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

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

#151
post #52
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit shit that they had to jump through so many hoops, with HN being the only one that actually worked (after 7 hours) in order to get in touch. Serious kudos to you for helping them but I know a lot of people who wouldn't touch your company with a bargepole for these kind of reasons. Having to kick up a fuss on social media in order to get service, how very 2021..

> Having to kick up a fuss on social media in order to get service, how very 2021.. Exactly. I'm locked out of a google account I have which links to a yt channel and a twitter account. The only truly viable option for me to get these back is work my way up the social media infulencing ladder and then complain how I lost access to my accounts. This is insane.

I had an issue with a propane company contractor failing to secure permits before installing a line, which caused an expensive backyard project to grind to a halt, while still incurring cost. Every call to support was met with very friendly folks who promised a call back same day.

That never, ever happened and I had to resort to a nicely worded note to a corporate VP on LinkedIn to resolve it. Even then, I'm pretty sure that "unpermitted gas line work" was the real driver in getting it resolved, since that's a big deal.

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

#152

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.

>Welcome to the new world where tech companies rule. I understand what you're saying but, speaking specifically to this case (which is a little different than YouTube censorship), I think this highlights the dangers of outsourcing your critical infrastructure to third-party SAAS companies without a mitigation plan. As companies, we have to get into the habit of putting together mitigations plans for times when the ou…

The entire value of these companies is in the outsourcing of the entire problem.

It's incredibly hard to have multiple vendors if you're using specific or advanced functionality, and if you're hosting a failover yourself then you might as well just use that instead.

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

#153
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…

We had this issue as well. Out tens of thousands of dollars. For a tiny startup, this almost killed us.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It only takes one. One young prosecutor seeking to make a splash in a jurisdiction with a twilio customer. Twilio might win in court, but they’d lose in the big picture.

Interesting. Have you ever seen this happen in your practice as a lawyer?

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

#155
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.

I thought AWS SNS SMS was a wrapper around twilio? I recall a big song and dance on the Twilio side about them providing AWS with a service... Could be wrong.

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

#156
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…

We had this issue as well. Out tens of thousands of dollars. For a tiny startup, this almost killed us.

We’re tiny too and now worried. We only offer 2FA with SMS. Did they abuse your SMS OTp?

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Welcome to the new world where tech companies rule. I understand what you're saying but, speaking specifically to this case (which is a little different than YouTube censorship), I think this highlights the dangers of outsourcing your critical infrastructure to third-party SAAS companies without a mitigation plan. As companies, we have to get into the habit of putting together mitigations plans for times when the ou…

The entire value of these companies is in the outsourcing of the entire problem. It's incredibly hard to have multiple vendors if you're using specific or advanced functionality, and if you're hosting a failover yourself then you might as well just use that instead.

>It's incredibly hard to have multiple vendors if you're using specific or advanced functionality, and if you're hosting a failover yourself then you might as well just use that instead.

I'm not suggesting any specific solution and I didn't even suggest they run their own infrastructure. There are good reasons to outsource these kinds of operations. But what happened was the company got the rug pulled underneath their feet and realized they didn't know how to contact their critical supplier. That's not good and that's their failure in this mess.

I don't understand the resistance to identifying and mitigating business risks. Honestly.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I was under the impression that voip is not considered "wireless" but I could be mistaken there.

I get the impression those protections are for residential phone service, not the kind of stuff twilio does. Leaving that aside, though, SMS (at issue here) is definitely in the wireless realm, even if the messages come from an API call rather than a mobile device's radio.

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire value of these companies is in the outsourcing of the entire problem. It's incredibly hard to have multiple vendors if you're using specific or advanced functionality, and if you're hosting a failover yourself then you might as well just use that instead.

>It's incredibly hard to have multiple vendors if you're using specific or advanced functionality, and if you're hosting a failover yourself then you might as well just use that instead. I'm not suggesting any specific solution and I didn't even suggest they run their own infrastructure. There are good reasons to outsource these kinds of operations. But what happened was the company got the rug pulled underneath thei…

You're not understanding because there is no resistance. This was the risk.

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

#160
post #33

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.

Yes, it's active now after almost 7 hours. Thank you! I plan to update everyone on what happened as soon as I get some sleep first. I've been up since 7 am and it's 2 am now. The incident started at 7 pm.

We're still interested in an update!
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