Account Erased after Upgrade

[AccountUpgrade123]

Hi all, 

I have had a dropbox account for my business email for awhile now. I on August 6, 2024 I upgraded my account to the "Dropbox Plus" level, and was charged the $11.99 for the monthly subscription. I tried to login to the account today and was met with my password not working. I reset the password, logged into the account and all of my files are gone, all of my shared folders are gone, and my account has been reset to "basic" and so I cannot contact any kind of support. 

Has anyone run into any issues like this before? This is a serious problem for my job.

Thanks for any help.

[Rich · Accepted solution]

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@AccountUpgrade123 wrote:

I reset the password, logged into the account and all of my files are gone, all of my shared folders are gone, and my account has been reset to "basic"...

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You likely have more than one account and aren't logged in to the one that was upgraded. Use the credit card charge lookup tool to identify the account that you're paying for and verify it's the correct account.

[AccountUpgrade234]

Hi Rich, 

I am the same user as AccountUpgrade234. I had to delete that account to fix the issue outlined in this post.

You were indeed right. It is a very weird situation. Email address 1 was invited to a dropbox folder that I should not have been invited to. Dropbox asked me to create a "personal" account which is when I used the email address 2. The admin of the folder realized email address 1 should not have been added to the folder and then somehow deleted the account associated with the account. 

My original account with all of the folders and files was now associated with email address 2. 

Thanks for your input. I felt I should respond in case other people run into a similar issue.

[rothmcroth]

I'm having a similar issue. I haven't logged into dropbox for a very long time. When I tried to log in, it just created a new account which is blank. 

What happened to my old account? How can I access it? I've never had a paid account on here, so can't look up a credit card.

[Rich]

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@rothmcroth wrote:

I'm having a similar issue. I haven't logged into dropbox for a very long time. When I tried to log in, it just created a new account which is blank.

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How long ago did you last access the account? If the account was idle for more than a year then it would have been deleted due to inactivity, and you're now signed in to a new, empty account.

Unfortunately, once an account has been deleted, it's not possible to recover the account or the files that it once contained.

[bufordr1]

Hi Rich,

My account has apparently been deleted, but I actually had been in it this year. I had a Basic that apparently was upgraded due to storage increase (I guess) - I was billed $22/mo beginning last December. I accessed it to confirm what was in my account (yeah - I hadn't been in it for a while before then). I then worked on how to "lighten the volume". I discovered this week that my account disappeared. I signed in to a completely empty, Basic account.

How can I contact support when they are charging me $22/mo, but I am at Basic so don't have any support?

Thank you

[Rich]

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@bufordr1 wrote:

How can I contact support when they are charging me $22/mo, but I am at Basic so don't have any support?

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Visit the Support page while you're NOT signed in to a Dropbox account, including these forums, and you'll see an option for Billing issues. It's best to use an Incognito or Private browsing session to make sure you're not signed in.

• https://www.dropbox.com/support/billing-issues

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I discovered this week that my account disappeared. I signed in to a completely empty, Basic account.

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Did you receive any emails about the account being deleted, or perhaps about the email address being changed? There have been a few posts like yours this week and in some of those cases it seems as though the accounts were compromised, likely from stolen/re-used credentials, and the information on the accounts was changed. This would result in the original owner trying to sign in with an email that no longer has an account, so a new, empty account gets created.

[bufordr1]

Hi Rich, thank you for replying. I just searched my emails and do not see anything from Dropbox since 2021.

I did see from yesterday a notice from DropBox about a new sign-in to my account from a new web browser - that was the first notice from them, and happened immediately following my sign-in using the account email address.

[Hannah]

Hey @bufordr1, how did you upgrade that account? Was it directly through our website with your debit/credit card?

If so, I would suggest using our payment lookup tool, to find the email address associated with the paid subscription.

Hopefully, that will shed some light on the situation.

[bufordr1]

Dear Hannah,

Thank you very much! That did answer my question, with a conundrum. So the charge is for DropBox Essentials - $22.00/mo. But I apparently used a different email than the one used for my DropBox account - I don't know why unless perhaps the one I used was my primary correspondence email. But I don't have an account with that email address; there is no record in my password manager, and when I tried Forgot My Password I did not receive any reply from DropBox.

Should I DM you with further account details?

At this point, I know that my original Basic account was apparently deleted, and that I signed up for an Essentials account using a different email, but no account was created with that email.

Next steps?

Thank you,

Robert