Google age verification??
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I just got an email that says my gmail settings have been changed because Google couldn't verify that I'm an adult. As far as I can tell, this isn't a scam. (And some of might not be bad, it says they won't show me personalized ads! hah!)
But the disconcerting thing is that options to verify that I'm an adult:
- upload an image of a gov't ID
- upload a selfie (and let them verify my face with their creepy AI tools)
- Give them my credit card (??)
- Allow them to check online data associated with my email address
Oh and apparently if you don't verify, one possible result is that your account will be disabled within 14 days and subsequently deleted after 30 days, along with your account information.
Umm.... that could be a problem...
Has anyone else seen this?
By they way, here's one link about it: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1333913?hl=en
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Smells like a scam to me. They are getting pretty clever.
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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Smells like a scam to me. They are getting pretty clever.
@wtg thanks for this Tom’s Guide article. Although I wish they mentioned this scam in particular.
The first thing I did when I saw the email was search for “Google age verification.” And it seems like that’s a legitimate activity that Google does, it’s connected to protecting children from harmful websites I guess? But I also read something that said, basically, yes, this is a thing Google does, but it’s also something that scammers know that Google does and so the email I got could be a legit email alert, or it could be a scam mimicking that. Like those Amazon scam emails,which look like they come from Amazon but actually don’t.
So at that point, I decided that this was not something to deal with at night when I’m starting to get sleepy.
I remember reading somewhere that the best way to avoid getting scammed is to slow down and talk to someone else, so I posted here. 
I am going to look at it again later today. What a hassle.
It seems like if this is legit, going into my Google account, maybe from a completely different browser, and even from a different device, and not from this email, I should see it as an alert in my account? I wonder what else I can do…
The thing that’s troublesome is that it looks like there are two kinds of alerts, one that puts restrictions on the account (child-restrictions) and another that says if they can’t verify your age, they can’t verify that you’re authorized to have an account at all, and after 14 days, they cancel the account. Since I have a lot of other accounts tied to my gmail, that would be a massive problem…
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For the record, here are two screenshots of the emails.
If you click on the email address, it looks like this. Note that it’s the same as what the Tom’s Guide article describes…. But isn’t that also what the email address would be if it was a legit email? So this will be one of the things that I’ll look into later today.
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@AdagioM said in Google age verification??:
I certainly wouldn’t give them a picture of my ID, nor my credit card.
+1
@wtg said in Google age verification??:
@AdagioM said in Google age verification??:
I certainly wouldn’t give them a picture of my ID, nor my credit card.
+1
This. Even if it is a legit email from Google, I don’t want to upload a photo of my ID, nor a photo of myself. Nor share my CC details.
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I’d ignore it and see what happens.
@Steve-Miller the trouble with that approach is, if it’s legit and they cancel my account completely, that would be a nightmare!
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I don't think it's legit. They are using fear of losing the account to get you to pony up your ID and credit card.
Scammers are getting very good at this. I posted about this incident a while ago:
https://sammitrovic.com/infosec/gmail-account-takeover-super-realistic-ai-scam-call/
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I think it's highly unlikely that they would delete your account if you fail to respond to this first email.
I think Google Takeout lets you download all of your data from your account. You might look into that if you're nervous about ignoring the request for age verification.
And this article in ZDNet talks about age verification.
From the article: If you want to go ahead and verify your age through Google Services before you hit any walls, you can use this link.
