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Wowow! In this position my first step would be to determine if there's any legal basis for disputing the charge (an informal conversation with a lawyer or even

Wowow! In this position my first step would be to determine if there's any legal basis for disputing the charge (an informal conversation with a lawyer or even just someone who's been through a similar experience is a fine start). Even when a billing change is disclosed in advance and the customer actually uses the bandwidth, massive spikes in metered pricing are a tricky area and have attracted the attention of regulators in the past--for instance telecoms have come under fire by charging sky-high overage fees for mobile data and not warning you until you've already racked up a few extra zeroes worth of charges on your next bill. Also, immediately dispute the charge with your credit card company, as you want this on their radar. Their interests are aligned with yours to at least some degree (if Google's causing financial distress for one of their customers with thousands of dollars in unanticipated charges, how many others may get hit?). Aside from that, if things played out as described: major dick move, Google! Is "do no evil" a bad joke these days? Seriously, though, Google is not a dumb company and my guess is that if the right person was made aware of this case (e.g., anyone who understands that the most important word in "customer relationship" is the second one), they would make it right. I'm totally on the side of the author: when possible, it's worth a little extra elbow grease to build your business on top of free, self-hosted software instead of proprietary SaaS. Think of it as insurance against cases like this one.

imron 9y ago
> immediately dispute the charge with your credit card company This will result in the shutdown of their service, and ruin their app.
- stemuk 9y ago
  I would also doubt that it would be worth it even without keeping in mind the risk of loosing the service. Google is usually pretty clever when it comes to TOS Agreements.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
"Don't be evil." was dropped in 2015 or thereabouts IIRC. I'd guess when they realised it was becoming more of a joke than a motto: "Google, the company who's motto is 'don't be evil' angered customers again today when ...
- logicallee 9y ago
  Can you link to a report or some source, stating they dropped the "don't be evil"? where do you get that, and the date, please? Thanks.
  - ninju 9y ago
    http://fortune.com/2015/10/05/alphabet-google-evil/ http://fortune.com/2015/10/05/alphabet-google-evil/ ... The new code of conduct has a close approximation of the philosophy—though perhaps more formally phrased—in the very first sentence of the preface: "Employees of Alphabet... should do the right thing – follow the law, act honorably, and treat each other with respect."
    - grenoire 9y ago
      "treat each other with respect" Sounds like a loophole, not just 'more formally.'
      - pluma 9y ago
        As opposed to "evil", which is extremely subjective already?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- devrand 9y ago
  I continuously see this mentioned, but it's simply not true. The Google code of conduct is still prefaced with that phrase: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html Alphabet created a new code of conduct when it was formed that didn't use the phrase, but it was never dropped from Google.
korzun 9y ago
> In this position my first step would be to determine if there's any legal basis for disputing the charge Let's calm down. The first step is to pay the bill, set up better infrastructure monitoring on your end, so you don't act surprised that you are consuming 7000% more resources than third party service is reporting. Then, if you want to burn some money, you can file a petition and tell the court that you deserve to get free service because you did not know that you have been going over the reported data by 50%, I mean 7000% for... two years.
- lucb1e 9y ago
  > third party service is reporting As far as I understood, Firebase didn't report it before. As mentioned, the meter "suddenly jumped" to 100GB and then 180GB (if I remember the numbers correctly). The author decided to figure it out with support later, which makes sense if the previous number was something like 20-30GB and you guess it's simply in error.
jahewson 9y ago
> telecoms have come under fire by charging sky-high overage fees for mobile data Telecoms is a very heavily regulated industry. > Also, immediately dispute the charge with your credit card company No, don't do that. Most credit card companies require you to try and resolve the issue with the merchant before filing a chargeback. Sometimes they give you a time period, e.g. at least 30 days.

imron 9y ago

> immediately dispute the charge with your credit card company This will result in the shutdown of their service, and ruin their app.

stemuk 9y ago
I would also doubt that it would be worth it even without keeping in mind the risk of loosing the service. Google is usually pretty clever when it comes to TOS Agreements.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

"Don't be evil." was dropped in 2015 or thereabouts IIRC. I'd guess when they realised it was becoming more of a joke than a motto: "Google, the company who's motto is 'don't be evil' angered customers again today when ...

logicallee 9y ago
Can you link to a report or some source, stating they dropped the "don't be evil"? where do you get that, and the date, please? Thanks.
- ninju 9y ago
  http://fortune.com/2015/10/05/alphabet-google-evil/ http://fortune.com/2015/10/05/alphabet-google-evil/ ... The new code of conduct has a close approximation of the philosophy—though perhaps more formally phrased—in the very first sentence of the preface: "Employees of Alphabet... should do the right thing – follow the law, act honorably, and treat each other with respect."
  - grenoire 9y ago
    "treat each other with respect" Sounds like a loophole, not just 'more formally.'
    - pluma 9y ago
      As opposed to "evil", which is extremely subjective already?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
devrand 9y ago
I continuously see this mentioned, but it's simply not true. The Google code of conduct is still prefaced with that phrase: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html Alphabet created a new code of conduct when it was formed that didn't use the phrase, but it was never dropped from Google.

korzun 9y ago

> In this position my first step would be to determine if there's any legal basis for disputing the charge Let's calm down. The first step is to pay the bill, set up better infrastructure monitoring on your end, so you don't act surprised that you are consuming 7000% more resources than third party service is reporting. Then, if you want to burn some money, you can file a petition and tell the court that you deserve to get free service because you did not know that you have been going over the reported data by 50%, I mean 7000% for... two years.

lucb1e 9y ago
> third party service is reporting As far as I understood, Firebase didn't report it before. As mentioned, the meter "suddenly jumped" to 100GB and then 180GB (if I remember the numbers correctly). The author decided to figure it out with support later, which makes sense if the previous number was something like 20-30GB and you guess it's simply in error.

jahewson 9y ago

> telecoms have come under fire by charging sky-high overage fees for mobile data Telecoms is a very heavily regulated industry. > Also, immediately dispute the charge with your credit card company No, don't do that. Most credit card companies require you to try and resolve the issue with the merchant before filing a chargeback. Sometimes they give you a time period, e.g. at least 30 days.