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Comment by ModernMech | Hacker News Reader

Oh that's a good idea! I got locked out of my YouTube premium account and they kept charging me. Couldn't get in contact with anyone at YouTube because the YT premium support line is behind the YT login. So I had to change my credit card number. Somehow they still kept billing the card, so the credit card company said they'd have to close my account entirely to get Google to stop billing me for a service they wouldn't let me cancel.

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That's a built-in thing; Visa, MasterCard, Amex all have updater services that ensure trusted merchants get the replacement card seamlessly. This leads to annoying edge cases like yours.

https://stripe.com/resources/more/what-is-a-card-account-upd...

You can sometimes ask your bank to issue a card and not ping the updater service, but tier one support tends… not to know about it at all.

BoA issued me a new card after a fraudulent charge, the next year on the same date the same fraudulent charge showed up (annual billing cycle). This happened for more than three years because after they issued a new card they updated the service that billed the fraud with the new number.

You have to realize that once Google flips the bit on you and they think you are trying to scam them (or others via them) you are absolutely dead to them. They don't want to hear from you ever again. You're banned to hell. The fact that a billing system didn't get switched off isn't so surprising; the internal architecture of their systems is so complicated that it would take multiple human lifetimes to explain how it all works.

> The fact that a billing system didn't get switched off isn't so surprising; the internal architecture of their systems is so complicated that it would take multiple human lifetimes to explain how it all works.

There was a lawsuit about a decade ago where a company was owed about $500k in ad fraud refunds and Google kept saying they had paid it, it ended up being an incomplete part of their software that had inadvertently withheld $75 million!

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-emails-adtrader-lawsu...

That "inadvertently" desperately needs scare quotes.

More often than people would like to admit, Google IS the scammer...

Sadly you are right. They are billing my Euro charges from a UK (non Euro) bank, which adds 2% money exchange fee on everything.

Switch to Mercury banking. https://mercury.com/

You can create as many virtual cards as you want. And surprisingly, I've rarely encountered a vendor that rejects them. I set one up for pretty much every recurring service charge, just because it's so easy to do.

It costs a few hundred a year for personal banking, but if you register an LLC (which in MO costs ~$10) you can use your EIN to get a business account. Did it a couple times, once for my non-profit and once for my consulting LLC.

Are the virtual cards credit cards or hooked up to your account (i.e. debit cards)? there's a big difference. Also, they're not a bank so FDIC insurance and other bank aspects are different. Not what I'd personally use for my long-term savings-oriented finances, but fine for more operational things.

That sounds like what Privacy.com does, but the virtual cards can still charge right through after you shut them down. NYTimes did that to me, after my trial sub expired, and Privacy did nothing to block it.

Yup. I need to figure that out with Microsoft too. Paid for a 365 subscription on an account using one of my secondary email addresses. Being charged every month. None of those secondary emails will let me login/act like there's an account there/forgot password doesn't work. Support has no way to see what email account is linked to a credit card (which, admittedly, I get, somewhat) and wouldn't disclose that information anyway. So even armed with a transaction ID...

Did you try to demand a charge-back every time?

That's an uphill battle, I tried doing that with a gym once who said to cancel, I had to come in only on Tuesday in the morning when the manager was there with a certified notarized cancellation form.

The idea of a chargeback against Google/Apple/Amazon and their response being a permanent ban of all my accounts is a bit terrifying.

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