Hey there, sorry to hear that. Are you able to login to your account at all? If so, can you open a ticket and share the number here so I can take a look?
Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
111–120 of 165 posts
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this time and age I think it's inevitable. Think AWS instead of Twilio for example.
AWS will (at a reasonable spend) sign a legally binding contract preventing them from pulling service from you unexpectedly.
You sure about that? They pulled the rug under parler.
But let's say there is a contract or TOS that says they won't, and they do - what are you going to do about it? Go to court for 2 years?
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#113Many of these system now a days use automation with little human oversight. Algorithms classify and block accounts. The little human oversight is inadequate to even verify what happened. I believe support is spread thin with cost saving and automation.
P.S. I am having a similar problem, but with Viber. I posted the details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/viber/comments/mrcu6f/viber_block_f...
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#114I 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.
This thread is making my company seriously reconsider using Twilio. Please make sure Twilio’s leadership is aware of how damaging these kinds of situations are to your customers, and how much other customers pay attention to this kind of customer mistreatment.
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#115I 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.
The customer should sue Twillio into oblivion, or at least try to. Can you imagine running a business and having a critical aspect of it just entirely stopped without warning or recourse? People could lose their jobs during a pandemic due to ineptitude and systematic arrogance? If you factor these kinds of risks into business equations, it does not look good. Depending on Tech is starting to feel like US Health Insur…
>Can you imagine running a business and having a critical aspect of it just entirely stopped without warning or recourse?
I understand what you're saying, but OP cannot alleviate their responsibility in this. You can't outsource your critical infrastructure to a third-party SAAS vendor and not have a plan for when things go tits up. OP didn't even know who to call. That's on them because they should have identified this as a risk long time ago.
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's painful for you, but a good thing to know as a community. Is it possible to prevent sending to premium numbers?
Yes, but it adds insult to injury. One of the suggestions by Twilio is to use their service to check the number and send only to mobile numbers. The issue? Twilio charges per call for that service! So you pay them to "possibly" stop you paying them more and fraudsters. The whole thing stinks
Might libphonenumber be of some help?
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
The customer should sue Twillio into oblivion, or at least try to. Can you imagine running a business and having a critical aspect of it just entirely stopped without warning or recourse? People could lose their jobs during a pandemic due to ineptitude and systematic arrogance? If you factor these kinds of risks into business equations, it does not look good. Depending on Tech is starting to feel like US Health Insur…
>Can you imagine running a business and having a critical aspect of it just entirely stopped without warning or recourse? I understand what you're saying, but OP cannot alleviate their responsibility in this. You can't outsource your critical infrastructure to a third-party SAAS vendor and not have a plan for when things go tits up. OP didn't even know who to call. That's on them because they should have identified t…
If there was a reasonable recourse for the customer to take, and they were derelict, then obviously this is the case.
But it doesn't so much seem like this is the case, having tried to reach out through several channels.
There are two issues that stand out:
1) The power asymmetry - some large SaaS vendors provide critical infrastructure to customers - like financial service providers to small business. There are tons of regulations in that industry because that.
2) The lack of recourse as standard practice in new high tech. If your bank magically stops you from collecting VISA at your corner store - there's generally a human you can speak to, pretty much right away. You may be put on hold. I get relatively immediate customer service from my bank as a tiny retail customer. The lack of provisions here by the industry is a systematic problem.
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#118Welcome 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.
"What these corporations are doing is literally destroying the basis for a developed economy....
"In countries with strong rule of law:
"1. Property rights over land, equipment, and personal items are clear and protected by law.
"2. Contracts between people, businesses, and the government are effectively enforced by the legal system.
"3. Political accountability is high and corruption is low.
"4. Business regulations are clear and enforced in a transparent manner.
"In such environments people make long-term investments and build large organizations. In contrast, if the property rights and contracts are not enforced and the business regulations are not clear, most of the economy consists of small family owned firms with little modern equipment. A high-tech, prosperous economy would not develop.
"Effectively, there are no contracts anymore in the digital economy. There is no predictability anymore. There is no accountability. There is no responsibility. There are no requirements for performance anymore. In sum, the US digital economy is rapidly becoming the equivalent of a third-world economy, complete with crony capitalism and digital robber barons."
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#119Sorry 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 advi…
> 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. At this point we're entering criminal territory. Enriching yourself when you should reasonably know something criminal is occurring (like someone being defrauded), and helpi…
In the United States I don’t think there are many jurisdictions where an automated marketing email will get anyone put on the most-wanted list.
I have a very hard time seeing the criminality of this. Can any lawyers provide more insight?
Re: Twilio blocked our account and with it hundreds of our customers [resolved]
#120a lot of us have this as nightmare scenario. - long term we really should move to an industry wide due process system with legislation for compensation and other parameters. once there is some more structure there can also be insurances or similar ways to prevent something like this to ruin a company. - there maybe is a market for more intermediaries that bundle twilio and messagebird or similar providers and have an…
100%. Disappointment from seeing a once upstart (which I was rooting on from the sidelines) become a faceless big co aside, I think insurance is the right way to handle this problem and prevent it from being unfairly externalized.