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Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

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21–30 of 31 posts

Re: Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

#21

The whole "Please verify information only available to you when you login to re-enable your login" is such a malicious pattern I've run into google in a ton of different services. Other companies do similar, but it's just such a blatant fuck you I find it hard to believe someone seriously sat down and thought it was a good idea. I had it once where a service I was using for google got mysteriously suspended, but that…

eBay/Paypal were one of the worst when they were merged. It was so bad I wound up having a new account every 6 months or so. I learned that when they started asking for personal details your chances of being reinstated were nearly zero. The lesson was I had an acct suspended, and they asked for DL, then birth certificate, then a lease, then a power bill, then a phone bill, every time I gave them the document they asked for something else. Then finally they said they needed my passport. I said I didn't have one, suddenly THAT was the only thing that could solve this, and I understood that this was just the plan. They keep asking for different things until you can't provide it or the info they have is wrong and they'll never believe you.

Re: Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

#22
post #21

The whole "Please verify information only available to you when you login to re-enable your login" is such a malicious pattern I've run into google in a ton of different services. Other companies do similar, but it's just such a blatant fuck you I find it hard to believe someone seriously sat down and thought it was a good idea. I had it once where a service I was using for google got mysteriously suspended, but that…

eBay/Paypal were one of the worst when they were merged. It was so bad I wound up having a new account every 6 months or so. I learned that when they started asking for personal details your chances of being reinstated were nearly zero. The lesson was I had an acct suspended, and they asked for DL, then birth certificate, then a lease, then a power bill, then a phone bill, every time I gave them the document they ask…

This happened to me in college. They never refunded my $7k balance. It was devastating to me at the time. The experience has played no small role in me becoming a cryptocurrency believer and advocate for the unbanked.

Re: Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

#23
post #21

The whole "Please verify information only available to you when you login to re-enable your login" is such a malicious pattern I've run into google in a ton of different services. Other companies do similar, but it's just such a blatant fuck you I find it hard to believe someone seriously sat down and thought it was a good idea. I had it once where a service I was using for google got mysteriously suspended, but that…

eBay/Paypal were one of the worst when they were merged. It was so bad I wound up having a new account every 6 months or so. I learned that when they started asking for personal details your chances of being reinstated were nearly zero. The lesson was I had an acct suspended, and they asked for DL, then birth certificate, then a lease, then a power bill, then a phone bill, every time I gave them the document they ask…

Very similar thing happened to me with LinkedIn earlier this year. Account disappeared, never given a reason - I only used it to interact with job listings.

Re: Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

#25
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't their business model largely centered around the concept of scaling up business without scaling up staff proportionately? A big part of their innovation was getting people to tolerate nonexistent/automated customer service.

Customer service would not have to be a cost center for large clouds. I think many people would be glad to have an option to pay $100 to speak to a real person.

If they were only an enterprise cloud company I think they'd see it that way. But having no customer service for any of their consumer services has become the DNA of the whole company.

Re: Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

#27
post #21

The whole "Please verify information only available to you when you login to re-enable your login" is such a malicious pattern I've run into google in a ton of different services. Other companies do similar, but it's just such a blatant fuck you I find it hard to believe someone seriously sat down and thought it was a good idea. I had it once where a service I was using for google got mysteriously suspended, but that…

eBay/Paypal were one of the worst when they were merged. It was so bad I wound up having a new account every 6 months or so. I learned that when they started asking for personal details your chances of being reinstated were nearly zero. The lesson was I had an acct suspended, and they asked for DL, then birth certificate, then a lease, then a power bill, then a phone bill, every time I gave them the document they ask…

PayPal still does that

Re: Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

#28
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eBay/Paypal were one of the worst when they were merged. It was so bad I wound up having a new account every 6 months or so. I learned that when they started asking for personal details your chances of being reinstated were nearly zero. The lesson was I had an acct suspended, and they asked for DL, then birth certificate, then a lease, then a power bill, then a phone bill, every time I gave them the document they ask…

This happened to me in college. They never refunded my $7k balance. It was devastating to me at the time. The experience has played no small role in me becoming a cryptocurrency believer and advocate for the unbanked.

Yep, they took $3,800 from me. Nearly took another $2,400 but I was able to refund that to the sender before they stole it all.

Re: Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

#29
post #11
post #6

My takeaway from stuff like this is don't use the big clouds unless you're big enough to get proper customer service. It's too risky. Especially when you can get false flagged by AI or some heuristic.

He didn't want to (and didn't use for core functionality) - this was a an integration specifically to help customers who already used GCP.

If you have to use GCP, it's probably safer to go through a third party reseller than being a customer directly. Those resellers are big enough to get customer service.

Re: Google Cloud suspended customer's account 3 times, for 3 different reasons

#30

The whole "Please verify information only available to you when you login to re-enable your login" is such a malicious pattern I've run into google in a ton of different services. Other companies do similar, but it's just such a blatant fuck you I find it hard to believe someone seriously sat down and thought it was a good idea. I had it once where a service I was using for google got mysteriously suspended, but that…

I had to do exactly this with Oracle. They couldn't fix my account to be able to change my billing, but I still had access to my resources. But I couldn't change anything and I figured it was just a sign that breaking my rule of never dealing with Oracle was a bad idea so I shut it down. Then had to cancel the card to get the billing stopped because multiple long calls and chats with CS couldn't get that fixed.
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