Locked out of my GCP account for 3 days, still charged, can't redirect domain
by lifeoflee | 2026-01-23 12:03:19+00:00
On January 19, 2026, my Google Account was disabled for suspected "policy violation and potential bot activity." Within hours, my Google Cloud Platform account—hosting a community traffic monitoring website serving 17,000+ users—became completely inaccessible.
I immediately submitted an appeal. Twenty-two hours later, Google sent an email confirming my appeal was approved and access was restored. But when I tried to log in, I hit an error that persists across every device, browser, and method: "Too many failed attempts - try again in a few hours."
That was three days ago.
What I've done:

Submitted account recovery form
Filed GCP Account and Resource Recovery Request (officially promised 48-hour response)
Contacted Google Cloud Support (they closed my case saying account recovery is "out of scope")
Escalated through Google Maps Platform (P1 priority, but they can't help either)
Posted on Google Cloud Community forums

The real problem isn't just the lockout. It's the cascading damage.
I made a mistake: I registered the domain (mineheadtraffic.com) on the same GCP Cloud Domains account. I have a backup system running on a different domain, getting 5% of my usual traffic, because I can't redirect the original domain. I'm completely locked out of that DNS control too.
So I'm in this situation:

My primary domain is unreachable
95% of my regular users can't find the service
The backup site exists but people don't know about it
All because I trusted Google enough to use their domain registrar

But here's what really stings: I still can't see what Google is charging me for it.
I have zero visibility into:

What services are running
What the current bill is
When the next invoice will hit
Whether I can dispute charges on an account I cannot access
What happens after the December 15 deletion deadline

Google is billing a locked account. They have complete visibility. I have none. And there's no support path to fix it.
The support structure is broken.

Premium Support ($15k+/month) explicitly doesn't cover account recovery
Standard support requires account access (which I don't have)
Free users have no escalation path
Google One ($1.99/month) is the only way to reach a human
When you reach a human, they tell you it's "out of scope"

It's a perfect catch-22. Every department passes responsibility. Cloud Support says it's not their problem. Billing Support says it's not their problem. Even the Maps Platform team (who were actually helpful and moved me to P1) can't help because account recovery is handled by a department that doesn't have a public escalation path.
The part that feels like theft: Google locked me out of my own infrastructure, my own domain, my own billing account, and continues charging me with zero accountability. They don't have to tell me what it costs. I can't stop it. I can't dispute it. I'm just... stuck paying for something I can't see or control.
I'm a paying customer of a company that claims to have world-class support. I'm not asking for special treatment. I'm asking: how is this acceptable?
This shouldn't be possible. No company the size of Google should have a support architecture where locking out a paying customer results in zero escalation path and continuous billing with zero visibility.
If this is working as designed, that's a problem. If it's a gap, it needs to be public knowledge so others don't make my mistake.