This feels very "yadda yadda yadda" to me.
I suspect there's a reason. I suspect someone knows. And I suspect there's bits of this story that's being left off.
Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
41–50 of 684 posts
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
A typical complaint would be if he had done something wrong, but he send 0 messages, got no likes - so what could he have done wrong? I had similar experiences with Tinder - I think their support team just bans people when they don't want to deal with them - without checking the account at all.
He says he did nothing wrong anyway. They all do. Maybe he is telling the truth but it's hard to know.
The problem is not whether he did something bad or not -- there's no way to know, and he may not admit it if he did.
What the problem is is that he got banned without being told why.
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#43Where's your Tinder bio in this article? I can't imagine creating a new account and publishing something obscene on any social platform today without being flagged or worse.
> but a few days ago I came to a new country
That one is the key. Likely some analytics service (Facebook?) has his phone associated with country A (his country of origin), and Tinder sees the registration coming in from country B (new country). That mismatch then triggered some anti-fraud signalling.
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#44It has always been like that on Tinder. My phone number can't create a new account for example (never receive the confirmation code). That's called shadowban in the case of OP. Bumble started doing the same practices a year ago (which makes sense as they have the same founder)
But they are not 100% wrong, Tinder is not here to make people meet each other. They are here to make money and people don't pay because they get more matches, they pay because they are frustrated. Tinder needs a way to keep girls active on the platform, and for that to works they have to prevent boys to have a negative behavior. That's why they shadowban guys easily, as soon as they detect non standard behavior they shadowban, people keep seeing profile and keep paying. Girls don't see those profiles and have a better experience overall and stays longer, which makes guys stays longer because FOMO of matching the one.
This has nothing to do with Big tech. If you want to meet people don't use Tinder, that used to work well in the past, it very rarely works now.
EDIT: And FYI if you want to exit shadowban on Tinder, it is pretty well documented on r/SwipeHelper, you need to change: phone, phone number, Facebook account, Credit card, pictures and don't login from the same IP
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#45This is presented as a problem with "big tech", but I don't think most people would consider Tinder (Match Group) to be big tech? Instead, this kind of problem where you get flagged with no explanation or recourse seems to be common to consumer tech of all but the smallest scale. It's just very expensive to provide high quality individual support.
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#46Getting banned from Tinder is like getting banned from a bar. Just go somewhere else.
Not quite that simple depending on the country and city. Even more with the pandemic, Tinder might be one's only way of meeting potential partners.
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#47This is basically the paradigm of any monopolistic or near monopolistic system. You can screw over a small minority without provoking a real response so long as you are appeasing or distracting the majority. Big tech, traditional companies, and even government.
This is the paradigm of any system, period. If you work correctly for the most part, the minority which you create negative value for can be offset and establish that system as viable.
This is true for brick and morter/mom and pop businesses. It's true for computer programs. Basically any system. It is not an indicator for a monopoly.
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#48My 2¢; OP should do a charge-back. If anything bots don't do chargebacks.
While you have no recourse in free services, you do when you pay with a credit card. Likewise the CC will still charge Tinder the processing fee of 1%-3%, so every chargeback is not only revenue lost but also a cost.
Unfortunately all that advice is void if OP used a debit card.
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
A typical complaint would be if he had done something wrong, but he send 0 messages, got no likes - so what could he have done wrong? I had similar experiences with Tinder - I think their support team just bans people when they don't want to deal with them - without checking the account at all.
Off the top of my head, there are at least two plausible explanations: * Some user reported his account as "fake" or otherwise "inappropriate" * The algorithm thought he faked his position Neither one requires any intentional wrongdoing. It is what it is.
the third explanation is: he was already banned before signing to all those services.
Re: Tinder just permabanned me or the problem with big tech
#50Just call credit card center for a refund and get a burner number…not a big deal. Regarding banks: get some Bitcoin just in case, as it can be much worse when banks ban you.
If you have to worry about banks banning you, you maybe shouldn't be in a position where you need to take financial advice from HN comments and you're likely better off with cash than an unstable asset that you can't easily eliminate without involving a bank.
> If you have to worry about banks banning you
Banks ban you for joke comments in bank transfers or anything that alludes to drugs, sex work or gambling. Or for transferring remittances to your parents in a way some algorithm deemed to be "structuring" or "money laundering for terrorists".
PayPal bans you for whatever the fuck their AI decided on a whim.
I've been on HN for over eight and a half years now and help requests or complaint blog posts are routine here. One thing that's common is support staff that is either unreachable (Google) or doesn't have any freedom to reverse AI-caused bans / only is allowed to post canned responses (everyone else). The only way to get issues with big tech resolved these days is to raise a stink here on HN, even Twitter shitstorms seem to fly under the radar more and more.