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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

To make matters worse, Google isn't known for their good customer service.

This is often repeated, and I believe it... but on the other hand, I've been using google services pretty heavily for over a decade, including some paid services, and I've never wanted customer service from google over all that time. Precisely the thing I like about google services is that their shit works and I don't need help from them to use it.

I suppose there's a risk of account suspension as mentioned above, but I still feel that risk is very low for me, my perception of these incidents that make noise on social media/HN is there is at least semi-shady shenanigans involved that trip spam/fraud/etc. alarms. I don't push those kinds of buttons, and neither do the vast majority of people, so I think this is a non-factor for most.

You are right. The risk of an account termination is very low. On the other hand the penalty for failure is absurdly high.

So ultimately it all depends on your willingness to accept the odds, and understand that it can, and does, happen - balancing that with the possible need to start over on the Internet one day.

> this is a non-factor for most.

That's precisely why they are getting away with it. But once you get targeted by them, there is no way out.

If you hire one bad person with a banned account, it can happen that all Google accounts of the entire company are being banned, including your company's apps on Google Play, etc.

On Youtube, even famous people like cgp grey got into issues with Google which claimed that cgp grey was impersonating himself.

The core issue is that you can't have online spaces be free of rule enforcement, but the same time, in most if not all places, rules are enforced quite unfarily and without due process. For individuals this can mean social isolation, but for companies it can mean the end. There were some stories about this here on hn.

Most people also don’t ever need customer service from PayPal, or any company really. The point is that when you do, you’re screwed. That’s not a worthwhile risk for important services like email. For other things perhaps it is.

And everybody thinks it won’t happen to them. Every time there is a PayPal horror story there are comments from people whose business relies on them saying that they don’t believe the risk is high and that it won’t happen to them.

I needed PayPal customer service once cause I got scammed for thousands of dollars.

Customer support was excellent, professional and quick. I got all my money back in 3-4 days.

> I got all my money back in 3-4 days.

Sounds like this was as a customer. PayPal are known to have good service for customers; most of the horror stories are as sellers (where getting bad customer service, having your funds frozen or account closed is also a LOT more painful than as a customer since it could sink your business).

Yes, it was as a customer. When I sell stuff online, its either cash, bank transfer, or Paypal "as friends", never Paypal "ware or service", because it's super easy for sellers to get scammed by customers.

I think that's a good thing. If you are selling stuff online using PayPal, you should be at least be big enough to afford a lawyer that helps you with PayPal.

As a customer, however, you are often way less protected.

I paid the NoScript guy $5 once with PayPal, many years ago. For some reason, that transaction caused my PP account to be frozen. I called PP and they told me "we can't tell you why your account was locked, because that would give people information to help avoid our fraud detection".

I had used this account to buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff on eBay, and they froze it for a $5 transaction.

The risk is real.

> their shit works

Until it doesn't. And then you're screwed. Yes, this didn't happen to you yet. It's like insurance - most people end up not using it. But if you need it and don't have it you're quite screwed. FOr some levels of dependency on Google it's ok - if I can't use Google Maps, I use other maps, no problem. But if I depend on Google for something critical, it may be dangerous.

That's an understatement. Google's customer service is legendary in the sense that everyone's heard of it but nobody has actually been able to "see" it.

But having bad customer service is just bad service, confiscating users' data really not unlike theft.

Imagine if your landlord decided to not only evict you but immediately confiscate any possessions you have in their property.

The feudalism analogy applies here too, im the old times the lord in the castle (or somebody working for him) can banish you from his area, taking your possessions and severing your contacts with the community, ruining your business, and so on. And they don't even need a valid reason, and when you ask "Why?!?" the soldiers would dragging you would just ignore you..

Google's customer service is definitely quirky. You have to write up your issue somewhere and then submit it to this strange orange 1990s-looking website. Then they prioritize tickets with input from random strangers on the internet before they can be seen by someone with enough authority to help you. But generally if you can get into the top 30 issues or so, someone will help you.

What "strange orange website" are you talking about? I thought Google customer service was a myth — would love to know where I can go if I have an issue in the future.

He's talking about HN.

Ah, thought it was some reference to the old Blogger design. facepalm

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