seem to be people that never set up any kind of 2FA, but there are some that seem to lock out for no discernable reason. You might search there and find some insight.
I’ve moved away from Gmail for this reason (lockouts, plus several other reasons), but keep some correspondence going in Gmail so the account doesn’t get deleted due to inactivity, since I need it for Android.
I guess I wasn’t so much looking for a solution as just wondering if anyone else here has gone through this.
I’m waiting the prescribed 30 days, and then will see what happens.
Interesting that you’ve seen suggestions that not have 2FA is a potential trigger for “suspicious activity”. We can’t put any additional layers of security on the phone because it needs to be as simple as possible for my mother-in-law to use it. Which is why I really need to be able to remotely lock it down if it gets stolen, as quickly as possible before someone factory resets it.
Luckily, it’s just a generations-old Moto G from a dogfood trial during my time at RW, so if it is stolen, it’s not a huge loss, just an inconvenience to order a replacement SIM and drive 2 hours to get her set up with another phone.
I was never having trouble with 2FA, in fact, I have backup codes on hand and would have easily supplied one of those if I had been allowed to do that.
I was required to reset the password, and from there the account has been fully restored. I still don’t know what triggered the lockdown, but I’m happy to have the account back so if my mother-in-law’s phone is stolen, I can secure it.
