Now try and read it assuming that instead of a screw up, this user was actually hacked. How do they recover?

Honestly, if you are using Gmail as your primary email I could probably ruin your entire year. I could just try and hack you (not even successfully) and Google will just shut down your entire life rather than attempt to work out who's right.

> I could just try and hack you (not even successfully) and Google will just shut down your entire life rather than attempt to work out who's right.

Had this happen to me. Fortunately the 'attacker' wasn't actually trying to do this, so damage was limited, but it's chilling when you think about what some motivated script kiddy can do with your Google account just by requesting password resets.