Late last night I received a flurry of email messages from Google welcoming me and asking me to verify my email address. The problem was that I did not create this Google account using my email address and the messages were in Portuguese. In addition to the Google account welcome messages I also received welcome messages from YouTube on the same address. Needless to say, I did not click on the confirmation links in the email messages.
So I checked with Google’s web site to see what my options are. I could either reset the password or I could request that the account be deleted. In order to do the latter I would need to reset the password. I proceeded to go to Google’s account recovery page. I was asked for an alternate email address in case they needed to contact me which I provided. I was then asked for a previous password and the phone number on the account. I did not have these pieces of data because I did not create the account.
So it’s a good thing that someone cannot take over your account just because they have access to your email address. The problem is that the account has full privileges without confirming that relationship in the first place. I’m stuck.
I called Google Apps for Work paid support number since I am a paying user. The customer service rep was as helpful as could be but his support guidelines blocked him from helping with free Google accounts. He kindly walked me through all the support options for account recovery with no success. There are no options for actually getting support or escalating such an issue. The support forums are full of other people having the same problem with their Yahoo email addresses. The support rep seemed to think that if the account were not yet verified that it would automatically be deleted but could not specifically tell me what that time interval was. I am unable to create an account using my email address because one already exists.
At this point I am out of luck. Google does not have any method of resolving this issue.
