[peter19]

Good move John on the O365. Even just having the availability of apps across all platforms is great on the move.

Also delete the temporary internet files and cookies before you leave the public computer desk..

[WillieWelsh]

I use O365 too, small cost but 100% reliability thus far – about 18 months. Gmail for personal though.

[DavidGordon10]

Happened to me again today, twice, when working in my office in France.

“To keep our systems healthy, Google has temporarily disabled your account. This primarily occurs when we detect unusually high levels of activity on your account.”

Of course there are high levels of activity. I have a lot of work to do. None of the activity is “abnormal” except perhaps an email to some 40 addresses in Latin America yesterday.

I am in process of moving all our emails over to Google for business (https://apps.google.co.uk/) but if that starts doing the same, then it is off to another provider. Does anyone have experience of https://apps.google.co.uk/ ?

[JohnHarper]

David, we had exactly the same problems with Google business of lock out.

Office 365 has been robust and reliable with not a single lock out since we started using it, as a company now more than two years ago and my personal account has been there for over a year. I keep waiting for it to go wrong but so far it’s faultless. We have about 100 company accounts so a reasonable amount of testing has gone on and no failures.

[MartynSinclair]

Hi David

I rely on techie support and following continual email problems about 6 months ago, I moved from POP to IMAP. One of the issues we had with POP accounts was if the wrong password was used too many times, or you tried to set up a mailbox on a new machine, it would lock the account until a change of password.

I was moved to IMAP, via using google mail. One of the benefits was if the account became locked, it would come unlocked after 30 minutes to 1 hour without a new password.

Comparing Outlook to Googlemail, I prefer the Googlemail platform as it is far easier and very user friendly.

This last trip to Thailand also resulted in my one solitary Apple product failing and what I thought was a simple reinstall from the cloud onto a new product has only just been completed after a 2 hour stop at the genus bar at a UK Apple store.

IT continues to frustrate me, I back up as told, I have security as told, but the flippin thing still fails….

In order to assist, I have started using a new kind of back,…..picking up the phone more!

[TiredOldHack]

I use an obscure and very techie email provider called Fastmail and my email addresses end in .fm so I have to do some explaining…

“Yes, it’s Eff Em, Foxtrot Mike, not Dot Com…. What does it stand for? Oh, Federated States of Micronesia. Yes, seriously.”

Its premium paid-for service is just magic.

[Flightlevel]

Like the problems banks have when cards are used in new countries & they require to be told, surely the internet providers can do the same while you are at base before travelling? It should however not be required because they have the reference number of your computer & if it was stolen & used overseas how does the thief know passwords unless you leave them live on your pc?

[LuganoPirate]

I rely on the phone and WhatsApp. Much easier and less hassle. We all seem to be afraid to call people nowadays and a simple request for scheduling a meeting often turns into a monumental conversation spanning 20 mails (not to mention all the cc’s) and everyone expects a response within minutes as if we’re constantly glued to our computers and have no other life.

Me, I call the person or their secretary and it’s either arranged in seconds or they call me back. Couldn’t be easier really!

For me the only use for email is for sending or receiving documents, not for conversations.

[WillieWelsh]

I think I’m the latest gmail vicitim.

My account is locked, my registered phone number is insufficient proof of my ID and my alternate email the same. The message was to come back when I had something that could be verified.

At least it’s only minor personal stuff but still very annoying.

[DavidGordon10]

Sympathy WW

My worry is that I am about to move all our (~10) email accounts to the paid-for gmail service, but it seems that it does not remove the risk.

[MartynSinclair]

I’m just in the process of bringing my IT back onshore and the first thing the IT company recommended and I have approved is moving from Gmail to Office 365…

[PeterCoultas]

Currently in Sweden where my hotmail sent the same daft messages “unusual usage”. What business is it of theirs – why inconvenience those who maintain good password security for those that don’t. Luckily could get an entry via my gmail account.
If these unusual usage notices have any real reason other than to irritate, then all internet providers should be equally careful? It is the same syndrome as small bottles of liquid at checkin – pretend you are doing something useful when you are not.
Rant over.

[JayLibove]

My father (US resident, personal Gmail user) landed in Barcelona last week to visit me. We accessed the Google Play Store on his own mobile phone (connected to the Wi-Fi in my home in Barcelona), authenticated, added a new credit card (because he hadn’t made a Google Play purchase in ages), the Play Store validated the credit card successfuly, and then when we went to purchase something (USD$12) Google locked out the entire account for “unusual activity”.
The self-service request-Google-please-please-pretty-please-recover-my-account-that-you-took-away-from-me webpage didn’t work; at the end of the process it pretty much just said “No” (After asking questions which almost nobody could answer, such as when the account was created) and simply returned to the beginning; I found another form – took a bit of digging – which more-or-less was “This is who I claim to be”, “Here is a blank field to type something about what happened”, submit into the Google Black Hole and hope dearly that Google re-thinks their automated decision making which blocked Dad out of his email, mobile app store, calendar, and other things.

Thanks to assistance from a Google insider who I happen to know – but most people don’t have access to this – we got the account back in about one day.

Google’s processes absolutely need to be made better, because even “just” for “personal” email uses, where today that email may relate to on-line banking, bill payment, family’s principal means of contacting a traveler, etc, a Google account lockout can be quite damaging.

All that being said, the only useful advice that I am able to offer out of this dreadful experience is:
* turn on 2-factor
* add recovery emails and recovery phone numbers

Dad had neither of those configured. We think, from our conversations with the Google insiders, that this could have made it easier to recover the account. We think.

If you’ve not got all of those already set up on your Google account, do it now.

[WillieWelsh]

As a victim of this earlier in the week and after a bit of research I registered my own domain name with a company based in London called Easily – and I have to say it was. We then set up with their help mail boxes for Mrs WW and me and all is now functioning perfectly. Cost was very reasonable and it’s robust and feeding into the same version of Outlook as my work mail does.

No more Google for me.

[Ardmarnoch]

Something to consider to solve this issue, may be to address several problem with one solution.
Elsewhere on BT there have been long discussions on the use of a VPN to access UK entertainment (iPlayer etc.) whilst overseas.
I use a quality DrayTek broadband router (DrayTek 2650n – supports fibre directly) in my UK home, which has a dedicated VPN processor, to ensure top performance for video streaming on these services.

I log into the same VPN when travelling to solve two issues:
1. Security. Using open wireless connections is incredibly insecure when travelling. When using them, if you connect to your UK VPN you do so over a very secure encrypted “tunnel” right from your laptop/phone/tablet. Especially important if you do online banking or financial transactions.
2. Using the same VPN makes your UK mail servers think you are at home in the UK, so no email problems – and you mail is kept far more secure.

OK, a DrayTek sets you back say up to £300, (or a lot less on eBay). However you are in complete control and you know what is happening.
Alternatively, you can pay a monthly charge for a VPN service, however the performance is usually rather variable, the security can be suspect and if you plan to use this for several years – these services cost you a lot more.
These routers also allow you secure access to your own data or media files on your home network when on the road.
I could not do without it now.

[Author]

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