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Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

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Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#161

Post by swozey »

icedchai wrote: post #147
swozey wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've posted about it a few times, a few years ago my entire Google account was locked out for "fraud" with Google Pay. Lost my email, DNS, GoogleFI (my CELLPHONE) access. Sent them a picture of my license 3 times on a form they make you fill out (which you have to google, they don't tell you anything, you just can't log in). Never received a response. I'd kind of like this for stuff like that. Bypassing horrendous or…

That's terrible! I'm curious if you pay for any Google services, do you get better support? For example, I know people who pay for Youtube Premium just so they don't have to watch ads, or spend a few dollars on GCP for personal projects.

Nope. Zero difference. I was a paying Google DNS, GoogleFI, and Gmail user. Maybe more. The first thing that happened was my Google Wallet/Pay account was marked as fraud. I didn't know this until my OTHER accounts stopped working.

My OTHER accounts stopped working because I couldn't update my credit card at Google Pay to change my recurring bills for all of those services to keep paying for them.

I was in the middle of SELLING A HOUSE, literally happened that week. My Gmail was made back when Gmail first started so I have so much mail I have to pay for it to receive mail. I had to migrate everything THAT week to another provider (fastmail).

Miserable experience. I couldn't even use my cell phone. I think that might have been cut off immediately. I forget. I don't use Google for anything but SSO now and even then I try to use Apple instead if available.

edit: Oh, yeah, I didn't know any of this was broken until I stopped getting email at my private email (via gmail DNS) Gmail account when I was selling the house. Literally nothing told me I was banned.

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#162

Post by StressedDev »

yumraj wrote: post #68

Please stop.. I’m pretty sure people will be fired for doing this. Talk about misaligned incentives. What’s stopping employees from intentionally messing with accounts to get paid to fix them.

If people take bribes, the deserved to be fired. Not much to say other than you are 100% right about this webs site being the wrong solution to the problem. I think people need to stop using software and services with awful support. It's legal and it sends the right message.

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#163

Post by jsnell »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #152
JohnMakin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For meta/facebook at least it’s long been an open secret that the fastest way to get something done on the platform is to have a connection that works at meta.

Right. If the operators of this service are slick about it, they'll copy the model of a lot of attorneys who sell access to city hall/DA's office/regulatory boards/etc. You don't frame it as getting the employer to do something outside the scope of their job any more than an advocate is telling the city council to grant a permit that shouldn't be granted. They're just "drawing the employee's attention to some importa…

These companies have on the order of 100k employees. It's the job of maybe 0.01% of them to deal with these issues. For the vast majority, a random account having been suspended going to be in scope of their work.

It's going to be quite hard to spin this as "just doing my job" rather than "just fraudulently misusing company resources for personal gain".

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#164

Post by actionfromafar »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #33
constantcrying wrote: post #23

Seems insane. Surely every single company would fire you for doing that. If you put this in its proper term it is "corruption" and you should definitely worry about the legal implications of doing this.

Agreed. It's based on accepting personal payment to spend company time and resources doing something other than what the employer wants. Sounds like low-key bribery to me. I imagine they're aware of this. The FAQ section states that employees are kept anonymous, but also says they verify if it's really a Google employee by sending an email to their google.com email address, which Google can of course see.

The verification email can be intentionally vague and agreed upon in advance.

"What's really your favorite band, then?"

"Beatles, I guess."

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#165

Post by bagels »

I read about a more entrepreneurial approach a while back: Only Fans model got their instagram account back by finding employees on linkedin and trading sex for account un-bans.

https://www.newsweek.com/onlyfans-star-slept-meta-employees-...

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#166

Post by justusthane »

“We don’t need legislation, the free market will fix it”

The free market: this website

This website is absolutely insane, and it’s insane that the creator doesn’t seem to have any awareness of how insane it is, judging by the about page.

However, I can’t lay too much blame on the creator when it’s clearly emblematic of a much larger problem.

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#167

Post by mrWiz »

MerManMaid wrote: post #156

Perhaps its just me, but I feel like a lot of users are missing the forest for the trees here. Services such as these only pop up when legitimate solutions prove ineffective at addressing the problem. To me, these services are more indicative of "Big Tech" failing to create effective appeal processes to meet their consumer's demand... While I'm sure there isn't a lot of money in it, it'd be great for Big Tech to exam…

I think the majority of HN is aware of Big Tech's failure to create effective appeal processes. It's not exactly a secret. This service is still naked corruption, though.

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#168

Post by actionfromafar »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #92
bee_rider wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept seems like… performance art protest or something. Building a platform to bribe your way through the opaque customer non-service system of these companies is either low corruption or high art.

100% - I see lots of comments saying things like "Don't you know companies would fire you for this??" which to me sounds a little bit like "Don't you know you shouldn't eat babies??" after reading A Modest Proposal. On the other hand, I guess life does imitate art sometimes...

I mean, aren't you likely to already have some cognitive dissonance from working at FB? What's a few hundred dollars more worth of it in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#169

Post by [deleted] »

tdeck wrote: post #150
billjings wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to work at FB and they have a team that tries to catch employees selling access like this. For folks who aren't familiar with FB, maxrmk is absolutely right. But some more color would probably help: When one of the privacy teams discovers a violation of this kind, the employee is generally called into a meeting with HR and fired the very next day. A friend of mine did this inadvertently - just trying to help…

> and inadvertently accessed a system in a way he didn't realized was a privacy violation Sounds like they need better controls, there shouldn't be ways to inadvertently access personal data and violate someone's privacy. Particularly not at such a mature company.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Pls Fix – Hire big tech employees to appeal account suspensions

#170

Post by vineyardmike »

MerManMaid wrote: post #156

Perhaps its just me, but I feel like a lot of users are missing the forest for the trees here. Services such as these only pop up when legitimate solutions prove ineffective at addressing the problem. To me, these services are more indicative of "Big Tech" failing to create effective appeal processes to meet their consumer's demand... While I'm sure there isn't a lot of money in it, it'd be great for Big Tech to exam…

It’s just you. The ineffectiveness is the point. This service is a joke, it’s surely illegal. Everyone knows it’s a “failing” system, you can’t scale free customer service forever.

The legitimacy of the need for this service proves the value of these accounts. I predict that tech companies will get in on it, and within a few years will offer paid customer service the way enterprises get today. You can already pay for “verified” accounts, so this is the next step. If companies don’t monetize it, government will regulate it.

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