Friend's account deleted, support ignoring him for 11 days (Ticket #3871213)

[maty7253]

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Posting this for my friend since he can't access GitHub anymore.

His account (pilot2254) got deleted around October 30. He never got any email about it... no suspension warning, no deletion notice, nothing. Just woke up one day and couldn't log in. API returns 404 for his user ID.

He submitted ticket #3871213. It's been 10+ days now with zero response. His dad even made a separate ticket and that's also being ignored. He's replied multiple times, tweeted at support, checked every spam folder and it's still complete radio silence.

Here's what makes this worse: He's 16, uses GitHub mainly for school projects. Had about 2k contributions this year. He messaged GitHub support a while back asking if his learning/research repos (singleplayer game hacking stuff for learning) were okay to keep public and support said yes. Now he's banned for the exact thing they approved?

more than 4 years of personal, school work and notes gone, no local backups. The API 404 suggests his account got deleted before he even knew he was suspended...

Is 10 days of zero communication normal? Has anyone dealt with GitHub support just completely ghosting tickets like this? Any advice on how to actually reach a human there?

His ticket: #3871213
His email: miso.flaska@gmail.com

[Daxxtropezz]

Hi @maty7253,

That sounds really frustrating. GitHub support can sometimes take a long time to respond, but 10+ days without any reply is unusual. Here are some steps your friend can take:

1. Double-check the ticket status - Make sure the ticket was submitted through GitHub Support Request and that the correct topic (“Account or billing issues” or “GitHub Education program or benefits”) was chosen. Sometimes tickets get delayed if the wrong category was selected.

2. Follow up on the existing ticket - Reply directly to the confirmation email for ticket #3871213. Keep the tone polite but firm, and include all relevant details (username, email, date of deletion, and any prior approvals).

3. Avoid creating multiple tickets - Multiple tickets can sometimes slow down the process; it’s better to follow up on the original ticket unless instructed otherwise.

4. Use the Community Forum carefully - Since this question is already posted on GitHub Community, keep the post updated with any responses from support to help staff track the case.

5. Document everything - Keep copies of emails, support confirmations, and screenshots of contributions. This may help if the issue needs escalation.

6. Mention account age and context - Include your friend’s age and clarify that the content was approved for learning/research purposes. GitHub has special policies for users under 18, which may affect the case.

Unfortunately, support response times can vary, but following up persistently, clearly, and politely is the best way to reach a human.

Hope this helps get the account situation resolved.

[rathod-0007]

Hi @maty7253

I understand how frustrating that situation must feel, especially when an account disappears without any warning or follow-up. Unfortunately, account or content suspensions and deletions can only be handled directly by GitHub Support — the community forum (including moderators and users) doesn’t have access to internal account data or tickets.

Here’s what your friend should do:
1.Wait for a response to ticket #3871213. Account-related reviews take longer because they’re manually escalated to GitHub’s Trust & Safety or Policy team.

2.If it’s been over two weeks, you can reply to the same ticket email (instead of opening new ones) to bump it — creating duplicates may delay the queue.

3.Double-check that replies from support@github.com or noreply@github.com aren’t filtered by Gmail (sometimes they land in All Mail or Updates).

4.If no update arrives after 2 weeks, you can submit a follow-up via the official contact form and mention the existing ticket number:
🔗 https://support.github.com/contact

[rathod-0007]

Do Upvote & make my discussion as ANSWERED if you are relieved a bit @maty7253 .
Thank you.

[maty7253]

thanks for the 100% AI slop... really appreciated
y'all better go back to cursor and generate some more slop instead of replying to me
any idiot can throw discussions to AI and then beg for marking discussion as ANSWERED

[Daxxtropezz]

I completely understand and that sounds really stressful. I can still see his profile when hovering over the username you mentioned, but clicking it leads to a 404 page. Before this happened, did the account show any signs of suspicious activity or possible violations of GitHub’s T&Cs?

I hope GitHub Support gets back to your friend soon to clarify the situation and help recover the work

[Daxxtropezz]

Also tell him to try and search for his email inbox related to his problem. Maybe the Github could've emailed your friend relating to the issue. It could possibly be Voluntary Deletion, Account Suspension or Moderation Hold for pending investigation to the account. It could possibly be suspended, deleted, or temporarily hidden in a simple term.

If your friend could find the email relating to that, hopefully it clarifies which it is and assist your friend in restoring access.

[maty7253]

yeah so when he tries to log in it shows 'Account suspended due to a violation of our Terms of Service' (he zoomed the image a lot, sorry for that) but doesn't say what the violation actually was. and he still never received any email about it.

the only thing we can think of is his security research repos (reverse engineering/game hacking stuff for learning pentesting. where most of them were outdated and werent working). but the thing is, he literally asked github support months ago if it was okay to keep those repos public and they told him YES. and everything was labeled as educational purposes only too.

so he followed github's own approval and now he's suspended for it? makes zero sense. that's why we're so frustrated with this whole situation.

support finally responded after 12 days asking for account details, he gave them everything including proof of the prior approval, and now it's been another 3 days of silence.

[Daxxtropezz]

Well that really is frustrating. All I know base on what I had read from the reddit was that the Github removes some of the repositories from the users and not the account itself. I guess you need to backup your files on other cloud or start by making your own server and share it to those who loves to learn. Let him try recording himself on youtube teaching some educational skills to people who can relate to his topics. He might get monetized, at the same time teaching someone makes your experience grow more at the same time.

Getting back to the topic, try contacting the support again and mention the username so that they could try and lookup for his account. That really seems unfair for him to be suspended like that. It's like they're playing with him. Let's hope for the last time that his concern be answered through github support.

[maty7253]

appreciate the suggestions but we've already exhausted every channel -> github discussions, reddit (got locked by mods), twitter (shadowbanned), multiple support tickets from me, my friend, and his dad. still waiting on actual responses.

about youtube - he's 16 and still learning this stuff, doesn't have the experience to teach yet. he was using github as backup for school projects and to share progress with classmates/teachers at his private high school. it wasn't about building an audience or monetizing, just storing his work.

i created this discussion on github here because we saw someone else with 40+ days of no response got help when a github employee noticed their discussion post. figured it was worth trying.

what's really frustrating is github's own docs say educational security research is allowed check it out here, and he even got prior approval from support to keep the repos public. now he's suspended for following their own guidance.

looking at their transparency stats (here), 30k+ accounts suspended + hidden this year but only 85 restored. and appeals have a 6 month deadline (as written in here). so yeah, we're stressed about the timeline here.

just hoping support actually reviews the case properly with all the context we provided.

[maty7253]

Update: Day 24 since initial support ticket, still zero real response from GitHub.

Timeline:

• Oct. 29 or 30: Account suspended without email notification
• Nov. 1: Submitted ticket #3871213
• Nov. 10: First response asking if I still need help
• Nov. 10: Provided all requested info (username, email, location, context about prior approval)
• Nov. 23: Still nothing

Account shows "suspended for ToS violation" but no explanation of what was violated. He literally got approval from GitHub support months ago to keep these educational repos public + github's ToS allows these projects on their platform as long as they are marked as educational.

he is a 16 year old student, 4 years of school projects gone, and GitHub support is completely ghosting the ticket after asking for info.

At what point does this become unacceptable? Anyone else experienced 3+ weeks of silence after providing requested information?

[Daxxtropezz]

It seems like the github support is really inactive these days. I had tried opening 3 tickets prior to my issue and 1 week from now, they're still not responding.

I tried doing email directly at support@github.com and it's being blocked automatically, which means their email aren't active anymore. Due to my research, the github had silently gone through ticket-only support and cut the direct email support. It doesn't make any sense. They're saying that they highly are getting volumes of support and not even responding to any.

I hope our issue may have been resolve this year or sooner enough.

[maty7253]

yeah, thank you