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I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

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Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#281

Post by fencepost »

drewg123 wrote: post #16

I'm going through something similar with Lyft. I got a new pixel phone, had to re-setup my account in an airport added my cards, and was unable to hail a ride due to some "oops, there was a problem, try again" error with both the cards I entered. That was 9 months ago. To this day, I've been unable to use Lyft, and I can't get anybody to really look at the issue. I'm not sure why they don't want to take my money, but…

I had something similar happen with Uber early on, but it was as simple as the card I had in the account expiring. I'm pretty sure I'd never even actually used the service but had signed up as a "just in case" when I was going to be in an area where it made sense.

For whatever reason when I tried to use it rather than saying that the card had expired they locked my account. By then some of the "fish rots from the head" aspects of the company and its culture had started to get press, so I basically said "Hm, good riddance" and never pursued it.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#282

Post by gamblor956 »

ploxiln wrote: post #130
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.

This is also a problem with Square, and Stripe, and Paypal ... it's an unsolvable fraud/scammer problem. Basically, if there was customer support that could fix the problem, then skilled scammers can get money and control out of them. They can do it a lot better than you can get your stuff re-enabled, they know just when to say what to whom. Verizon just accepts the inefficiency, and also over-charges random customer…

Have to chime in here: not a problem with Paypal. I've actually gone through this process, spoke with a real human being, and got things resolved in about 15 min...

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#283

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rrdharan wrote: post #236
fastball wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, crypto is a payment system that won't kick you off for fraud.

The DAO hack remediation has determined that was a lie.

Effectively reversing the transaction isn't the same as not letting you buy anything ever again.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#284

Post by gameswithgo »

ploxiln wrote: post #130
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.

This is also a problem with Square, and Stripe, and Paypal ... it's an unsolvable fraud/scammer problem. Basically, if there was customer support that could fix the problem, then skilled scammers can get money and control out of them. They can do it a lot better than you can get your stuff re-enabled, they know just when to say what to whom. Verizon just accepts the inefficiency, and also over-charges random customer…

>it's an unsolvable fraud/scammer problem.

credit card companies and traditional banks and credit unions handle it fine.

>Too many people, scams and fraud become big problems.

if the solution to fraud is un-fixable account freezes, you have not actually solved anything. It is fraud itself.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#285

Post by rmason »

aidenn0 wrote: post #199
rmason wrote: post #172

I've had accounts with Verizon, Sprint and tMobile. On their worst day Google Fi is head and shoulders above them, it's not even close. I've used cell phones for thirty years and my time on Fi is the most stress free in all that time. Having said that Google needs to do a better job at customer service. But so do Facebook and Amazon, both of which have caused me major problems.

Sprint support was incompetent, but they were at least as likely to make an error in your favor as not, so you could just call a couple times until you got the result you wanted. Verizon's support was mediocre, but it idn't take too much persistence to escalate things to someone who could actually make a decision. The recent stories I've heard of Fi's support make it sound like when something goes wrong, the easiest…

I was in a Verizon store and was asked to leave or they'd call the police. My crime was to insist they honor a deal they advertised on their website. Offered to bring it up on one of their own computers when they insisted that I was wrong. Then I was asked not so politely to leave.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#286

Post by hinkley »

will_brown wrote: post #202
moogleii wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bricked my ability to use my phone I'm curious, how exactly? As far as I know, you can always use the phone without a linked payment method. You won't be able to download apps or use iCloud, but unlike the original example, your cellular service will still function. Apps will still run.

I think you more accurately framed it than I did. I threw “basically” in there because it wasn’t 100% nonfunctional, but for my purposes it was significant loss of functionality.

I wonder if you get a new debit card if you can fix this.

(though the last time I lost my card, Apple figured out how to bill my new one without me telling them. Wonder if that goes both ways?)

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#287

Post by hinkley »

sithadmin wrote: post #6

I abandoned Fi after a trip to western Europe, where I was billed for 6 GB of usage in a single day on one of my data-only SIM cards, despite that the device the SIM was installed in (a 4G hotspot) registered only 200MB of usage that day. Support was completely unhelpful, and after escalation reported back that the Fi team has zero visibility into chargebacks from their carrier partners and ergo could not diagnose th…

I got out of mobile development because of the dark abyss that was payments from the carriers. None of the places I worked at ever knew how big the next check was going to be and why it never matched up with our metrics.

I used to describe them as 'animals eating their own young'. VC money goes into a company, mobile carrier gets all the profits (and often, thousands of hours of free QA), company craters.

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#288

Post by benwaffle »

dddddaviddddd wrote: post #186
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…

I use a simple getmail[0] script to download all my Gmail automatically, and I use an address on my own domain too. For Google Photos however I haven't found a great backup solution, especially one that can work on Linux/FreeBSD. [0] http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/

I found this recently https://github.com/mholt/photobak

Re: I Can No Longer Recommend Google Fi

#289

Post by falsedan »

brewdad wrote: post #217
magduf wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just went to western Europe (Germany specifically), and spend 15 Euros for phone service there. It's simple: I just bought a SIM card at a shop (O2) and put it in my Verizon phone. I got a prepaid card that had unlimited text/calls (within Germany only), and 3GB of data, which was far more than enough for my 2 weeks there. Cellular service is much cheaper in Europe than in the US, so you might as well take advantag…

My son will be traveling to Europe this summer for a school trip. He'll be spending time in 6 or 7 different countries (UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and a couple more I can't remember right now) Is there a better option than Fi for this type of trip?

Any prepaid sim will let you roam, if you’re really worried get one from Three and it will work in the states too. Local calls will be routed back to the country where the sim came from, so actually using the phone for traditional voice calls will be pricey. Lebara UK has a cheap plan with 100 international minutes and a few gigs of data for like £10/30 days (last time I used it) and can be bought from any phone shop

edit I checked the Lebara data rates and it’s all included in the normal quota, except for Switzerland at £15/MB, so... maybe not

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