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Send money with Gmail

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Re: Send money with Gmail

#181

Post by adsenseclient »

DanBC wrote: post #134
JoeKM wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How true is this still? Google Checkout was rolled out ages ago (in tech years). The Google today is quite different. I have been reading about "poor Google customer service" for years, almost like it's a running joke of anecdotes. Years ago it may have made sense, but today Google has Android/Fiber/plethora of web services. I can't imagine they haven't clued in on customer service yet with all their paid services.

Adsense users often complain about this. They don't seem to realise that they're not the customer. They're not even the product being sold. They are trying to sell product to Google - "Buy this space on my web page / youtube video". Google has strict rules, and sometimes makes mistakes, and doesn't have any way to sort out those mistakes. It sucks for those people. And since those people are (by definition) the kind…

I wonder what you would say when you personally experience a $15,000/mo sudden AdSense account shutdown in a bootstrapped startup, with confiscation of $30,0000 earnings already on the account. The email will be just a template to accuse you of "fraudulent activity", and there will be no human at all that you can call. Speaking with the first hand knowledge of the matter.

Re: Send money with Gmail

#183

Post by jcampbell1 »

pg wrote: post #90

I think this is going to be really big. But it might require actual customer service; that must have made them think twice.

Many years ago, Google made statements like "we only do things that scale, and customer support doesn't scale". It was a strong guiding philosophy for many of the engineers, but that philosophy has eroded.

If we look at some of Google's biggest successes, it has been things that don't scale:

- The Ground Truth team in India, manually drawing the world's maps.

- Manual spam detection in search results

- Customer Support for most adwords accounts

- Customer Support for Nexus devices

I think the executives at Google have enough evidence that "do things that don't scale" can have a big payoff and it is really not that bad. They are clearly no longer too chicken shit to tackle problems that require customer support. The old Google only did things that match the business model of search, today's Google does what it takes to win.

I wouldn't bet against their ability to provide customer support. In the last 2 years, Adwords support went from non-existant to impeccable.

Re: Send money with Gmail

#184

Post by jordanthoms »

_b8r0 wrote: post #165
pg wrote: post #90

I think this is going to be really big. But it might require actual customer service; that must have made them think twice.

The amount they pay for bug bounties has just become worthless. The value of an XSS or even CSRF bug in Google products has just shot through the roof. I hope it works. If it does it'll have a massive impact on the world and hopefully utterly screw paypal, but the potential for fraud is huge. It's one thing to secure a payment portal, but a complex mail app with a combined payment portal is a massive challenge. I hop…

It depends on how the chargeback and tracing system works. Credit cards and ACH have virtually no security (especially ACH, the "secret" is on the bottom of every check you write), and the world keeps turning. If it's hard to get money out in a untraceable and irreversible way, hacking someones account is not so valuable.

Re: Send money with Gmail

#185

Post by throwaway420 »

adsenseclient wrote: post #181
DanBC wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adsense users often complain about this. They don't seem to realise that they're not the customer. They're not even the product being sold. They are trying to sell product to Google - "Buy this space on my web page / youtube video". Google has strict rules, and sometimes makes mistakes, and doesn't have any way to sort out those mistakes. It sucks for those people. And since those people are (by definition) the kind…

I wonder what you would say when you personally experience a $15,000/mo sudden AdSense account shutdown in a bootstrapped startup, with confiscation of $30,0000 earnings already on the account. The email will be just a template to accuse you of "fraudulent activity", and there will be no human at all that you can call. Speaking with the first hand knowledge of the matter.

I think that a lot of folks are in denial about some of Google's downright evil business practices because they admire Google's technology and like Google's attitudes towards open source software. I greatly admire this stuff too, but Google has some shocking business practices that quite frankly are unbelievable until you experience it firsthand for yourself.

When you're a small business and Google bans you for some unknown reason and seizes your money - here is what will happen.

* You might receive some type of form letter in response, but you will not be able to get an intelligent reply from a trained customer service agent. * You will not be able to reach anybody on the phone for any price that will help you out. * You will not find out what the issue was that caused a ban. * Your small business will die a slow death. * Depending on the amount of money the owners have (most small businesses don't have a lot) they will struggle to even pay their employees their final checks with this cash seized. * You are forever banned from using AdSense again, so forget starting up another online business ever again.

Google is an amazing company that has some frankly despicable business practices that more people need to pay attention to and call them out for.

Re: Send money with Gmail

#186

Post by hobs »

JoeKM wrote: post #113
joosters wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't stop them from rolling out Google Checkout with any (human) customer service, as I painfully discovered :( Google seem allergic to phone or email contact with users.

How true is this still? Google Checkout was rolled out ages ago (in tech years). The Google today is quite different. I have been reading about "poor Google customer service" for years, almost like it's a running joke of anecdotes. Years ago it may have made sense, but today Google has Android/Fiber/plethora of web services. I can't imagine they haven't clued in on customer service yet with all their paid services.

I get that you think or see these responses as anecdotal, and frankly, there is no other kind when it comes to a customer talking about a company they are getting a product from.

However, I would say that this thread is one of the first places EVER that I have seen someone say google support is good or sufficient or not terrible even. I have seen people have to post on HN to get things resolved by google employees reading HN threads! While it seems like a personal touch, people are resorting to it (and I assume googlers are helping) because there is not another avenue that works for MOST products that google has.

I must acknowledge have not used the google support for fiber (I dont have it) and that might indeed be great, as a man who does customer service stuff plenty of times, I know that there is a simple siloing process going on with their support departments.

Nonetheless google has a loooooong way to go to change the "anecdotal" consensus of the internet when it comes to their support, their comments about not doing things that dont scale entirely aside.

Re: Send money with Gmail

#187

Post by phillco »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #183
pg wrote: post #90

I think this is going to be really big. But it might require actual customer service; that must have made them think twice.

Many years ago, Google made statements like "we only do things that scale, and customer support doesn't scale". It was a strong guiding philosophy for many of the engineers, but that philosophy has eroded. If we look at some of Google's biggest successes, it has been things that don't scale: - The Ground Truth team in India, manually drawing the world's maps. - Manual spam detection in search results - Customer Suppo…

Not to mention, scanning many thousands of books manually.

Re: Send money with Gmail

#189

Post by OGinparadise »

throwaway420 wrote: post #185
adsenseclient wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what you would say when you personally experience a $15,000/mo sudden AdSense account shutdown in a bootstrapped startup, with confiscation of $30,0000 earnings already on the account. The email will be just a template to accuse you of "fraudulent activity", and there will be no human at all that you can call. Speaking with the first hand knowledge of the matter.

I think that a lot of folks are in denial about some of Google's downright evil business practices because they admire Google's technology and like Google's attitudes towards open source software. I greatly admire this stuff too, but Google has some shocking business practices that quite frankly are unbelievable until you experience it firsthand for yourself. When you're a small business and Google bans you for some…

Google looks after Google and that's it. Exhibit A is search and how much more money Google makes after major updates.

People are in denial but some truth is coming out little by little.

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