There was a time when I had Google+. I barely ever used it for posting other than having this blog auto-post to it. In fact, the only real Google services I use on the daily is Gmail, Maps on occasion, Youtube, and anything associated with Google Play (Music, Games, Apps, etc). I actually used Google Play Games quite a bit to track stuff like achievements and what my friends were playing. Well, all that is gone now because Google decided to suspend my Google+ account a month ago. Here’s my story.
Without any warning, my Google+ account was suspended with no rhyme or reason. I didn’t get an email explaining why nor an email issuing a warning to remove anything that might have violated their terms and conditions. Nothing. When this happens, Google+ has a “handy” form you can fill out to issue a review of your page to get it looked at and hopefully unsuspended.
Just click the link and it takes you to a form. This is what it says at the top of the form:
While Google+ is a place to discuss many topics, our service is not ready to support the marketing of regulated products at this time. The offering, promotion, or sale of pharmaceuticals, alcohol, tobacco, fireworks, weapons, other controlled substances, or health/medical devices is not permitted. We may also remove content that offers or promotes the sale of substances that mimic the effects of illegal or regulated drugs. Discussion of gambling and gaming strategy is allowed, but the distribution of content that facilitates actual gambling, including online casinos, sports betting, or lotteries is not permitted.
If your Google+ profile or page has been suspended for violating our regulated product or service policy, please remove all offending content. Once you have ensured that you are in compliance with our policies, you can submit this appeal form. If your appeal is successful, we will restore your profile or page.
Please do not abuse this appeal process. If you use this form to appeal without ensuring that your profile or page is in compliance, you may lose the ability to use some or all features of Google+ and other Google services.
To my knowledge, everything I’ve ever posted has been on the up and up. After all, I mostly post about games and gadgets and a lot of it family friendly and tame. I decided to send a review request hoping that it would be looked at timely, at least within a week.
A few days go by and I hear nothing back from the Google+ team. This is after filling out the form daily hoping to speed up the process.
At this point, I’ve discovered that my Google Play Games is no longer working nor is it tracking any of my achievements anymore on the games I play. I hit up Google Play support on Twitter and they answer back immediately and I was also able to get a phone call from a really nice girl in their tech support department. After a few minutes of trying to figure out why Google Play Games wasn’t working, we come to discover it’s because Google Play Games is linked to Google+ and not Google Play. how stupid is that? So because my Google+ is suspended, I can’t use Google Play Games on that account.
Well now I’m desperate and fill out the review form a few more times. I even go through my entire Google+ page and delete every single post I’ve ever had on there (which was around 1500+ posts). There shouldn’t be anything on there anymore to violate their terms. After another week, I still have not heard back from Google+ support.
Guess what? I’m now into the 4th week of suspension. I have pretty much given up on ever having this account unsuspended and all I really want to do is have my Google Play Games shit back. I’ll probably hassle them and fill out the form some more, but I doubt it’ll ever get resolved.
Their Twitter account is just as bad as they never answer you back at all. I honestly don’t think anyone even works at Google+ support. It’s no wonder it’s a dead service and no one uses it. If you’re going to kill your service, the least you can do is separate Google Play Games from your stupid ass Google+ service and link it to where it belongs – WITH GOOGLE PLAY! I mean wouldn’t that make more sense??
Anyways, now I’m just rambling. I’ll just end it with this, Google+ sucks and their customer support is nonexistent. I know there are geniuses working at Google so why can’t they figure out that having GOOGLE PLAY GAMES linked to Google+ instead of GOOGLE PLAY is just really stupid.
The Gamer With Kids 
[…] is no secret that I dislike Google+. There was a point where I was using it and then for some unknown reason, my account was […]