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Comment by tehwebguy | Hacker News Reader

> In fact - Apple even introduced controls to stop scalping of Genius Bar appointments

Yeah, they prevent the purchase. That sounds reasonable. They decidedly DO NOT brick the buyer's phone, or their entire digital life, if they suspect someone bought more than the limit.

Also, even if they did, which would be just as horrible and outrageous as when Google does it, at least they have reasonable phone support and retail stores. It's not just about Google's indefensible behavior in terminating Google accounts, it's about how the company wants to be relied on for everything digital without providing even a bare minimum level of support.

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The issue isn't buying over the limit.

The issue is making it seem like your account is hijacked, or part of a bot-net, or committing payment fraud (e.g. stolen credit cards).

Say you create 100 email accounts - john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com etc. - and have them each buy a phone, and ship them to a single physical address. Most people would see that as a major red flag for something fishing going on.

Or say suddenly all of these otherwise unrelated accounts suddenly started ordering goods online, and shipping to a PO Box in the Ukraine.

As a consumer, I most definitely want all of this stopped.

In fact, my bank will regularly call me up and ask me to confirm transactions that seem suspicious (or send me an SMS) - if I don't respond in time (e.g. I'm travelling), they will lock out my credit card.

That is exactly what you want as a customer.

So in this case - it seems these people knew they were engaging in something shady - but perhaps they didn't put two and two together and think, gee, if I let somebody order something on my credit card, yet addressed to him, I wonder if it will look like my account was hijacked?

A bank freezing your account to protect you, because they think someone hijacked your account, is different than a bank that thinks you're a bad person and the bank wants to find out every single account you have and punish you.

Many people have experienced financial protections, but few have experienced an adversarial bank, and I imagine that would scare a lot of people.

It sounds like to me Google does both things. Google does things which are comparable to customer fraud protection, and Google also does things which maximally asserts its positions in a punitive manner, at which point, is it time for lawyers and media PR battles?

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