When I was a Google employee, I helped a friend go through their account lockout issue. It was because they used MFA to a phone number, but later changed their phone number, which made them unable to login. He tried so many times that some velocity threshold was hit, further limiting the possibilities.
My friend needed to respond to some interview scheduling, so, it was a stressful situation.
Part of the problem was that it was hard for my friend to find a way to create a support ticket. He did in the end and got in a line of communication via an alternate email.
There were many miscommunications from both my friend and the support agent. While Account Recovery or even basic identification are hard to navigate for technically-minded folks, it's even more challenging for non-technical folks, including the support agent.
In the end, I got in touch with the support person, helped translate what they wanted to know to my friend, and likewise, translated what my friend was saying in a way that the support person could understand.
I don't think I was able to see the support ticket itself, because of PII restrictions. In the end, my friend was able to restore service. I doubt he'd have been able to without my support in time to respond to the interview scheduling.
This was more or less my exact same scenario as well. MFA with an old phone number makes account recovery from Google about close to impossible. I had a friend who worked at Google that was able to create a support ticket for me. Before talking to my friend, every single customer service support rep more or less confirmed that I was completely SOL.
It is the reason why I have transitioned from Google.
My friend needed to respond to some interview scheduling, so, it was a stressful situation.
Part of the problem was that it was hard for my friend to find a way to create a support ticket. He did in the end and got in a line of communication via an alternate email.
There were many miscommunications from both my friend and the support agent. While Account Recovery or even basic identification are hard to navigate for technically-minded folks, it's even more challenging for non-technical folks, including the support agent.
In the end, I got in touch with the support person, helped translate what they wanted to know to my friend, and likewise, translated what my friend was saying in a way that the support person could understand.
I don't think I was able to see the support ticket itself, because of PII restrictions. In the end, my friend was able to restore service. I doubt he'd have been able to without my support in time to respond to the interview scheduling.
It still took a couple of days.