Is Google Drive “Scamming” People?
I Think So.
I Google Drive “Scamming” People?
Why do I say this? Why do I think the Google Drive is “scamming” people? I can give you one example. A personal example.
On my Google Drive, I have stored a lot of photos. They are a backup of the photos that are taken on my mobile phone. Now and then, Google will sync them with the Google Drive. So far no problem. It is nice that Google is doing this.
At least, when something happens, you always have a backup.
The Google Drive/Storage is also used by other Google Services. Great.
This also means that something like GMail is also using the same storage. Great.
But, There Is a Limit.
Of course, there is a limit. Otherwise, everyone starts using or abusing this service. So far I can agree with that. The limit that Google has set is 15 GB of free storage. If you want more, you can “buy” storage for a fixed amount per month.
Once you reach the end of your limit, in this case, when you reach 15 GB of storage, Google starts sending you notifications. Informing you that you have almost used up the free space. And if you want more space, you can buy it. And sometimes it will look like they are bothering you a lot. Just so you will buy more space. On a regular basis, you will get notifications.
They even start “threatening” you, that you will not be able to send out or receive any emails in Gmail. Unless you buy more space.
What Can You Do?
Of course, you can buy more space.
Or, you start cleaning up. Start removing old and not needed documents. You start cleaning up all your emails. You start looking at all the photos on your Google Drive, to see which can go or which are bad.
You are holding a big cleanup.
After spending several hours doing this, you finally go to your “BIN” and start emptying that one. As we all know or should know, things that are in your “BIN” are still counted in your disk space usage.
After emptying the “BIN”, your used storage still shows 15 Gb. How is this possible? You have already removed so much? There should be at least some free space.
I Also Tried The Following.
Then I tried the following.
I moved more than 2000 photos to a newly created account. On there it showed that I already had used 4–5 GB of space.
On the first account, I removed all the photos I had moved and also emptied the bin. There it also mentioned that I had permanently removed more than 2000 photos.
In principle, this would mean that I would have gained back 4–5 GB of free space. Right?
Wrong! When I checked the space on the first account, it still said that I was out of space and had 15 GB of used space. He? What is going on here? On my computer, when I move around 4–5 GB to an external drive, remove 4–5 GB of photos, and empty the Bin, I normally would gain back 4–5 GB of free space. But not with Google Drive.
At first I thought that maybe it needs time to process this. So I waited a few days.
Google Support?
After a few days, I still am out of space and still used 15 GB.
Then I tried to see if I could contact Google Support to see what was going on here. And you could guess it. You cannot contact them directly. They only gave you some “help”/” troubleshooting” tips to maybe solve the problem. And these tips/help, were not very helpful.
I saw that you could give some “Feedback”, so I did. Many days later, still no response and I am still out of space.
The only thing you keep on seeing, is the notification, you could BUY more space.
Closing.
What are my closing thoughts?
Well, I think you can guess that by now. I think Google is “Scamming” people and is only interested in you buying more space!
It is not all bad, what I think of Google. I like the other services they offer, and use them a lot. But this thing with the Google Drive is really very bad.
Give people back what they have a right to. Okay, this 15 GB is free, but then also makes it possible to use it properly. And don’t “force” anyone to buy something that you could get for free if your service is working correctly.
I silently hope that Google, or one of their employees, will read this and report this internally. So things can be fixed. Maybe other people have the same problem. Let me and others know this, so maybe then some action will be taken by Google.
But I think that this will not happen and Google will just ignore this. At least, others are aware of what is going on.
