Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved] • Hacker News Board

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#21

Post by zenexer » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:42 AM UTC

mdoms wrote: post #19

oarsinsync wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS provides a service that you can use as a commodity, and with appropriate backups, can easily recover from. DNS is the magic here. Unfortunately (with the exception of SIP dialling, which is extremely niche) there is no DNS for telephony. If your provider cuts you off, you can’t transparently move away, and number porting is slow .

Do you really think the typical aws customer can easily recover from being banned?

An AWS customer who wants to prepare for such a scenario can do so. Regardless of whether most of their customers do, the point is that it’s possible—and quite reasonable.

That isn’t the case for PSTN. It’s outright impossible.

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#22

Post by Raed667 » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:47 AM UTC

I got this email from Twilio a few days back, it could be related:

  As a current Twilio customer, we are notifying you that we are updating our Messaging Policy, available at https://www.twilio.com/legal/messaging-policy. We are sending this message to all customers, regardless of whether action is required to ensure compliance. 
  [...]
  There are a few key sections we’d like to call out:
   Applicability.  We clarified that the Twilio Messaging Policy applies to all organizations using our services, and that Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) are responsible for ensuring their users are in compliance.
   Messaging Policy Evasion. We clarified that content or techniques designed to avoid mechanisms that detect policy violations are not permitted.
   Usage Limitations - Content We Do Not Allow. We clarified that you may not send content that is illegal in the jurisdiction where the message recipient lives. For example, in the United States, this includes cannabis and CBD messages.

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#23

Post by max_hammer » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:48 AM UTC

floatingatoll wrote: post #14

What is your startup?

https://toky.co

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#24

Post by tluyben2 » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:49 AM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #13

Could this be the result of one of your customers breaching Twilio's TOS? If so, does using Twilio's subaccounts feature do anything to prevent your whole account being suspended for the actions of one of your customers?

Yeah, they changed their TOS 2 days ago... This seems likely.

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#25

Post by holoduke » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

Welcome to the new world where tech companies rule. Where moral standards are gone. Where local laws do not apply. This shit is happening a lot. Artists on Youtube, App builders on Playstore/iOS. Marketing companies on Google search, pretty women on Instagram, political men on Facebook or Twitter. I feel for you. Hope it gets alright.

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#26

Post by nurgasemetey » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:55 AM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #13

Could this be the result of one of your customers breaching Twilio's TOS? If so, does using Twilio's subaccounts feature do anything to prevent your whole account being suspended for the actions of one of your customers?

Do they send mail about breaching?

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#27

Post by ApolloRising » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:55 AM UTC

Try this link: https://investors.twilio.com/governance/person-details/defau...

Phone number on the page and an email address that may work for you. Let me know if that helps.

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#28

Post by work_for_x » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:57 AM UTC

I work for Twilio and forwarded it internally. If you are 6 years with the company, you probably have an AE assigned to your company or have been in touch with any other human being along the way?

UPDATE: Your account should be active now.

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#29

Post by ksajadi » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 6:58 AM UTC

Sorry to hear. Twilio has changed since its early days. Last month, our bill went from $20 per month to $16,000. The reason: fraudsters use Twilio to setup premium numbers, then use Twilio customers (like us) to send OTPs to those numbers using bots. The result is us out of pocket, fraudsters and Twilio making money.

Twilio is also the only Pay as you Go SaaS vendor that doesn’t have spend limits on accounts and advises customers to implement their own any fraud measures themselves.

While this was going on, we got an email from their sales rep, congratulating us for increasing our spend by more than 8000% and wanted to have a chat. So I guess they do have the systems to monitor unusual patterns, they just turn a blind eye.

You’d never know, someone in Twilio might even be selling customer lists on the black market to the fraudsters so they know who to target.

Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]

#30

Post by ajimix » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 7:04 AM UTC

We had the same problem some months ago with Mailgun. They blocked our account after many years using them without apparent reason or prior notice and took them 2 days to unblock it, leaving our thousands of clients stranded without receiving any of our transactional emails.

Lesson learnt, always keep a backup for crucial services and move away from Mailgun