Screaming Penguin

Until today, I would have questioned why anyone would pay for an email service. With all of the free options, specifically Gmail, why would you bother to shell out money for a service. Now I am wondering if I still agree. Yesterday, I received a phone call from my wife explaining she was locked out of her Gmail account with no explanation. There was a message, explaining to come back at a later time to try again. In addition, there was an option to receive a verification code through SMS or with a Voicemail which I assume you are supposed to be able to submit for an authorization to access your account. The problem we found was we couldn't get to a screen where we could enter the verification code for approval. I found one place where I could dispute there issue, though have no way to verify it was received and will be reviewed. This morning we checked again and the only message we received after attempting to login was "Your Account Has Been Disabled". Of course, this being a free service, they have the right. I believe it is also mentioned in the "Terms of Service" agreement they post when signing up for an account. Like many folks out there, my wife uses her account for communication, an address book and a file repository. The obvious thing we can say is you should always be responsible and back up important information, though my guess is that is not a common practice. As I am guessing there are 100's of millions of Gmail accounts out there, it is difficult to provide phone support. At least give an option to download contacts to provide an alert that your account will be disabled in X days. It is free, so I guess you have to live by their rules. Ideally, I would like to get access back, though there are few options left to get assistance. I was thinking about camping out in front of the local Google office until someone helps me; though I am guessing they would call the police at some point. On a final note, I really enjoyed seeing the "Drink Diet Coke to Gain Weight" in the right rail of the page and is still getting comments after five years - actually five years to the day. Of course the "Lego Porn!" story will always beat it out. UPDATE: Appears all is resolved with patience. She had her account comprimised and sent a ton of emails to her entire address book at once. Google automatically assumed spam and shut the account down. Appears they do follow-up when you submit an issue form.