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I was required to reset my password and now I can't find my files/paid plan.

I have a paid plan (2TB). I was forced into a password change last week, and since then all files and folders are gone from my Dropbox account, and when I login, it shows that have 2MB, not 2TB.

All the files are still in the Dropbox folder on at least one of the computers linked to the account; it just appears that the account has reverted to the free account.

How do I fix this?

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Nancy

Hey @martin49, welcome aboard the Community!

From what you mention, there’s a high chance you’ve set up a brand new Dropbox account, which is why you don’t see your files when logged in to it.

The computer that still shows your old Dropbox files, does it also show your paid account and previous email address? You can check this this way and then compare that email address to the one you see here. Are they the exact same?

Let me know what you find.

DBX_Pedro

Hi @martin49 ,

Just jumping in to check in to see if you were able to resolve the issue.

Let us know if the issue persists. We're happy to help.

martin49

Yes, the email addresses are the exact same (removed).

This is NOT a new Dropbox account; it's been active for at least 12 years and has been a paid account for about a decade. Please offer some sort of solution or explanation. If I cannot get this account back working as it should in short order, I'll be happy to take my online storage dollars elesewhere. It's extremely frustrating that I cannot resolve this issue with a simple phone call; I just need to find out if the files can all be restored somehow, and how to go about making this a paid account again.

[personal information removed per the Community's Guidelines]

martin49

I have been offered no solutions yet. It's extremely frustrating to have a problem like this and no options for support…

Rich

@martin49 wrote:
I was forced into a password change last week

How were you forced into a password change? Did you receive a message saying your password expired? Was there some other error message? What, exactly, happened to force you to change your password?

Yes, the email addresses are the exact same (removed).

Just to be sure, there are no extra dots or other characters in the email address? I ask because some mail providers allow multiple addresses to go to the same account. For instance, firstlast@email.com could be the same account as first.last@email.com, but to any other service they would be separate accounts. We see that a lot here.

This is NOT a new Dropbox account; it's been active for at least 12 years and has been a paid account for about a decade.

Please take a look at your Events page. Is there any account activity listed from before you changed your password?

martin49

I do not have a clear recollection of why the password change was forced. It may have been that I attempted to login with an incorrect password too many times.

Yes, the email address is [removed per Community Guidelines]. There are no variations of this email address with dots, spaces, underscores or dashes.

The "Events Page" (I was only able to get to it by following the link the you provided; I could not see how to access it from my Dropbox homepage) displays only this:

Events

You have no activity yet

Again, it is as if this is a brand new account. If the issue is that the credit this account was billed to expired or was changed, I can connect the account to a new card - but before I do that, I want assurance all the files I'm missing can be restored without me having to upload them again.

You, or SOMEONE at Dropbox should be able to tell me what the status of this account is, whether it was a paid account that was for some reason downgraded and how I go about getting my files back.

Nancy

Hi again, @martin49. Since your old Dropbox account is an upgraded one, there’s one more way to go about this.

What I want you to do next is check your bank statement and find the last Dropbox charges you received; is there a 12-digit transaction ID linked to them? If there is, please go to this page and insert it in the given field.

After that, I’d like you to copy paste the email address you’ll see next, open an incognito window on your computer and log in to Dropbox with the same email address. Can you see your old files now?

martin49

What email address are you referring to? This is what I saw after clicking the link and entering the transaction code:

If I login using [removed] I still do not see my files.

[personal information removed per the Community's Guidelines]

Rich

@martin49 wrote:
What email address are you referring to? This is what I saw after clicking the link and entering the transaction code:

See the section labeled Account email? That should contain YOUR email address. Look at the email address that's listed there more closely.

no-reply_dropbox@mail.com

That's not your email. It's not even a valid Dropbox email. It's a fake email address being used to scam you. Your account has been compromised. Someone likely got a hold of your credentials, probably through some other website breach, and used them to sign in to Dropbox. They then proceeded to change the email address on the account to one that they control and they now own your paid account.

Now you try to sign in and you don't see your files. This is because you didn't sign in. You ended up creating a brand new, empty account. One that has never had your files in it. This is why the Events page shows no activity on the account. There has never been any activity on that account.

This is often a result of reusing the same credentials across multiple sites or services. You need to contact Support immediately. I would also suggest changing your passwords for ANY website or service that you use, but especially on any that used the same email address and password that you use on Dropbox. You should also enable multi-factor authentication on Dropbox, as well as all of your other accounts to prevent something like this happening in the future.

To contact Support, visit the Support page while you're NOT signed in to a Dropbox account, including these forums, and you'll see an option for sign in 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/sign-in-issues

martin49

The email address, [removed] definitely WAS associated with a paid account.

I have tried the chatbot; it is useless. How would you suggest I go about "contacting support immediately?" There seem to be no options for that. I probably could have solved this problem Monday with a 5-minute phone call, were that option available.

Again, I'm about to give up and just use a different service…

[personal information removed per the Community's Guidelines]

Rich

@martin49 wrote:
The email address, [removed] definitely WAS associated with a paid account.

First, PLEASE stop posting your email address on this PUBLIC forum. You're just handing out personal information. And yes, your email was likely associated with a paid account, but your account has been compromised. Stolen.

If I were you, I'd be checking every service you use and paying close attention to your credit card statements. I would also sign up with HIBP, or at least check your email address and passwords against their databases to see where your credentials may have been stolen from.

How would you suggest I go about "contacting support immediately?" There seem to be no options for that.

By following the steps that I provided above. Do that, and you'll be able to open a ticket.

martin49

It looks like you're right - apparently, someone hacked this account.

I would very much like to simply delete it completely and start over. The instructions I could find online for "delete Dropbox account" do not appear to work for this account; I do not have the option to "delete account" under the General tab of settings. It appears I have to "contact support" to delete the account. Can you help or steer me in the right direction?

Rich

@martin49 wrote:
Trying this again, as my replies are not showing once I refresh the page

Your replies are showing, though if you sent several in a row then they may have been picked up by the spam filters until someone released them.

I would like to completely delete this account and start over.

The only account you would be able to delete is the one that you're signed in to right now, i.e. the new, empty account. You wouldn't be able to delete the other one because you're no longer in control of it.

... I need to know how to go about contacting Support to get this done.

I explained how to contact Support in my earlier replies, and included a screen capture of exactly how to do it. Refer to my previous replies.

Another thought came to me this morning. Check your email system for any rules or filters that you didn't create. When attacks like this happen, the attacker often creates a mail filter so you don't see emails from the service that has been compromised.

martin49

I am currently still able to see the account registered to the fictitious email address - "no-reply,dropbox@mail.com" if I use the web link from the Dropbox menu on my computer.

If I cannot delete the account, I guess I should at least delete all the items in it?

Hannah

Hey @martin49, if you still have access to the compromised account and those are still your files in there, then yes, I would suggest downloading them to your computer, to make sure you have a copy and then you can delete them from the account.