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Unable to access a folder I created

5 years ago I created a folder in Dropbox and have been the owner ever since. Two weeks ago, I went to add a new member to the folder and was told I no longer have permission to perform this action. I noticed that the ownership had changed to someone who is not even in my organization and had no prior access to my folder. I checked the activity history and did not see anything unusual, no one moved the folder. I contacted that person, who was told by Dropbox that I moved the folder into her account (I DID NOT and do not even have permission to do this and she had no access or even knowledge that my folder existed.) Two weeks later, I am still unable to get help from Dropbox, get a record of who moved this folder or get the problem fixed. I am unable to manage my own folder and I have sales reps who need to access this. Dropbox refuses to help in any way and I cannot do anything to the folder because I am no longer the owner. The person who now owns the folder changed the ownership and cannot see on her end that she is still the owner. So no one can do anything to the folder and Dropbox has no available support to fix the problem. She has a paid membership, so she is able to get a bit more support, but since the problem appears fixed on her end, she can do nothing.

Do I have any legal ability to do anything to get control of my information again since I am refused access and there is no way to contact a human at Dropbox? Is there any way to get a record of who made this change and who was accessing my account?

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Walter

Hey @aasedler - thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Could you have a look at your events page and let me know what you find in regards to this specific shared folder?

Do you see it listed in your sharing tab perhaps?

If you or the owner of the folder reached out to our support team for assistance about this, please let us know the ticket ID so that we can look it up in our system as well.

Thanks!

aasedler

Thanks for your reply. There is a whole list of items on the event page that I did not do. In fact, I was not even at my computer at that time. The list includes joining the folder (which I actually created over 5 years ago, removing my own access and adding my access multiple times. I did not perform any of these actions. I have been the owner and manager of this folder since I created it and I am unsure why it says I have done these actions.

The folder has always been listed in my sharing tab, as it is a folder that is shared with my sales reps. However, they do not have permission to edit the folder, only to view and download. The person who is now listed as the owner, also did not have prior access to the folder until it was moved into her folder. There is NO RECORD of this move in the events page or the folder activity, yet it happened and that is what she is being told triggered her to automatically become the owner. Supposedly, someone moved the folder into her folder. But where is the record of that? I see nothing to indicate that change, when or who did that. And there is no way to fix it since she has been working on it for a week. I will try to get the support ticket number and reply once I have that.

Alison

Nancy

@aasedler, if you’re seeing actions you didn’t take on your end, is there any chance someone else could’ve gained access to your Dropbox account instead? In general, the ownership of a shared folder can only be moved to another user by the current owner, so this is quite bizarre.

We’ll be here, once you have the ticket number.

aasedler

Hello,

I don't have the ticket number because the other person was on a chat and did not save the number. But this person is not in my organization and could not even have had access to the file to move it into her folder. In fact, she did not know the file even existed. She has a premium account and was able to get help to move the folder out of her folder and back into my Dropbox. However, she removed herself as the owner on her end before doing that, but in my account she is still listed as the owner and I am unable to change it. She can no longer see the folder, so she cannot change it and I am still denied the rights to add memebers to my own folder.

Furthermore, regardless of who did it, SOMEONE moved the folder to her folder to create the problem in the first place and there is no record of this movement at all in either the folder activity or the events log on either of our accounts. So how did this happen? And why is the activity of our Dropbox not being logged?

Also, the events log has multiple entries stating that i joined the folder and removed access for myself, which I did not do. I CREATED the folder over 5 years ago, and I am the owner of the folder. There are also two other entries by people within my organization stating that they removed their own access and they did not do this at all. These entries were on 11/29.

At this point, I need to have [removed] removed from this folder, deleted as owner and I need the ownership back it my name as it has been since i created the folder. And I would like Dropbox to show me the log of when and where and who moved the folder, because, as I stated there is no appropriate log of the folder activity at Dropbox.

Please let me know how this problem can be resolved so I can access my own information.

Hannah

Hey @aasedler, the person that somehow became the owner of the folder and reached out to our support team, would have received an email with the chat transcript and a ticket number to the address associated with their account.

Furthermore, a workaround to this would be to create a new copy of the original folder in your account.

This would make you the owner of the new folder and you can then go ahead and share it with the people you need and delete the original.

aasedler

This does not explain why the records of that folder do not match from one team member to another. Or why Cristy Baldwin, who does not even see that folder on her Dropbox account, is listed in the event log as having removed her access. Something is going on at Dropbox and the events log of this folder is incorrect. There is some internal problem. I would still like to know why the events log is listing these random events that were not performed by my team members. Is there some legal way for me to report suspicious activity.? Something is going on that is not above board, whether by Dropbox or some type of hacker and I am reluctant to put any more information on my account until this is resolved. I am still asking to see a record of when and who moved that folder into the account of a different organization when I was the owner of the folder.

In addtion, some error at Dropbox, or breach of security is now creating a lot of work for me and I would like to know how this error occurred instead of just being told I need to recreate an entire folder that took me years to build up.

Hannah

I understand where you're coming from, @aasedler, and we'll try our best to figure this out together.

To rule out the possibility of this happening due to unauthorized activity, what you can check, is the Security page in your account settings.

Do you see any web sessions of devices linked to the account that are not from you?