Google doesn’t think my account has been hacked or that I have lost control. They seem to genuinely believe that i am not authorized to pay with this “instrument” and that my intentions is fraud. This all started with a neglected Google Play account. So neglected that i never replaced the credit card on file and the one there had been reported lost in 2013. I logged into the account to buy a $4 app for some android cameras i was playing with. I purchased the app without error or incident 2 days ago. . .

I use the app with the cameras problem free for 2 days.  In the end, one camera was a little glitchy, so i decided to restore it to factory settings and set it up new.  This is when it all went very bad.  When i logged into the store i couldn’t find the purchased app in my account and it wouldn’t let me buy it again. It was giving me strange errors about lack of internet or an error code: OR-IEH-01.  It was at this point that i noticed the email about payment information being needed.  I never received any emails about the purchase being canceled (apparently it was).  This is when i decided to call customer service.  The support agent interrupted me repeatedly, imparted the same explanation over and over, all the while asking me to submit a credit card statement from 2013. The incompetence was staggering.  I did some reading about reports of a massive Google outage today.  The agent insisted that i had added the lost card to the account the day of the purchase, the same day that i received the request for additional documents. This claim is ridiculous at every point, but not as ridiculous as google expecting me to have the same credit card number forever. Did the outage contribute to the problem?  i don’t know, but across Google’s ecosystem there has been failure today.  I even tried to create a new google play account with all new info.  It did not work, something is broken.  I jumped though the first set of rings and submitted my current credit card and state ID card.  The rejection came swift.  23 hours under their 24 hour ETA came this email. . .

I feel at this point i need to provide some context.  Was this a new account?  was it active?  I have used my google account almost daily since 2009.  In fact, i used their own google pay service for years until they changed their policy to require delivery of digital content thought their platform only. I charged clients weekly, and google deposited that into my bank account.  For years without a single charge back.  I used many of their experimental products. I even used Google+ and i still don’t know how i am going to replace fusion tables.

What now?  now i gather the remaining documents and try again?  what are our options with gatekeepers like these?  I’m still locked out of the play store and my google login is behaving erratically.  (gmail delays on both incoming and outgoing)