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FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

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Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#191

Post by dlgeek »

eru wrote: post #164
fallingknife wrote: post #87

Utility services start off as luxuries, and are private and unregulated. This was true with telephone and electric companies. When these services get to a certain point where there are real consequences for not being able to access the system, they need to have public regulation to ensure access and customer service. ISP internet service has definitely reached this point, and I think that there's a strong argument th…

Bread! We should definitely regulate bread that way. It's way more important than Google and Facebook.

We kind of do, which is really the point. There are all sorts of regulations about making and selling bread to ensure safety and fitness for purpose as well as all sorts of programs such as SNAP, WIC, school lunches, many state programs, etc. all to ensure that everyone has access to bread.

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#192

Post by Uberphallus »

jpollock wrote: post #85
hangonhn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was literally the only way I got help after someone somehow managed to registered one of my email address under a Facebook account I don't control and tried to impersonate me. I don't even know how that was possible since FB does email verification. I tried the normal help system but got nowhere so I reached out to my friends who work at FB. One of them used the internal help system it was resolved within a coup…

Whenever someone's used my email address, I've used password recovery and taken ownership of the account. It's amazing the number of systems which don't verify email before giving out an account. I've taken control of: Disney DropBox Redbox ...

Not exactly the same, but some time ago some woman from Texas changed her email on Netflix to mine, seemingly without confirmation.

My email address has a very particular custom domain that can't be explained with a typo, and I don't know anyone in Texas. Very weird. Netflix support was like, whatever, why do you care?

Still puzzled about why and how that happened.

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#193

Post by ehsankia »

croes wrote: post #190

Maybe because headset owners are actually customers instead of users. FBs other customers pay for ads.

I understand the struggle of trying to provide free support to billions of users, but more companies should provide a "pay a fee for real customer support" kinda hot line. Whatever price is costs to provide said support, honestly, many would be happy to pay for it.

Google sorta does this through Google One, it's 2-3$ a month and you also get some extra storage space. It's not perfect but you actually get to talk to a real human being.

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#194

Post by StreamBright »

throwaway93382 wrote: post #183
shoeshoeshoey wrote: post #24

FB had an internal help system called "Oops". It was meant for employees to get help for friends they knew in real life. It was discontinued not long ago (EDIT: maybe not according to a child comment). There were just too many requests for help. Facebook has a corporate structure that simply will not prioritize any effort longer than 6 months unless a senior company executive (Mark, Sheryl) supports it. Even if it af…

Can confirm. We were a corporate account spending large 6 digit sums every month on Facebook Business Manager and Facebook randomly stopped campaigns due to intransparent and inaccessible credit line configurations, hurting not just our bottom line but theirs as well, with nobody to turn to in general FBM support. After lots of escalation through some personal contacts we fortunately had, they switched to a system wh…

Sounds like Google and Facebook does not care about their users anymore.

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#195

Post by ehsankia »

SilverRed wrote: post #47
doopy1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted by FB account and created a new dummy account for Oculus. No issues.

FB runs bots over the platform to detect these accounts. Since they have everyone's contact list, they can just check your friends list and see if you appear in their contact lists. If not, they will lock you out and require you to send a photo of your ID. And even if they have not yet, they can at any time and all of your games and hardware get locked which is permitted in their ToS. Why would you want to take this…

Hmm, I can understand getting banned for having a side account. But GP claims they fully deleted their account, and created a new one. What is Facebook gonna do, punish them for no longer having a FB account? What if I happened to have deleted my FB account a year ago and want to play Oculus now?

For people who don't care about the account they made a decade ago and no longer use, this seems like a reasonable and probably safe approach.

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#196

Post by rzzzt »

eru wrote: post #163
toast0 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB policy says they want to reward results and not effort. But it makes it hard to reward people for making progress on things that can't be done in 6 months. It also makes for shitty service quality around the end of June and December, as people rush to push things to prod. (I've heard this may have changed, but it's hard to notice good service quality). (Former FB employee)

It might be an interesting experiment to have each employee start their cycles (review cycle, or quarterly numbers for sales etc) on a random offset.

(This is what one should do with cron jobs so they don't hammer the server at exactly the same time.)

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#197

Post by Akronymus »

Causality1 wrote: post #120
jpollock wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever someone's used my email address, I've used password recovery and taken ownership of the account. It's amazing the number of systems which don't verify email before giving out an account. I've taken control of: Disney DropBox Redbox ...

Having a firstnamelastname address will subject you to a truly baffling level of false accounts and misaddressed email. The worst was probably the time I got emailed an excel sheet containing the names, personal details, and logins for an entire layer of middle managers for a small banking chain.

Thankfully for me, my last name is pretty damn rare. And only a thing in one area of the world. So I can go with firstnamelastname.

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#198

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #176
malandrew wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay for a cold calling service that lets me look up emails and phone numbers for many professionals of import. These days customer service gets two shots to get it right before I start calling the personal cell phone numbers of the C-suite, board of directors and everyone with the word director in their title. I'm absolutely over shitty customer service and it's not fair to subject customer service representatives…

Is there a techbro version of "Karen" because this is that. I mean, seriously... buying people's personal contact details??

Seriously. My whole thought reading GP's post was "This person is coming across as a complete asshole by their own words, but in their mind they are thinking they are coming across as some kind of hero."

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#199

Post by switch007 »

malandrew wrote: post #184
ChrisKnott wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a techbro version of "Karen" because this is that. I mean, seriously... buying people's personal contact details??

I mean, seriously... wasting the time, patience and goodwill of your paying customers by under-investing in quality customer support and driving down defects?? I know it's popular to diss the "karens" of the world, but a lot of them keep in check businesses that will abuse their customers if they can get away with it. They can be a useful corrective force just like class action lawsuits can be.

A little tin foil hat but I can imagine shitty company engaging marketing companies to spread the Karen meme. It seems like anyone who tries to get proper customer service these days is cancelled with “don’t be a karen” and “#BeKind” (Nb neither of these apply to the companies of course, just customers :-))

Re: FB users buying Oculus VR headsets to get customer service prioritization

#200

Post by aeturnum »

mmahemoff wrote: post #50
metajack wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used oops to help someone I knew several months back. It still exists and worked amazingly well.

I'm sure detractors would find plenty to criticise about a system to prioritise friends and family, but it's smart from a QA perspective. They get a corpus of issues that are falling through the cracks, coming from real people without an agenda.

I'm glad people are helped. Something is better than nothing.

I also think that, a service that is focused on helping those with personal connections to Facebook employees dampens the most potent source of visible friction for the maintainers of a system that clearly has the potential to be arbitrary and oppressive.

I think we would all be better off in a world where each oops case was solved by changing the overall system - even if we also recognize that change on that scale is difficult for then the most well intentioned.

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