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Amazon does not delete your account as far as I know until some extreme has been reached. You guys need to understand the scale of distrust this issue raises.

Amazon does not delete your account as far as I know until some extreme has been reached. You guys need to understand the scale of distrust this issue raises. If you want to fix it, give up on putting lawyers and spin doctors up front. Instead, give this disastrous issue the response it deserves and get the CEO and Chairman of google to make s loud, clear and focused apology and say loudly that we do not delete your entire computer systems over account payment issues until defcon 3 is reached. Why the F would I build my SAAS business on google cloud without that message being yelled repeatedly and loudly and clear from the top level of the company, as much so Google understands it as the market understands it. And by the way, I pay ALL my cloud accounts on credit card. I note carefully that at google this means I have a higher chance of having my entire computer systems deleted than if I use some other payment mechanism. Your policy here appears to me to be using systems deletion add leverage to get me off credit card payment. All of which says to me that google still just doesn’t get it.

roblabla 8y ago
Amazon locked out a seller's account because they changed their Kindle's profile name to "Daddy" (in Chinese). Amazon asked for the seller's ID with that new name, and no amount of support escalation was enough to fix it[0]. It took an absurd amount of bad PR for them to come out and fix it. Google is bad, but Amazon is really just as bad. They both have absurd policies with no recourse, that work in the 80% case and fail very badly in the 20% left. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/5gvgdl/using_a_amazon_kindle_fire_destroyed_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/5gvgdl/using_a_amaz...
- saurik 8y ago
  Amazon Web Services is essentially unrelated as a business from Amazon.com. This is even less relevant than someone trying to compare the policies of some random end-user service like Google Photos with Google Cloud Platform. I personally had serious issues (not account suspension problems, but an inability to get things like basic tax paperwork to correct addresses) with Amazon Flexible Payments (which was part of some seemingly unrelated-to-everyone division), but I count absolutely none of them against AWS (which wasn't involved in running the service).
  - ikeboy 8y ago
    I once signed up for AWS, they couldn't verify the card on initial signup and the entire account got blocked, including a login to a seller account that was doing 6 figures/month. Amazon has a big issue in that all their services are linked to a single Amazon account, and if that account is blocked you can be prevented from accessing entirely unrelated services. In that case, maybe it was ok to suspend a brand new AWS account until accounts could be verified, but the linked accounts that were also blocked should have been looked at manually because of their volume.
    - rajacombinator 8y ago
      Yep I’ve also had absurd cross Amazon-AWS payment issues they were unable to fix for months. Their ultimate solution “uhhh make a new account.”
- mrep 8y ago
  > Google is bad, but Amazon is really just as bad. I think the main problem is that fraud is real problem and if you don't want your account to ever be considered fraudulent, then you should take ample steps to make sure that it is not. There are countless stories of people being careless with their keys causing tons of crypto-mining servers to launch. There is no win for cloud providers here. Either you get PR smashed for charging careless customers, pay tons of money to wave off their mistake, or get ridiculed for trying to block customers whom you think have been hacked.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    Or just throttle the account and contact the customer by phone and help them resolve the issue. If you can’t provide that level of support you don’t deserve my business.
TheIronYuppie 8y ago
I received this a few months ago on a demo account I was setting up. Here's the mail. (It was my personal account and cc not my corporate one) - I don't even have a fax machine. --------- Greetings from Amazon Web Services, We were unable to validate important details about your Amazon Web Services (AWS) Account. Your AWS account has been suspended. While your account is suspended, you will not be able to log in to the AWS portal or access AWS resources. If you do not respond to us within 3 days of this email (by Saturday, April 28, 2018), your AWS Account, and any data will be terminated. At your earliest convenience, please send us a copy of a current bill (utility bill, phone bill or similar), showing your name and address. Please provide for both the credit card holder and account holder if different. IMPORTANT: When you send us your information, please include your email address, so we are able to process your fax as soon as possible. We can be reached via secure fax line at +1-206-922-5831 and 866-437-9072. Once you have sent the requested documents via fax, please contact us at aws-verification@amazon.com and include the following details: - The billing address and phone number of the credit card on the AWS account - The billing phone number of the credit card on the AWS account - Business name and phone number (if applicable) - The URL for your website (if applicable) - A contact phone number where you can be reached should we need additional information - Potential business/personal expectations for using Amazon Web Services If you have any additional information you feel will expedite this process, please feel free to include that as well. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and appreciate your patience with our security measures. Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter. Sincerely, Amazon Web Services Team
- mmt 8y ago
  That's an equivalently bad e-mail from AWS, but it's a single datum, out of context. Actually, you did provide some context, which is that it was a "demo" account on a personal credit card. This, at the very least, implies much less spending than in the blog post that kicked this all off. More importantly, what's missing is the human/support response and attitude from AWS, which is the OC's primary concern. Anecdotally, from the comments I've seen on HN, AWS customers (at least beyond a certain size) seem generally pleased with the availability of human judgment during support issues, especially so when paying for that support.

roblabla 8y ago

Amazon locked out a seller's account because they changed their Kindle's profile name to "Daddy" (in Chinese). Amazon asked for the seller's ID with that new name, and no amount of support escalation was enough to fix it[0]. It took an absurd amount of bad PR for them to come out and fix it. Google is bad, but Amazon is really just as bad. They both have absurd policies with no recourse, that work in the 80% case and fail very badly in the 20% left. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/5gvgdl/using_a_amazon_kindle_fire_destroyed_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/5gvgdl/using_a_amaz...

saurik 8y ago
Amazon Web Services is essentially unrelated as a business from Amazon.com. This is even less relevant than someone trying to compare the policies of some random end-user service like Google Photos with Google Cloud Platform. I personally had serious issues (not account suspension problems, but an inability to get things like basic tax paperwork to correct addresses) with Amazon Flexible Payments (which was part of some seemingly unrelated-to-everyone division), but I count absolutely none of them against AWS (which wasn't involved in running the service).
- ikeboy 8y ago
  I once signed up for AWS, they couldn't verify the card on initial signup and the entire account got blocked, including a login to a seller account that was doing 6 figures/month. Amazon has a big issue in that all their services are linked to a single Amazon account, and if that account is blocked you can be prevented from accessing entirely unrelated services. In that case, maybe it was ok to suspend a brand new AWS account until accounts could be verified, but the linked accounts that were also blocked should have been looked at manually because of their volume.
  - rajacombinator 8y ago
    Yep I’ve also had absurd cross Amazon-AWS payment issues they were unable to fix for months. Their ultimate solution “uhhh make a new account.”
mrep 8y ago
> Google is bad, but Amazon is really just as bad. I think the main problem is that fraud is real problem and if you don't want your account to ever be considered fraudulent, then you should take ample steps to make sure that it is not. There are countless stories of people being careless with their keys causing tons of crypto-mining servers to launch. There is no win for cloud providers here. Either you get PR smashed for charging careless customers, pay tons of money to wave off their mistake, or get ridiculed for trying to block customers whom you think have been hacked.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Or just throttle the account and contact the customer by phone and help them resolve the issue. If you can’t provide that level of support you don’t deserve my business.

TheIronYuppie 8y ago

I received this a few months ago on a demo account I was setting up. Here's the mail. (It was my personal account and cc not my corporate one) - I don't even have a fax machine. --------- Greetings from Amazon Web Services, We were unable to validate important details about your Amazon Web Services (AWS) Account. Your AWS account has been suspended. While your account is suspended, you will not be able to log in to the AWS portal or access AWS resources. If you do not respond to us within 3 days of this email (by Saturday, April 28, 2018), your AWS Account, and any data will be terminated. At your earliest convenience, please send us a copy of a current bill (utility bill, phone bill or similar), showing your name and address. Please provide for both the credit card holder and account holder if different. IMPORTANT: When you send us your information, please include your email address, so we are able to process your fax as soon as possible. We can be reached via secure fax line at +1-206-922-5831 and 866-437-9072. Once you have sent the requested documents via fax, please contact us at aws-verification@amazon.com and include the following details: - The billing address and phone number of the credit card on the AWS account - The billing phone number of the credit card on the AWS account - Business name and phone number (if applicable) - The URL for your website (if applicable) - A contact phone number where you can be reached should we need additional information - Potential business/personal expectations for using Amazon Web Services If you have any additional information you feel will expedite this process, please feel free to include that as well. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and appreciate your patience with our security measures. Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter. Sincerely, Amazon Web Services Team

mmt 8y ago
That's an equivalently bad e-mail from AWS, but it's a single datum, out of context. Actually, you did provide some context, which is that it was a "demo" account on a personal credit card. This, at the very least, implies much less spending than in the blog post that kicked this all off. More importantly, what's missing is the human/support response and attitude from AWS, which is the OC's primary concern. Anecdotally, from the comments I've seen on HN, AWS customers (at least beyond a certain size) seem generally pleased with the availability of human judgment during support issues, especially so when paying for that support.