[xeromal]

Sounds like he has an alternative means of identity verification (SMS) but Google keeps only working with the locked email address.

I mean, Google could also do what other companies do and let you send in a picture of your ID or have you enter identity questions.

[tehlike]

As an google employee at the time, i was locked out of my account - but i set up forwarding so i would still receive emails sent to the locked out.

Despite being an employee (which implies 1. they can verify my id, 2. they have incentive to solve my problem 3. there's some amount of trust due to my employment), support wasn't able to solve my problem and i had to remember my password i set up over a decade ago after many trials.

[hirako2000]

and pay wagons of staff to verify? Google from the get go understood the rabbit hole of offering support to customers, and since most of their consumers don't pay, that's easy to make them accept there is no manual support. I have no sympathy for Google, but it's always been that way, and, at least they did all they could to safety net people who can't remember their password by prompting to set an alternative/recovery address fairly regularly.

[dataminded]

All that for a free account? Why would Google do all that?

[______-_-______]

> It's an account I use for AdSense