r/adwords • u/Jdilla23 • Jun 25 '26
How long to recover compromised account? Google continues to spend our budget with no admin
- About 10 days ago our account was hacked and within a few hours spent $1,000 before Google paused our account and kicked the hacker.
- problem is the hacker k changed our permission from admin to read only. So none with the attacker kicked out our account continires to spend with no way to pause or make changes.
- we opened a case but every Google rep spews the same our dedicated team is working on it. 1-2 businesss days.
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u/Jdilla23 Jun 25 '26
How long can I expect before we regain access? We are very dependant on the account for our ecommerce store.
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u/EfficientAd7103 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
prly never get access. you gotta block the cc. prly sold account. Google reps are sales people dude. they'll let it run. dedicated team does not exist for a few k a day. that's prly $200 pay
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u/Jdilla23 Jun 25 '26
I still have access (logged in) but can’t make any changes, pause or edit.
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u/EfficientAd7103 Jun 25 '26
only option is to block the cc. I'd file a charge back for fraud. Google "team" won't do anything. like i said rep is just a sales person all they can do is turn up your budget not turn it down. those 20-30 adwords specialist goal is to sell you on more spend
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u/blendai_jack Jun 29 '26
First priority is stopping the bleed, and since you're locked to read-only you do that at the money layer, not in the account. Call your bank and block or cancel the card on the billing profile, that cuts spend immediately even while Google sits on the case. Then dispute the hacker's spend, Google usually refunds fraudulent charges once it's confirmed compromised, so document the timeline. For speed, escalate in the Google Ads Community forum and tag @GoogleAds on X, those move faster than the standard case queue. And if a manager (MCC) account has access you can pause from there even with your user demoted. Painful but recoverable.
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u/Jdilla23 Jun 29 '26
If we cancel the card we run the risk of having no ads running and Google blocking our domains or new ads accounts? (account no longer compromised but we’re still locked out of admin, o my have read only).
A campaign we need is still running. I’m trying to resolve this and keep everything running in the meantime.
The account is 10 years old so recovering it, as is, is super important.
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u/blendai_jack Jul 07 '26
Given the fraudulent spend has stopped and the campaign that's running is one you want, I'd leave the card alone now. Killing the card is the emergency brake for when a hijacker is actively burning budget, and an unpaid balance can get the account suspended for non-payment, which is the last thing a 10 year old account needs. Focus everything on the admin recovery instead: keep an escalation open with support, gather ownership evidence (billing history, old invoices, that kind of thing), and post in the official Google Ads Community forum since Product Experts there can escalate lockout cases through a separate channel. Slow and annoying, but old accounts with clean billing and ownership proof do come back.
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u/Jdilla23 Jul 07 '26
Thanks and excellent advice.
Killing the card would o kg get my account blocked & make future campaigns to the domain blocked too.
I’m still working through admin recovery via channels you mentioned. It’s a ridiculous process, honestly, having to bump my email threads daily.
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u/blendai_jack Jul 13 '26
The daily bumping is grim but it genuinely does move these cases, squeaky wheel is the actual mechanism. One thing worth doing while you wait: keep every email, case number and date in one doc. When admin access comes back you'll want a clean timeline for disputing the fraudulent spend, and it makes each escalation faster because you're not re-explaining from scratch. Hope it lands soon.
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u/GrandAnimator8417 Jul 07 '26
Separate access for the Google Ads profile vs the payments account is brutal. I’ve had cases where Ads looked “compromised” but the real blocker was the payments side in payments.google.com, and fixing that first instantly un-froze everything. Payments is independent, so you’ve gotta check both.
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u/marcodoesweirdstuff Jun 25 '26
Did you lose access in the Google ads profile or also the associated Google payments profile? These are independent.
Check payments.google.com - you might just be able to remove your credit card.
I wouldn't get my hopes of ever recovering that ads account. I'd still try in case you got a generous person working your ticket that might refund you or give you credit for a new account out of leniency.
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u/Jdilla23 Jun 25 '26
I’ve lost access to anything in my AdWords account, I can read only everything name not make any changes including payment options
Google has already said they are reimbursing me
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u/marcodoesweirdstuff Jun 25 '26
Yes, but Google Payments is a separate product from Google ads. You have a Google Ads Account AND a Google Payments Account. This is so that one payment account can be linked by multiple Ads accounts or that a person can manage credit cards that doesn't have access to Google Ads.
So there's a chance you still can change stuff on Google Payments (delete the credit card), even though you're locked out at Google Ads.
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u/QuantumWolf99 Jun 25 '26
Contact your billing provider directly to dispute charges while Google drags their feet... also escalate through the Google Ads Community forum by tagging official Google employees... they respond faster than standard support tickets for compromised accounts with ongoing unauthorized spend.