Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

121–130 of 165 posts

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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> we got an email from their sales rep

That doesn't sound automated.

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

#122
post #58

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.

It's really frustrating. I've been trying for months to get access to a suspended twitter account that was suspended without informing me or giving a reason. The tickets get ignored and their support doesn't respond on Twitter. They also ignore GDPR (which would give me the right to have my data deleted). I have no idea what to do. The account isn't important but it shows up prominently on Google as a suspended accou…

> They also ignore GDPR (which would give me the right to have my data deleted

Report them to your local ICO.

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

#123
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>But it doesn't so much seem like this is the case, having tried to reach out through several channels.

It was too late now. When things are on fire, you're in panic-mode now. The reality is that if Twilio had shitty support today, they had shitty support last week and 6 months ago (etc.). That should have been identified by OP as a risk to their business and rectified (either by forging a relationship with someone at Twilio so you can backchannel support request, or identifying your account manager and making sure they are responsive, or moving to another vendor with better support). Twilio is a critical supplier for OP's company. You can't just assume they care about your business as much as you care about your business.

>he power asymmetry - some large SaaS vendors provide critical infrastructure to customers

OK. So? There are lots of things you can plan for and not control. None of us are fully in control of our circumstances. We can't control how trillion-dollar companies behave. We can't control the weather. What you can control is your actions, your planning and ultimately your response to things you can't control.

For example, I peeked at OPs comment history and he mentioned that their support line was provided by them (they provide telephony services and therefore they dog-food their products) ... was that the right move though? Because if they are down (or Twilio is down), their customers will need to talk to someone and won't be able to reach them. Maybe it makes sense to have another provider handle their support line (or at least have a backup).

The point is that, sure, Twilio screwed up - fully agree with that. Maybe OP can recover some damages, and maybe not. Maybe it isn't worth chasing Twilio through courts for years and spending thousands of dollars. Regardless, ultimately it is OP that suffered the consequences of Twilio's screw up, so OP should prepare themselves for this in the future. And don't tell me that there's nothing OP could have done. That's bullshit.

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

#124
post #29

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 advi…

You could try AWS SNS SMS. This is also PAYG. A wrapper like https://sendwithses.com might make your work easier. EDIT: With AWS SNS SMS you can set a spending limit and your bill will never go over that.

AWS SNS SMS seems best suited for internal communications (we use it for alerts); it does not seem suitable for commercial use where you require targeted sends, you'd have to create a topic for each customer.

Source: use it and twilio.

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

#126
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the the fraudster make money, not familiar with the concept of premium numbers. EDIT: Oh premium numbers charge the sender

The fraudsters setup premium numbers with some other telephony provider, possibly in another country. Then they use those numbers to receive 2FA (two factor auth) passwords (either SMS or read aloud in calls). Because the defrauded party's servers called those premium numbers through Twilio, the defrauded party has to pay Twilio. AFAIK there's no easy way to always, securely detect premium numbers. The fraudster can…

I think most consumer telephony companies let you block calling premium numbers, so presumably Twilio could just ask their telephony provider to do so.

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

#127
post #29

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 advi…

Twilios base prices are way higher than their competitors so I don't know why you would use them in the first place

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

#128
post #11

Earlier 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.

Do you have a link or keywords to search for?

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

#129

Disclaimer: IANAL As far as telephony is concerned (things like SMS are a different story), a phone provider cannot legally do this, even if you signed some ToS agreement. According to the FCC, phone providers, including voip providers, have legal requirements around when they are allowed to terminate service: https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/when-your-telephone-com...

The page you link to says that this doesn’t apply to mobile providers in general.

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

#130
We had an incident where our we got charged thousands (later refunded) by abusing dodgy routing and number verification process. The problem was that Twilio will allow calls through when the call balance is below zero, if the calls were queued before it was zero. You then end up with a negative balance.

On the plus side, it does force you to start making defensive plans to protect your application.

Post reply on HN