WarnHN: Google Cloud account suspension – no warnings and data locked down
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I've used GAE since its inception, never even heard of anything like this happening. Any updates?
Update: I attempted every contact avenue available to me and no one I spoke with (by email/contact forms and phone) seemed to know what was happening. I ended up compartmentalizing my accounts (so removed my personal id from each) and set up new billing accounts and had some moderate success. By moderate I mean:
1. I would get an email saying the restrictions had been lifted because no violations of t&c's had been found. 2. Low and behold all apps would be running again so I could re-set up paid accounts for appengine apps, etc. 3. About 3 hours would pass and I'd see that each app would again be suspended. A little while later I started hitting the free plan thresholds and was unable to do anything about it. I also couldn't contact customers as I had no access to data store.
This repeated for a few days and seems to have resolved itself. No explanations from Google. No apologies.
As a result I have absolutely zero confidence in their competence at supporting cloud based businesses and am currently working my ass off to migrate away.
1. I would get an email saying the restrictions had been lifted because no violations of t&c's had been found. 2. Low and behold all apps would be running again so I could re-set up paid accounts for appengine apps, etc. 3. About 3 hours would pass and I'd see that each app would again be suspended. A little while later I started hitting the free plan thresholds and was unable to do anything about it. I also couldn't contact customers as I had no access to data store.
This repeated for a few days and seems to have resolved itself. No explanations from Google. No apologies.
As a result I have absolutely zero confidence in their competence at supporting cloud based businesses and am currently working my ass off to migrate away.
Background: Over the course of 3 years I have put together just shy of 20 projects which run on Google Cloud and recommended the ecosystem to many friends. Some of my projects are bigger than others and I’ve been happily paying as required without any problems. None of the projects are ‘exotic’ and shouldn’t come close to violating Google’s terms and conditions.
Queue Google-shock: Yesterday evening I checked on the status of my apps, as is my habit, and had the unpleasant shock of seeing all but two of my projects sporting a red “Suspended for abuse” tag. I ran a couple of tests on the suspended projects and discovered that:
1) Each projects’ compute engine instances had been terminated 2) My billing account had been closed 3) I was given an “unauthorised” message for https://appengine.google.com/ (usually I’d get a list of the app engine apps) 4) I could not access the settings for any apps with the supervisor log in - effectively tying my hands when it comes to notifying customers of the issues, or moving data to another cloud service provider
As I cannot access logs and therefore am unable to determine what might have triggered this suspension. I didn’t get any warning that this suspension might happen, or notice when it did. A few hours after my discovery I received an email saying I had to verify my identity via a Google Wallet link in which you send off a passport copy and utility bill (which I’ve done). I managed to have a conversation with Google Wallet today and they have confirmed it’s not an issue with them and that my account is in good standing. I’ve sent off many a request for information to Google Cloud, and filled in the “Request an appeal” box but nothing has happened. Stuck.
This post is to serve as a warning, however I’d be curious to know if any others in the HN community have experience the same problems with Google, and how they went about solving it?