Hetzner deleted my account, my server and I was left with nothing. What to do?

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Guys, I’m desperate and I don’t know what to do, since this horrible and amateur company Hetzner doesn’t help me at all, I came here to Meta to see if I can help

A summary of what’s going on:

I’ve been using hetzner for months, until last Friday my forum went down, I found it very strange and I went to log into my Hetzner account to see what happened to the server, it turns out that when I went to log into it, a message “Account disabled” I got desperate

When I went to access my gmail, an email from hetzner appeared saying that the main email of my account was changed to a temporary email, that is, someone logged into my account and changed my email to another temporary one

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I got desperate, and sent an email to hetzner

who didn’t answer me, I stayed Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday sending messages via email, twitter, instagram, facebook, youtube and they didn’t answer me at all, they don’t have a live chat and the support is terrible! I was all these days in agony, despair, and in a deep nervous breakdown, my forum off the air and everyone demanding an explanation, an answer, a solution and I didn’t know what to say to my users, just stressed and desperate

I sent a message detailing everything that happened and that I didn’t change my email and questioned what happened to my server, after everything I sent them they just sent this.

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I got even crazier, they didn’t send me anything on how to proceed, what to do, how to act, after everything I said, they simply said they couldn’t find my account and that was it

So, I sent an email indignant with the situation and demanded a position from the company, help, support, because that borders on amateurism and lack of common sense, treating me with so much insignificance and disdain and demanding explanations of what happened and they told me sent this

1- O meta não deixa eu postar mais arquivos então vou colocar na postagem abaixo

I’m SURE that some hacker stole my account and they don’t want to admit it, because it would be a breach of their security and it would be very ugly for the company to have to explain it to me, it would be embarrassing to say to me “Our company failed in security and your account was stolen and you lost everything” so they played this lie that " We noticed some suspicious information in your account. We have some concerns regarding this information and we have decided to close your account."

but the worst was yet to come

2 - O meta não deixa eu postar mais arquivos então vou colocar na postagem abaixo

Seriously, I can’t believe anything that’s happening, it seems like a joke, what a horrible support, what a damn company, why treat me like this? Why am I a woman? Why am I Latin? Why am I Brazilian? It makes no sense, I thought Hetzner was a serious company, I’m crying a lot here, it’s been 2 years of code thrown in the trash, I lost all the codes I made in my forum, all the modifications, all my effort, every night without sleep, my God, my account was hacked yes, and they don’t want to admit it and they lie saying that they deactivated my account due to suspicious information, they deactivated it because they don’t want to admit that there is no security at hetzner, and they still treat me like that way, HORRIBLE support

Now, I just wanted to know, how do I recover my server? Only hetzner can give it back to me? Or is there any way I can get it all back?

What do I do now?

Eu to tão desesperada, eu não paro de chorar, foram 2 anos de códigos e dedicação ao meu forum, eu confiei totalmente na hetzner, eu jamais imaginei que isso poderia acontecer, tem algum jeito de eu recuperar um backup do meu servidor?

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That does sound very upsetting. Do you have a downloaded backup? That would always be the best way to recover from a disaster. Ideally you also make sure that your latest backup is kept in two safe places.

If you don’t have a backup in your hands, then it might be, sadly, that your only hope is copying data from any accidental online archives, whether at archive.org or in Google’s caches, or elsewhere.

For Hetzner to help you, they would need to know that you are indeed the original owner of the site, and that the email modification was malicious. That might be difficult for you to demonstrate. They would also need to have the forum data or backup, and they might not have that any more.

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I really sorry this happened to you.

I’m sure you have your suspicions who did this to you, given the history you’ve shared here on meta.

You should always:

  • use very strong passwords (and a password manager to help you remember them)
  • 2FA wherever possible.
  • back up your server off-site periodically (at least once a day at another service like Amazon S3).

Especially when you have unfair-competitive and potentially subversive activity going on (as you have previously outlined).

My only query is this:

My VPS provider (for example) requires identity checks to permit sending requests to mail servers - do Hetzner not hold your true identity outside of your account settings? I had to send some official ID - this is not viewable on account. This would verify who you are and it would help them distinguish you from the person who took over your account.

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I am very sorry to hear what is happening to you.

I think at this point in time I’m afraid it would be time to consult with a legal expert. Rightfully or not, the relationship with Hetzner seems burned and beyond recovery.

A sternly worded letter, signed by a lawyer’s on their official scary looking letterhead, with a a stated intent to sue for damages if a backup isn’t sent within 10 business days, to the right address… Might at least get you past customer support and hopefully allow you to retrieve your data.

Act fast, before they auto-destroy their backups.

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That said, it’s important that you always use your real name and your emails should too.

You are apparently emailing as “dex dex” and dexforum3524@gmail.com and to be honest that would set off some red flags with me as well.

And as long as you depend on their help it’s not constructive to call them amateurs and lacking common sense. It’s obvious that you feel that way but there is a time and a place for this (and that is AFTER you got back your data).

The most important tip, as @merefield already said, always keep backups at another provider. And keep your code in Github, never just on production.

I do realize that some of these tips don’t help you right now, but it might help others and it might help you a next time (hopefully there won’t be a next time but you never know).

At the same time, Hetzner should never allow someone to change their billing email to @burnermail.io without an explicit confirmation. Time to lawyer up. Good luck!

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I have never set up a backup other than Hetzner, I always trust the company completely, is there a way to set up a backup through Google Drive? I sent personal document to hetzner, photos, information and other things well itemized, they just sent “we can’t find your account”, this after 3 days, I found their support so horrible.

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I only had the server password, and I never passed it on to anyone, I can’t understand how someone managed to enter my account and change the email like that, when I made the account at Hetzner, I sent my official document too, I gave all my information etc. And now I sent all my information again, even an official document again, but their support is very monosybalic, it seems that they don’t really want to help.

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I don’t have the conditions to do that, but I’ll see if there’s a lawyer who can help me for free on the internet.

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If they have your real ID then you need to request your support issue be escalated to the duty manager.

It is unfortunately not uncommon to have ones account taken over by another.

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I used the browser’s edit element to remove my name and leave Dex Dex, so I wouldn’t be so exposed. After 4 days, anguished, desperate, stressed, scared, I had to call them amateurs, so as not to call them with a worse or uglier name. But I’ve already accepted that Hetzner has horrible support and doesn’t want to help me, their answers are monosybalic and rude, I sent them an email explaining everything in detail, taking pictures of me, pictures of my documents, proof of residence etc, for them to tell me they send “we couldn’t find your account” and then “we don’t owe you any satisfaction”, I tried to hold back as much as possible so as not to curse them even worse, it was 4 days of nightmare and with my users asking what happened, but I’ll send an email threatening them legally

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I’m using google translate, so I’m sorry if something is out of context or sounding rude, I don’t know how to write in English

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I suspect they still think they are talking to the nefarious player.

You need to try to persuade them that you are the original genuine owner and please be clear to them that you believe your account was taken over and subsequently abused.

They might have done some terrible things in your name. I can only imagine. You must make it clear it was not you.

Appeal to talk to their manager.

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This is unfortunate and unconscionable. Assuming you will not go for the lawyer route, I can only offer how I might write an appeal to them:

Hello,

I am writing to plead for the return of my account, or at least my data.

My Customer ID is K1027793822.

The background here is that on [date and time] a bad actor appeared to have gained control of my account. The email on the account was changed from [from] to [to]. I have this email as well as precious invoice emails that show I am the account holder.

I don’t know what actions they took that triggered the account suspension, and while I’d like to know everything the account did, my primary concern is retrieving my data.

Please let me know what you need from me to process this request.

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I would recommend:

  • taking legal action since this is a serious issue
  • keeping backups in a safe space
  • appealing to your lawyer
  • Trying to resolve the dispute
  • using 2fa
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One other thought… do not insult the people at Hetzner anymore if you want them to help you. If you are the legal owner you should absolutely be able to prove it while keeping a level head. Good luck.

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This does sound very upsetting sorry to hear about this.

Don’t have a lot of background in issues like this so not sure what would be the wisest course of action.

Never heard of Hetzner before, looks like that’s a German company if you can get them on the phone or talk in person to verify your identity that could help.

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In the past I almost move to Hetzner but fortunate I found some really worrying posts: hetzner banned account - Google Search

I don’t think you will get back your account or data (backup).

I would look for a new service provider and restore the most recent backup I have. Once it’s done set up: Configure an S3 compatible object storage provider for uploads

Make everything safe as possible!

I think it’s better to lose some data than do nothing and wait. The website must be available no matter how but people should access it. Bad things happens but you should handle and solve it as soon as possible everybody learns from this kind of things. Your community will understand it and you should give some compensation to your users and create a topic where you explain this situation.

You can also put it in read only mode and put a global notice while you see any chance to get back your backup if it happens you can restore it.

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Month ago due the hack, similar thing happened to me, but instead deleting my forum, hacker created new server. Luckily, Hetzner support acted quickly and server backup solved everything. Not sure how hacker got my details, but it was really frustrating to see that you don’t have any channel of communication with Hetzner when account email is changed. The only option is general support email. But they figured out really quickly what is going on and restored my account, so I’m keeping up with them.

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Hope you can get your data back, please let us know how this goes!

Sending a threatening e-mail could help, if you don’t have a lawyer who can do that for you.

I use a German e-mail company based out of Hannover, business e-mail is great because you can use an intimidating address like “Prosecutor@your-domain.com” if you’re threatening to file charges in court.

Usually when an e-mail is changed for an account this sends a notification to the previous e-mail with a link to report if that was done by an unauthorized bad actor, which is what sounds like happened in this case.

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