I felt I had to write this post after experiencing the wrath of Google and them suspending my account.

What does suspending an account mean?

All current campaigns will be stopped and no future ppc can be run in future, so it is really like banning you from using Google Adwords ever again.

My story

I set up a Google Adwords account on a Thursday for a new website and I set the campaign to go live on the Monday.  I gave my billing details on the Thursday which was enough time for Google to verify the card and contact me if there were any problems before Monday.  I did not get any email and therefore started the campaign on the Monday morning.

Budget

The campaign was on a very small daily budget. It ran for just 3 hours and then I paused it as there was no impressions and the client also asked for the campaign to be postponed till the end of the week.  I therefore was going to review the campaign, amend the keywords and adgroups before Friday.  Two days after I had paused the campaign, I received an email from Google saying they had suspended my account.  The email is below.  It was a very generic email as you can see.

Contact from Google

Dear AdWords Advertiser,

It has come to our attention that your Google AdWords account does not comply with our Terms of Service and Advertising Policies. As a result, your account and any related accounts have been suspended and your ads will no longer run on Google. Please be aware that you are prohibited from possessing or creating any other AdWords accounts, both now and in the future. For more information on AdWords suspension policies visit this link:http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?topic=28449&guide=28446&page=guide.cs&hl=en_GB

If you have a prepaid balance remaining in your account, you can request a refund at any time by following the instructions at http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?answer=8440&hl=en_GB.

If you believe your account was suspended in error, please contact us through the AdWords Help Centre.

Yours Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

Emailing Google

I immediately emailed Google to ask for clarification as to why the account was suspended. Two days later, on the 17th I got a response which was the same generic email as above.  I emailed them again and got a second generic email. I would have expected a reason for the suspension, instead of two generic emails.

If there was a problem with my billing information, surely this does not warrant a suspension? There should be a message within my account asking me to verify the card or add another card if the first one is not successful. I have not heard back from Google, but I do keep getting emails about my paused campaign.  If the account has been suspended, why would I get a email about this campaign?

Calling Google

Google have a support number, but when I call, they say the customer ID is incorrect and I cannot speak to anyone without a customer ID number.  When I call Google, it is an automated service and I am unable to speak to anyone in  person.

Help from outside

Google are the monopoly of the internet and therefore it is somewhat unfair they can suspend accounts without warning and forbiding people from running adwords campaigns in future.  I am sure if they only had 20% of the search engine share, they would have better customer service and would not be so quick to suspend accounts and upset their customers.

If you know of anyone who works at Google and who can help turn this situation around, please get in touch.  I have exhausted every channel I know.