Google One hasn't been around for close to a year yet so I assume you were using Google Drive specifically before Google One was officially released? My experience was the opposite of this and because of this experience, I refuse to pay for any Google services moving forward.
A lot of people here have commented about their mistrust in Google and won't use this service. I thought I'd add my two cents base on actual experience with using Google One.
I signed up the day Google One became available since I had been looking for a cloud storage solution. I downloaded their uploader client and began backing up my files. I am sure the fact that it took over two weeks was a mix of my own ISP upload speed and maybe some limitation on how much the client could handle in terms of uploading files (I had just over half a TB to back up).
That said, the speed wasn't what bothered me. What bothered me was the stupid client kept throwing me errors constantly telling me it couldn't upload certain files (always random) and although it gave me an option to retry, I could click retry a dozen times and it wouldn't matter, it'd simply fail over and over again. My only option at this point was to skip uploading this file. If this had been a few files, that wouldn't be an issue except this was easily hundreds of files with no easy way to keep track of what successfully uploaded and what didn't.
Worse, each time it failed, it interrupted whatever I was doing to pop up a notification with the expectation of me having to select retry or skip. This was insanely annoying. I could be doing something and a notification would pop up and unless I respond, it would just sit there. Sometimes I'd be doing something and the notification would interrupt what I am doing midflow. Needless to say this was an abysmal experience.
I then tried contacting support wanting a refund and to simply cancel. First I tried chat which connected relatively fast but it was obvious the person I talked to didn't know what they were talking about. I then did phone support. To their credit they called me back within an hour though it hung up on me shortly after picking up so I then had to get them to call again and there goes another hour.
Eventually, I did get to talk to a human being but felt I was talking to someone who had very little knowledge about how anything worked. I had to get the case escalated to get the service cancelled since the department that handled that had no direct support.
After waiting about a week, I contacted support again and went through the whole motion all the while finding out it seems like the case wasn't properly escalated. Waited several more days and had to contact support again. It had to be escalated again.
During this whole ordeal, I had already stopped the client, uninstalled it, and removed any files I had uploaded.
After about another week, one day suddenly I accessed my Gmail to find a glaring message at the top that read something to the effect of me being over my storage limit and will soon be unable to receive any emails. I was pissed.
At this point they didn't contact me at all, I haven't seen any refund come through, but my access to Google One was gone so I assumed I was cancelled. But if I deleted all the files I previously uploaded, how could I be over the limit?
The only conclusion I could come up with was any photos I took on my Pixel (which came with unlimited photo storage) somehow was being read as non-Pixel photos so my photo storage blew up. I had to forcibly set it to convert all the images to the format that Google would allow that wouldn't be used against my storage space and eventually after like 2-3 hours my Gmail no longer had that glaring message that I may not receive messages due to being over my storage limit.
Now I'm painfully aware I probably could have backed up all my photos and delete them off Google Photos at this point but I was so exhausted and angry that I just took the path of least resistance here. Eventually the refund came through several days later but this was when I genuinely started to hate Google for the first time.
Hope this helps anyone on the fence about paying for Google One, especially with the expectation that you'll get support as if that'll be helpful.
I ended up going with a different cloud storage. World of difference. Never going to trust Google for anything like this ever again.
In most cases I’ve personally seen, it’s offered but it requires additional payment. The employer pays a fixed cost towards your benefits and any plan you select that goes over, including for additional dependents, require extra pay.
Not OP but Google does offer support for their paid products. With something like gmail, you might be extremely limited to getting help if you can reach a Googler. Worse case you can purchase one of their paid products in an attempt to reach a human being but I don’t know if that will help at all. Probably not.
You can use Google Voice/Hangout for all their features without Fi So is there an advantage to paying for Fi otherwise that I am missing? The cost for the amount of data I use would far outweigh any benefits I can see here unless there are features you get with Fi for Voice/Hangout that I don’t know about.
With Fi, you can still use hangouts for normal SMS, which they removed for non-Fi users last year (around the same time they removed merged conversations).
Right now, all my SMS/MMS go through hangouts, and then down to whatever devices I want, which is great since I can use hangouts on my work phone, from the computer, etc, and all my texts still come and go from the same phone number.
Don’t. As someone who recently tried Google One out and had to deal with their support repeatedly during my first month as a Google One subscriber, it’s abysmal. I eventually cancelled and left. The process somehow also screwed up my account and made everything a mess. The whole ordeal basically made me want to never pay Google for anything ever again.
Whales. People with huge amounts of disposable income. People who spend a lot. People who have a giant size portfolio. Etc. It's a term I've seen used in a number of different context but always eluding to someone with a ton of money.
I would agree if any of those applies but I almost never post anything. I post maybe a dozen times in a year on my FB, and everyone on my friends list should know who I am rather than report me (my feed shouldn't be public).
That said, whoever tried to reset my password didn't succeed as far as I know. My name is quite common so I doubt it comes off as a fake name. My account is old, so I can't imagine the reason being flagged for misrepresentation or impersonation, especially since I don't even proactively post stuff.
I use FB mainly to connect to chat on messenger, follow up on my news feed, and connect to some accounts that uses FB login. Nothing in recent memory other than adding my phone for two step verification could have possibly trigger this but could be something I am over looking.
At this point I just want to know how long this is going to continue. Thanks for the heads up though.
I can't say how long it will continue or if they will restore your account.
Facebook has no tech support phone number. So you can't call them and ask.
I have a real name that is shared with 300+ men in the USA. Have firstnamelastname at gmail.com and they give that address to people who write me instead. They forget the letters and numbers. They even try to reset my password and sign me up to different services. I use a different email for Facebook. If you have an email like that, possibly one of them claimed it was their email and Facebook account and tried a password reset and then filed a claim the account was hacked.
