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I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

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Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#61

Post by jlarocco »

zenexer wrote: post #47
ronsor wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general issue with google. If their system decides it doesn't like you, then you're out of luck. You'll never get them to fix it.

I recently had nearly the same exact problem with Microsoft. Security department is a black box—zero communication. A friend working for Microsoft even escalated my case internally at the time, but nobody could do or see anything. My account was eventually unfrozen without so much as an email to notify me, never mind an explanation. The point is, this issue isn’t limited to Google.

Wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft saw how much money Google saves by not having support, and decided to follow their lead.

They used to have decent support.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#62

Post by vvanders »

deburo wrote: post #44
iandanforth wrote: post #29

The lede here is somewhat burried: "From what I’ve since learned, if a card in your Google Pay is stolen, or someone uses your Payments account fraudulently, or anything happens that leads to a security flag being raised, it can lead to your Google Payments account being frozen. ... If you can’t use Google Payments, you can’t pay for Google Fi This, fundamentally, is why I can’t suggest anyone use Project Fi anymore.…

Well, that's pretty damning. I hope this gets an answer from some Googler now that's it's out in the media.

No, that shouldn't not be the support path to escalation because you know someone well connected at Google and/or cause an outrage.

It's not that hard, invest in customer service, understand that not everything can be handled by an algorithm and you won't have these classes of issues. Is it expensive? Sure. At some point though you're going to need some system that allows human intervention when things have gone off the rails.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#64

Post by maslam »

I've been a Fi customer for two years. Sometimes it 'just works' when you travel internationally, which is magical. Most times however it just ok. It was dismal in Pakistan last year. In Netherlands it's barely ok. I'm ditching it in a few days since the Dutch have better, cheaper carriers.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#65

Post by mbrumlow »

pavanky wrote: post #21
anamexis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the appeal of Google Fi for me is the unlimited free international roaming. Do you know if there's any competition in that area?

I traveled to India in 2017 and 2018. I had problems getting HSPA+ most of the time. Had no problems with local carriers.

In Mumbai right now. Full LTE. I did a speed test today for fun and got 25mbps down and 5 up.

Last night on the way to some mall we took a route though some sort of jungle dairy farm. Both of the locals had no signal when about half way through traffic stopped ( except for the masses of motor bikes, they just keep comming ). I was the only one able to pull it Google maps and check how far up thr road the traffic was.

Maybe Mumbai is set up better for Fi? What parts were you in ?

Also. The main post here should be about Google payments, not Fi.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#66

Post by [deleted] »

ronsor wrote: post #40
iandanforth wrote: post #29

The lede here is somewhat burried: "From what I’ve since learned, if a card in your Google Pay is stolen, or someone uses your Payments account fraudulently, or anything happens that leads to a security flag being raised, it can lead to your Google Payments account being frozen. ... If you can’t use Google Payments, you can’t pay for Google Fi This, fundamentally, is why I can’t suggest anyone use Project Fi anymore.…

This is a general issue with google. If their system decides it doesn't like you, then you're out of luck. You'll never get them to fix it.

[deleted]

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#67

Post by maehwasu »

sithadmin wrote: post #18
anamexis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the appeal of Google Fi for me is the unlimited free international roaming. Do you know if there's any competition in that area?

For US customers, TMO is the next closest (and is the carrier partner Fi uses for international roaming anyway). The catch is that TMO's ONE service plan throttles 'free' international usage to 2G speeds. Fi on the other hand does not.

That "catch" is such a big difference in practice that it makes TMO a totally different (worse) thing.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#69

Post by ndnxhs »

dstaley wrote: post #39

Stories like this make me incredibly wary about the future of my Google account. I've been using it for almost twelve years. It has a copy of every photo/video I've taken for almost eight years. It's what I use to download apps, listen to music, and pay for things, and get around. I'd be absolutely devastated if I suddenly lost it. I've been planning for a while now a sort of contingency plan where I regularly backup…

Its not particularly hard to back up your google data. The hard part is switching emails when the old one gets suddenly taken from you.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#70

Post by teraflop »

mcrae wrote: post #17
faitswulff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not T-Mobile?

TMO only gives 2G internationally which, while it doesn’t sound terrible, it ends up being unusable in practice. Your experience may vary though I guess.

T-Mobile's throttling does a great job of highlighting how bloated a lot of modern websites have gotten.

The last time I tried using it overseas, text-heavy sites like HN loaded almost as fast as normal. Reddit was mostly usable, but certain subreddits were painfully slow due to image-heavy custom styles. But try to load an article from a typical news website, and the connection would time out before it managed to render anything.

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