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Forum Discussion
My account was deleted after being removed from Business team
A couple weeks ago someone from another company invited me to their Dropbox Business Team. I clicked on the link, but I didn't realize it was going to add me to their group so I contacted Dropbox abo...
796973635 wrote:
... was told to have the Team Admin follow steps to change my account to a basic account. I sent the Team Admin (person from another company) the instructions and I got an email saying my account was deleted.
If your account was deleted, then the team admin removed you from the team without following the steps to convert your account back to an individual account. Only the team admin will be able to restore your account, but they only have seven days to do it from the date of deletion before the account can no longer be restored. Once your account has been restored, the team admin will need to convert it.
Please note that Dropbox cannot recover your account in this situation. Only the team admin will be able to do it.
Rich
Super User II
Super User II
hg56lu wrote:
... a company i was freelancing for ask me to join their team which i did under the same email address. ... surely they cant delete my whole account?
Yes, they can.
When you join a Business team account, you merge your account into their team account, effectively making them the owner of your account. In order to leave the team, the team admin needs to convert your account back to an individual account. If they just remove you from the team instead, the account is deleted.
You need to contact the team admin and ask them to restore your account. Act quickly because they only have seven days from the date of deletion to restore your account. Once restored, they need to convert your account to an individual account.
The company found my account but couldnt restore it, however they sent me a link so i could access all of my files. The problem now is that this link is accessible to them, they can access my personal files. Im sure where it was linked the system said that my personal files were only accessible by me. This is not good
- Nancy
Dropbox Staff
hg56lu, it sounds like, upon deleting your Dropbox account, the admin transferred your files to themselves or another member of the team.
You can ask them to create a shared folder instead, add your files within, and share it with your new Dropbox account. After that, you can move your files out of that folder, and they won’t be able to access them any longer.
- I’m downloading the files then will delete them and close my account. There’s no reason why they should’ve been able to gain access to my files. They didn’t have permissions to view them while I was linked with their team so why are they able to now? They have access to competitors files, it’s a massive breach of privacy
- Rich
hg56lu wrote:
There’s no reason why they should’ve been able to gain access to my files. They didn’t have permissions to view them while I was linked with their team so why are they able to now?They did, sort of.
When you're part of a Business team, the team admin always has the ability to sign in as any other account that's part of the team, meaning they always had the ability to access anything in your account if they wanted to.
There are two options when joining a team. The first is to use your existing account to join the team. The second is to create a new account, your existing files are moved into the new account and you join the team with your existing account. This keeps all of your files completely separate in a new account and no one can access them.
The first option, which is what you seem to have chosen, merges your account into the team account. In doing so, the team now owns your account. Your files are kept separate and no other team user can see them, but the team admin has the ability to sign in as you if needed. In this manner, they always had access to your files. They just might not have taken advantage of it.
The issue then comes when you're being removed from the team. The account isn't yours, so if you're removed from the team the account is simply deleted, and the team admin can assign the content of your account (which they own) to another user. If they had converted the account back to an individual, then your files would have been exactly how you left them and no one would have had access, not even the team admin.
They have access to competitors files, it’s a massive breach of privacyThis comes down to not understanding the options that were available when joining the team. If you had chosen to move your files to a new account when you joined the team, they would never have had access. I don't mean to say that the fault is yours, just that there's not a clear understanding of the options you were selecting, and that's on Dropbox for not making it completely clear. This has been an issue for a while.
