I have spent two days working on a hacked gmail account and have to tell you it's been a nightmare! Just when you think you have it figured out, they noodle back in and figure out something new. AND Google is very little help. They give you a form to fill out of the most impossible questions. Could you name the exact date you opened your gmail account? Could you name the person that invited you to gmail and provide their email address??? They don't even provide a place for you to explain what you know about the hacker or explain why you think your account has been taken... Insane!

I filled out the form once and provided only a little bit of information because it was going to require calling people to find out more - that was rejected. So I filled it out again and gave more info and guessed at as much as possible and finally got the account back. That said, the hacker still had email being directed to an alternate address. I had sent a screen capture of my iphone settings to help out my colleague who was having the problems, but think that got sent to the spammer. Had to call my mail host to see what they could do with that information and as I was on the phone with them, I believe the spammers had compromised one of my company accounts. Arrrrggggg!

I now have to change every password for every user to be sure that nothing is able to be hacked - and that means on 10 computers, 10 iphones and etc. So much work is needed to correct this situation and it sucks that there is no consequence to the person who is causing all of this pain. SUCKS! SUCKS! SUCKS!

So, after all of this... I'm thinking I may drop gmail and use my own server. Seems like a much more secure option... anyone else had experience with this?