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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 ha

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.
- TheIronYuppie 8y ago
  As stated in the original medium post, the issue was they only had one credit card on file and no contact at the company. If they had either a second credit card or moved to offline billing or had a contact with a phone number (all free steps), they would not have been suspended.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - crazysim 8y ago
    Maybe the language in setting all those up should be very upfront with the benefits they provide. Or even proactive emails and large dialogs about doing that. Perhaps it should be like those sites heavily suggesting 2FA if you've been a customer long enough. If there is a concern about noise, maybe the messaging for that should pop up in the GUI in a non-ignoreable way and start on accounts with a sizable spend or have existed for some time with activity.
  - mmt 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's undisputed, but it also doesn't address the concern of what happens once a customer finds themselves in that situation, whatever the reason. Furthermore, this response could be construed as reinforcing the OC's precise concern regarding Google's attitude: > that you are probably wrong.
    - TheIronYuppie 8y ago
      I hope we can convince you all that that is no longer our attitude, but I know that only time will tell. As I mentioned above, in this case, WE were absolutely wrong, and the blog post details all the ways we're fixing it.
      - mmt 8y ago
        I suspect that part of what has people worried and continuing to complain about Google's attitude and "tone-deafness" is that your responses, which are seen as being representative of GCP, based on your revealing your affiliation, suggest you're not quite absorbing the meaning of the actual concern/complaint. You did admit error and apologize in the blog post (perhaps not explicitly or early enough in the text for some people, but that's a separate issue), and you specified how you were going to fix it. It may take time for the reputational effects of those fixes to permeate. That's not the issue. The issue is that, here, you have, effectively, said, "but the customer could have..". Even the implication that the customer might share in the blame, no matter how objectively true it may be, takes credibility away from the sincerity of an apology and can easily be seen as evidence of the persistence of same, old attitude. Given that the statement happened after the apology, further time is unlikely to make a difference.
praneshp 8y ago
You work at google; surely you should google how to fax something without a fax machine? Or were you just unwilling to trust those services? (which is understandable, you're sending pretty personal data). And in general, I find it difficult to buy your "I don't own a fax machine argument". I don't own a photocopier, but that's a small blocker, no?
- TheIronYuppie 8y ago
  I'll be honest, that comment was snark. I apologize.

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.

TheIronYuppie 8y ago
As stated in the original medium post, the issue was they only had one credit card on file and no contact at the company. If they had either a second credit card or moved to offline billing or had a contact with a phone number (all free steps), they would not have been suspended.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- crazysim 8y ago
  Maybe the language in setting all those up should be very upfront with the benefits they provide. Or even proactive emails and large dialogs about doing that. Perhaps it should be like those sites heavily suggesting 2FA if you've been a customer long enough. If there is a concern about noise, maybe the messaging for that should pop up in the GUI in a non-ignoreable way and start on accounts with a sizable spend or have existed for some time with activity.
- mmt 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's undisputed, but it also doesn't address the concern of what happens once a customer finds themselves in that situation, whatever the reason. Furthermore, this response could be construed as reinforcing the OC's precise concern regarding Google's attitude: > that you are probably wrong.
  - TheIronYuppie 8y ago
    I hope we can convince you all that that is no longer our attitude, but I know that only time will tell. As I mentioned above, in this case, WE were absolutely wrong, and the blog post details all the ways we're fixing it.
    - mmt 8y ago
      I suspect that part of what has people worried and continuing to complain about Google's attitude and "tone-deafness" is that your responses, which are seen as being representative of GCP, based on your revealing your affiliation, suggest you're not quite absorbing the meaning of the actual concern/complaint. You did admit error and apologize in the blog post (perhaps not explicitly or early enough in the text for some people, but that's a separate issue), and you specified how you were going to fix it. It may take time for the reputational effects of those fixes to permeate. That's not the issue. The issue is that, here, you have, effectively, said, "but the customer could have..". Even the implication that the customer might share in the blame, no matter how objectively true it may be, takes credibility away from the sincerity of an apology and can easily be seen as evidence of the persistence of same, old attitude. Given that the statement happened after the apology, further time is unlikely to make a difference.

praneshp 8y ago

You work at google; surely you should google how to fax something without a fax machine? Or were you just unwilling to trust those services? (which is understandable, you're sending pretty personal data). And in general, I find it difficult to buy your "I don't own a fax machine argument". I don't own a photocopier, but that's a small blocker, no?

TheIronYuppie 8y ago
I'll be honest, that comment was snark. I apologize.