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Leaving Google Fi

jasonatwood.io

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Re: Leaving Google Fi

#231

Post by StreamBright »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #226
mabbo wrote: post #48

This is the difference between Google and Amazon. People have lots of criticism of Amazon, some I even agree with, but working here[0] one of my favorite little cultural things is that customers can and do email Jeff when stupid things happen. And Jeff reads them. Every now and then he'll forward one of them to a senior VP with a simple "?" added to it.[1] That question mark indicates two things: that you have 24 hou…

This is interesting to me because amazon has a ton of anti-consumer practices right now- most importantly the large amount of incorrectly labeled knock off goods. But by doing this on the odd occasion he virtue signals that he is taking time from his day to solve the common man’s problem, evidently fostering a culture of leader worship.

That is not an active effort from Amazon to screw over customers while the article describes a somewhat active effort (when the escalation guy automatically orders a new phone on behalf of the customer). I hope Amazon fixes the rip off fake items problem before they lose customer trust.

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#232

Post by [deleted] »

andrewprock wrote: post #98
mabbo wrote: post #48

This is the difference between Google and Amazon. People have lots of criticism of Amazon, some I even agree with, but working here[0] one of my favorite little cultural things is that customers can and do email Jeff when stupid things happen. And Jeff reads them. Every now and then he'll forward one of them to a senior VP with a simple "?" added to it.[1] That question mark indicates two things: that you have 24 hou…

I had a similar experience with them. When the phone started rebooting constantly, they offered to send me a used phone as a replacement. While I balked, I had little choice. As I was on a business trip, I asked if they could overnight it to me, at my own expense. The could not. Never buying another Google product again.

[deleted]

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#233

Post by StreamBright »

c2h5oh wrote: post #140
mabbo wrote: post #48

This is the difference between Google and Amazon. People have lots of criticism of Amazon, some I even agree with, but working here[0] one of my favorite little cultural things is that customers can and do email Jeff when stupid things happen. And Jeff reads them. Every now and then he'll forward one of them to a senior VP with a simple "?" added to it.[1] That question mark indicates two things: that you have 24 hou…

As a seller at Amazon marketplace my wife goes through at least one situation similar this every month. 4 times of 5 Amazon "by mistake" is suddenly charging her for something (tiny amounts) only to refund it all later.

In the article the guys has not been refunded that easily and we are talking about 600 usd.

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#234

Post by exabrial »

falsedan wrote: post #223
londons_explore wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The messages team doesn't want to talk to you. Their app is used by 1.5 Billion people. If just 0.1% of them had some issue with their app, that would be 1.5 million phone calls. There are ~3 people working on the messaging app usually. Thats half a million calls each. Thats 52 years to answer all those calls! The TL;DR is that you will never make a bugfree app, and the remaining bugs will always leave some unhappy c…

how did telcos manage to run a message product (SMS) for the 20 years before Google? The user-base is bigger than 1.5B too

Agree, 100%; silicon valley has 0 clue how to run support, and as a result their user experience is awful.

And what good are new features of you can't even send a message in the first place? The solution was disabling RCS completely or, hard resetting the phone (uninstalling and or wiping messages did not fix anything).

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#235

Post by StreamBright »

This story reminds me the time when I bought a Google Chromecast. It lasted 2 weeks and the device went completely dead. Chat with support:

- which light is on?

- none, device does not power on

- do you understand that is dead and wont power on?

- yeah but which led is blinking?

At this stage i hung up and went over to Amazon, luckily i have ordered the device through them, and after few clicks the replacement device was on its way.

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#236

Post by romtx »

criley2 wrote: post #227
winningcontinue wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at their budget. Most of their revenue comes from AWS. So their large AWS clients are their customers. The margins on the retailing e-commerce customers is slim and wasn't profitable on a cashflow basis until recent years. From a financial perspective, they're the people who are going to stock the items and take the risk for products where demand is uncertain. Once more data is collected about their sales, Amazo…

I just want to point out how ridiculous it is to think that AWS > Selling stuff out of a warehouse in terms of revenue. Amazon does about $30B a year in selling goods, and about $7B a year in AWS. AWS does deliver higher profit margins and more operating income than the tiny margins on selling and shipping goods, so perhaps that's what you meant to say.

It's not ridiculous. Amazon retail operates on very thin margins. AWS does +$7B a quarter, $25.7B for 2018.

Sources: https://qz.com/1539546/amazon-web-services-brought-in-more-m... https://www.zdnet.com/article/in-2018-aws-delivered-most-of-...

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#237

Post by emidln »

londons_explore wrote: post #86
aerovistae wrote: post #66

Here's what I did in a similar situation, for those who may be interested. Basically I signed up for AT&T home internet, and it DID NOT WORK, period. It was unusably slow and cut out constantly. I couldn't use it. I told them so within a week, they sent someone to fix it, they failed to fix it, I told them I'm canceling. I proceeded to return their router and switch to a different provider and immediately got fine se…

You're lucky... Some collections agencies are far more rigorous... They'll come to your house every day at awkward times. They'll ring your grandma and try to tell all your friends you're in debt, etc. If they finally get paid, it won't be $600 - it'll be $600 + $1500 of interest at 55% APR and $1200 of fees for letters, visits, phone calls etc.

In my part of the USA, someone showing up to your door threatening you would likely result in the resident brandishing if not "defending" themselves. It's probably not a coincidence that I've never heard of this collection tactic in the Midwest.

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#238

Post by maxxxxx »

viraptor wrote: post #225
maxxxxx wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often get these cheerful E-mails from other vendors. When I tell them what's not going alright they set up a series of meetings with clueless people and nothing happens usually. I would expect Google to be the same.

> they set up a series of meetings In my experience those meetings have the goal of explaining you how to use the product. If the issue really is that something doesn't work, it's not something sales people can do anything about.

That’s correct. The problem is that you have to explain the problem several times but in the end nobody does anything.

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#239

Post by zaarn »

ArlenBales wrote: post #30
paxys wrote: post #16

Sounds like a very standard Google experience. To anyone stuck in a similar hell in the future - once the company has demonstrated that they aren't willing to help, there is no point continuing down that road. Escalate it to your credit card provider (with documentation) and they will clear it up pretty quick.

That's the quickest route to having your Google account permanently suspended. (YouTube, Gmail, etc. goodbye)

There is nothing of value on my google account. Everything that is, has backups on my own servers or mirrored to other services. I consume youtube only via rss-bridge, so my youtube account being banned means I only loose nothing at all.

I'd chargeback Google in a heartbeat if I had even minimal reason to do so.

Re: Leaving Google Fi

#240

Post by msh317 »

Sorry to see your unhappy with Google Fi - I switched from previously having Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T - and what a difference.

Now that said, the one major observation I see about Google, Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, etc. is that Google does not have a lead Architect for Google products and services. The company is certainly leading the charge with technology - yet there is no one taking the charge of bringing everything together.

This reminds me of the early days of Apple - remember the Newton? Wow a computer you could hold in your hand - and the tech community were all wowed - yet the consumer didn't understand what to do with it - they were not coders and until it did something it was just another piece of tech. Then 3Com came along and created the Palm Pilot - and the handheld computer took off.

That said - I believe this is why Google like Microsoft and Apple have such a customer service problem - they have simply become tech company - customers are just a part of their products and don't receive the attention of an advocate within the company's product development team.

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