Google Shmoogle Swindle
Buyer beware! Here’s a shaggy Google tale for anyone contemplating Google Help.
First, some backstory. I needed a professional email address for my new website on Squarespace. Email campaigns on Squarespace seem to be a great idea, because you can include neat features, like blogs and pictures. One thing Squarespace emphasized was the importance of using a professional email, which has the format UserName@DomainName.com. If you don’t use this for your newsletters, they claim, a good percentage of them will go into recipients’ Spam.
I’m a rational person, and bought the argument.
Squarespace doesn’t assign professional emails, but they’re connected to Google, which does. How hard could it be to sign into my Google account and apply for a new email address? I filled in my nice snappy user name, rteuk, followed by my domain name, RoselynTeukolsky.com. The new address I was striving for already had a ring to it, rteuk@RoselynTeukolsky.com, those soft Rs rolling off my tongue and into my imagination.
Of course, nothing in this world is free or easy, and I had to select a plan with Google to host my new email. Three choices: Personal at $7 a month, Business at $18 a month, and Premium at $$$. Of course, I went with Personal.
After filling in the signup form, I clicked on Next and got told I had an old Google account with rteuk as a user name, so I’d have to reapply, with a different user name. All of my settings were lost and I had to start again. Good grief. All I wanted was an email address. I duly banged out the same information, this time providing a different user name. I hit the Next button and waited.
Here’s the message I received: Alert! Someone recently tried to create an account using this domain name. You will need to verify ownership of RoselynTeukolsky.com.
Insert favorite blood cliché here, like blood pounded in my head. (Blood boiled, Spat blood, Screamed bloody murder.)
Next came the set of instructions from hell, leading me into the weeds of Squarespace, to create a new DNS report.
Reader, I tried. I consider myself a computer-savvy person, and plunged in. I found the Domains tab and the Custom Records setting. I entered aspmx.google.com as the destination, and TTL (Time to live) 3600. I entered the Label/Host/Data and my ID number.
And then I got snagged in the total gibberish of the MX records.
Defeated, I turned to Google Help, their 24/7 offer promising a chat with a “real person.”
My chat-person said they were delighted to help me. I poured out my heart, describing my goal and the problems so far. The person advised me to fill in another form, just like the ones that had gotten me into trouble. Oy, another request to use the RoselynTeukolsky.com domain name. I could just imagine it—hacker at large—cops hammering on my door.
The chat led nowhere.
Google now offered me “Real Expert” help for $55 per month(!) They had me by the throat. Of course I agreed. I was SO ready to get this done. Still having some marbles in my head, I reckoned I could cancel the charges at any time.
Unexpectedly, I found that I had signed up for an outfit called Just Answer. I was assigned an expert, Jason, who immediately asked if I would accept a $39 charge for him to troubleshoot for me! What about the $55 per month I just agreed to? What was that for? When I hit Reply to say no, the charge went through anyway. Jason proceeded to give me more hellish instructions, then asked for an immediate review of his performance. While I was staring at my phone screen—cross-eyed—Jason dumped me! Good riddance. This was definitely a case of personality incompatibility.
I then acquired a new expert, Michelle, who had a better bedside manner, which I needed, because I was green around the gills.
Michelle briskly offered to take control of my computer and do what needed to be done to get me a professional email with Google! After another $39 blew past my face, I saw a cursor other than my own, frolicking on my computer screen like a gazelle, hopping back into the weeds, overwriting my DNS info, and, on the way, casually signing me up for Google’s Business plan for $18 per month! Seriously. To be fair, Michelle paused briefly to ask if it was OK, but at that stage, I wasn’t saying no to anything. All marbles in my head were rolling down the hill. I was committed to Michelle, ready to give her my firstborn child.
It’s a day later, and I’m back to moderate equilibrium. I’m Zen. It happened. I’m a writer and it’s a good story.
I just received a message at my golden new email address. The subject line is: Go dream it with Google Workspace. We’ll help… The Google Workspace team.