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

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.

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. 

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]

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

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

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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?

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

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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?

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]

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martin49 wrote:

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

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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

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]