This is not a hack. This is a bit of social engineering.
However one thing to keep in mind, If you don't know the answer to that secret question, forget about retrying in 6 days.
As soon as you click the forget password button, a mail goes to the email inbox saying that a forgot password request was made on this day, from so and so IP address.
Which means the owner of that gmail account will know as soon as he checks his email that someone tried to hack his account.