4 ms·

come on. there are >6b people on earth, with many many fraudsters trying to make money at other people's expense. It's a problem that has to be automated sooner

by tehlike 10y ago

come on. there are >6b people on earth, with many many fraudsters trying to make money at other people's expense. It's a problem that has to be automated sooner or later. Computers are also much faster in fraud detection. You use your credit card at some store that you have never been, at an odd hour, and your bank triggers a fraud lock, and declines the transaction. That's efficiency. When there are billions of transactions occurring every day, of course a small error rate will reflect itself on a large number of false positives. PS: goog employee, but i appreciate fraud detection a lot (especially when it comes to how easy it is to leak SSN in this country, and how useful it is for obtaining credits) Edit: fact check. there aren't 6b people using computers obviously.

jacquesm 10y ago
> That's efficiency. When there are billions of transactions occurring every day, of course a small error rate will reflect itself on a large number of false positives. Yes, coupled with excellent customer service that sounds like a good plan. Unfortunately your employer seems to have decided that customer service is something they can't afford.
- tehlike 10y ago
  definitely google is not known for super good customer service, I will give you that.
  - smcl 10y ago
    It's actually much worse than "not known for super good customer service", Google are known for awful customer service and not just for the "free" tier. I appreciate that as your employer Google means something different to you, and you certainly shouldn't be expected to answer on their behalf ... but lets not kid ourselves here
    - tehlike 10y ago
      When I write here, i try to write it on my own. Being a google employee doesn't have any bearing on what I think about google products. I don't use many google products, because there are better ones out there. I think that should be the perspective when you read most comments here.
      - smcl 10y ago
        Sure thing - I just didn't want to sound like I was saying "as a Googler this is YOUR problem" that's all :)
        tehlike 10y ago
        ah - sorry i misunderstood. Thank you.
tluyben2 10y ago
But the fraud algo's + the support are absolute crap. I am known to Google + Paypal, I am logged on as a user, I have credit cards and bank accounts attached, I am with both about since they came online. I made money for both; I am not talking as a consumer, i'm talking as a business owner. Which is not the 6b people on earth; it's far less. The problem is that companies actually, legally steal money like that; I did not fraud anyone ever and yet I have to provide proof (which I already did 100 times; they have my passport copy, bank statements, where I live, know me for 15+ years etc (and have data on me for that time)) and then still smug (...) canned responses that 'this is the way it is'. But I have no recourse besides legal action which is usually not worth it. So I just have to suck it up. It's theft; I did not do anything. That is my gripe; outside internet, it would not stand. But luckily I left that all behind many years ago; this just brought it back in my head :) Sorry for ranting. I'm all for automation, but not for bad automation. Google is still party to that in many ways; I am logged into Google / Gmail / Plus / Drive / Photos and do a search; I get a captcha request because I 'might be a bot', then I fill it correctly and it says my computer might be sending automated queries. IT IS NOT and it's just a disgrace to the company, when I am logged on as a very long term paying loyal user, that they cannot simply see 'oh, that's Tycho, let's not annoy him with stuff that he never does/did/will (and he uses Linux, is a programmer, uses Noscript so his laptop is very much not compromised) do and oh yeah he is logged in via 2-factor auth so it's him'. Boggles the mind. Not sure how you can defend it.
- ticviking 10y ago
  If it has happened repeatedly caused that kind of problem you might start looking around for a class action lawsuit. Absent any consiquences they'll keep doing what they do.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    At the time (this is a long time ago) we looked into that; there were (maybe are, luckily we left ads behind) many conspiracy theories and angry blog posts from people who had their life wrecked by an algorithm without any way to defend themselves. Nothing came of it and we/I learned that you cannot count on Paypal or Google for primary income; we switched to affiliate sales and traditional online card payments and we never looked back.
raverbashing 10y ago
The problem is not automating, but Google shoots first and doesn't ask questions later. This leaves false positives helpless. I'm not surprised Google closes their eyes and ignores false positives, your answer only confirms that.
- tehlike 10y ago
  I am in ads, and occasionally deal with ad fraud. So i cannot speak what they do for other products. I don't think you should derive any meaning from what I say.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    Maybe you can answer a question I had for a long time. Many years ago my company got banned from adsense suspicious traffic. We got some standardised email, we mailed back and got some canned responses but no-one cared of course. I have no clue what it even means because no-one explained (besides links to vague blahblah), so 1) what does that mean? I can guess what it means, but how, if we didn't do it (and I seriously couldn't give a crap anymore at this time, but we had nothing to do with it), how can we be banned for it? Then 2) if Google can detect this traffic and qualify it, why not just delete it from the stats and leave it at that? Edit; not saying you work there so you know it, but if you do and can say, i'm curious :)

by tehlike 10y ago

jacquesm 10y ago

> That's efficiency. When there are billions of transactions occurring every day, of course a small error rate will reflect itself on a large number of false positives. Yes, coupled with excellent customer service that sounds like a good plan. Unfortunately your employer seems to have decided that customer service is something they can't afford.

tehlike 10y ago
definitely google is not known for super good customer service, I will give you that.
- smcl 10y ago
  It's actually much worse than "not known for super good customer service", Google are known for awful customer service and not just for the "free" tier. I appreciate that as your employer Google means something different to you, and you certainly shouldn't be expected to answer on their behalf ... but lets not kid ourselves here
  - tehlike 10y ago
    When I write here, i try to write it on my own. Being a google employee doesn't have any bearing on what I think about google products. I don't use many google products, because there are better ones out there. I think that should be the perspective when you read most comments here.
    - smcl 10y ago
      Sure thing - I just didn't want to sound like I was saying "as a Googler this is YOUR problem" that's all :)
      - tehlike 10y ago
        ah - sorry i misunderstood. Thank you.

tluyben2 10y ago

But the fraud algo's + the support are absolute crap. I am known to Google + Paypal, I am logged on as a user, I have credit cards and bank accounts attached, I am with both about since they came online. I made money for both; I am not talking as a consumer, i'm talking as a business owner. Which is not the 6b people on earth; it's far less. The problem is that companies actually, legally steal money like that; I did not fraud anyone ever and yet I have to provide proof (which I already did 100 times; they have my passport copy, bank statements, where I live, know me for 15+ years etc (and have data on me for that time)) and then still smug (...) canned responses that 'this is the way it is'. But I have no recourse besides legal action which is usually not worth it. So I just have to suck it up. It's theft; I did not do anything. That is my gripe; outside internet, it would not stand. But luckily I left that all behind many years ago; this just brought it back in my head :) Sorry for ranting. I'm all for automation, but not for bad automation. Google is still party to that in many ways; I am logged into Google / Gmail / Plus / Drive / Photos and do a search; I get a captcha request because I 'might be a bot', then I fill it correctly and it says my computer might be sending automated queries. IT IS NOT and it's just a disgrace to the company, when I am logged on as a very long term paying loyal user, that they cannot simply see 'oh, that's Tycho, let's not annoy him with stuff that he never does/did/will (and he uses Linux, is a programmer, uses Noscript so his laptop is very much not compromised) do and oh yeah he is logged in via 2-factor auth so it's him'. Boggles the mind. Not sure how you can defend it.

ticviking 10y ago
If it has happened repeatedly caused that kind of problem you might start looking around for a class action lawsuit. Absent any consiquences they'll keep doing what they do.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  At the time (this is a long time ago) we looked into that; there were (maybe are, luckily we left ads behind) many conspiracy theories and angry blog posts from people who had their life wrecked by an algorithm without any way to defend themselves. Nothing came of it and we/I learned that you cannot count on Paypal or Google for primary income; we switched to affiliate sales and traditional online card payments and we never looked back.

raverbashing 10y ago

The problem is not automating, but Google shoots first and doesn't ask questions later. This leaves false positives helpless. I'm not surprised Google closes their eyes and ignores false positives, your answer only confirms that.

tehlike 10y ago
I am in ads, and occasionally deal with ad fraud. So i cannot speak what they do for other products. I don't think you should derive any meaning from what I say.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  Maybe you can answer a question I had for a long time. Many years ago my company got banned from adsense suspicious traffic. We got some standardised email, we mailed back and got some canned responses but no-one cared of course. I have no clue what it even means because no-one explained (besides links to vague blahblah), so 1) what does that mean? I can guess what it means, but how, if we didn't do it (and I seriously couldn't give a crap anymore at this time, but we had nothing to do with it), how can we be banned for it? Then 2) if Google can detect this traffic and qualify it, why not just delete it from the stats and leave it at that? Edit; not saying you work there so you know it, but if you do and can say, i'm curious :)