13 ms·

Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

447 points by zxlk21e 7y ago

lloeki 7y ago
> Since this decision is final, the account will not be reinstated. > I offered [to] set my primary payment method back to the previous card. This is, to me, the most infuriating part: account is blackholed at the first misstep, that you cannot even guess, with no possible redemption, and with damages far beyond the initial misstep scope: if you use the same account, payment issue on google ads, your photos are inaccessible. How does that even make sense?
- munchbunny 7y ago
  It doesn't. In my opinion this is no longer a frustrating experience, it's a consumer protection problem.
- anonymousab 7y ago
  > How does that even make sense? They view losing this customer and all potential related profits, forever, as significantly cheaper than accountability and reasonability at their scale.
jonknee 7y ago
Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up, but the customer service person is probably also automated. They have so many people working on insane moonshots, but don't spend money for customer service for their core products (in this case people literally trying to give you money!). Just bizarre.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  > I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. Perhaps you should change this? If you're aware your entire livelihood is a game of Russian roulette, you should maybe work on making it something else.
  - bauerd 7y ago
    I second this, recognising my Google account as a giant SPOF made me invest heavily into redundancy. I've gotten closer and closer to the point where I can realistically consider Google services as ephemeral.
    - jacekm 7y ago
      I took similar approach a while ago. I don't run google ads and I am not doing any business with them but I have lots of important data on my Google Drive (personal backup) that I really wouldn't want to lose. One day I read a story of a guy who had his account shut down for posting a video (innocent in his own claims) to youtube. As a result he lost access to his gmail and Drive too. This was a wake up call for me as I realised that I could be denied access to my data for whatever reason. I have several additional copies now, both on local hard drives and different cloud providers.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        I feel like people are slowly learning that one shouldn't use google for anything important unless there is no other option. Hardware equivalent is Intel for anything but PC and laptop microprocessors. Intel acts the same way google does. And people in the hardware business avoid Intel products when alternatives exist.
  - atemerev 7y ago
    It is kind of hard to just “change” one’s principal passive income source. It’s not like taking another job if you don’t like the current one. Such things can take years.
- zeta0134 7y ago
  This whole practice reeks of being downright fraudulent. Especially with a new technology like Apple Card, which folks will understandably not have a strong familiarity with. I get that Google needs to combat fraud and all that, but they should at least inform the customer of why such a drastic action (a permanent ban! !!) was taken with almost no warning. Really, any respectable company in this situation would simply flag the account for a billing problem, deny the card, and let the customer try again. At which point, any legitimate customer will go, "Oh, guess they don't take Apple Card" and use something else. It's the same effect (account can't be used, "fraud" with the Apple Card if it exists is dodged) but is not nearly so user hostile as this... mess. Google's opacity here seems like it could only really have one benefit to the company: They can shut down any account they don't like, and since they're always vague with the reasoning, they don't necessarily have to have a valid reason. Their whole "you know what you did" approach is just uncertain enough to cause the victim to doubt themselves and be unlikely to mount a defense. I don't know what their actual motivations are (I know it's popular to hate on Google, but I have a hard time believing they're pulling stunts like this on purpose) but it looks bad no matter how you slice it.
  - quanticle 7y ago
    I think an application of Hanlon's Razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) is applicable here. Google is in an oligopolistic position (along with Facebook) in the online ads space. Therefore, they face zero consequence for having extraordinarily poor customer service. As a result, they optimize their customer "service" to minimize work for themselves. I ran into a very similar situation with my gas company. I'd fat-fingered my bank account number in their online form, so they weren't able to debit my account. Instead of notifying me of this problem, they simply locked my account and threatened to cut me off for non-payment. Even after I'd called the company and appealed, they still prevented me from paying with my bank account for 12 months and forced me to pay with a credit card (which incurred an additional $3.75 "convenience fee").
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      Bank accounts and credit cards work very differently in making payments. Getting an ACH transaction disputed is far more time consuming and difficult. Fat fingering a bank account number number and not triple checking it for an ACH payment isn't something I would just shrug off.
- janoc 7y ago
  And why do you think this isn't intentional? Spending money on people solving company's screwups costs a lot of money. For the company the size of Google or Facebook one client (or hundred) like this are peanuts, drop in the bucket. The cost of losing them is minimal over the costs of paying a support person to deal with problems. Big client won't get banned - and if they do, they have also a non-public phone number to an account manager to make things right again too. Sadly this is a common trend - e.g. with ISPs it is almost impossible to find a contact to an actual person, only some online chats or automated hotline that will waste your time with canned responses not solving your problem.
  - jonknee 7y ago
    It is intentional, I'm just saying it's ridiculous. the Google way is to treat everything like a programming problem. That works decently well for bits, but really breaks down when working with humans.
    - Godel_unicode 7y ago
      The thing is that it doesn't break down except in the extreme cases, and even then it's often less bad than the edge cases with traditional human-mediated customer service. Consider the Wells Fargo accounts snafu, or the Comcast customer nickname issue. Or PayPal just in general. Is Google actually worse, or are they the kind of better that makes their rarer screwups seem worse. Consider in your evaluation just how many people they deal with using their automated systems.
      - jonknee 7y ago
        Extreme cases like using a popular new credit card to pay? Please. Google uses an algorithm to ban people for life without recourse, it's insane. Not everything can be reduced to an algo, sometimes you need to make exceptions. It can even make your algo better (thousands of people are going to try using their new Apple cards in the coming weeks).
        7y ago
- AceJohnny2 7y ago
  > Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. Apple does that too [1]. I assume it's to prevent a DoS from fraudsters. (Obviously, it's a problem for legitimate users) [1] https://qz.com/1683460/what-happens-to-your-itunes-account-when-apple-says-youve-committed-fraud/ https://qz.com/1683460/what-happens-to-your-itunes-account-w...
  - GeekyBear 7y ago
    In your example, the user was easily able to contact a real human being who informed them that their account had been terminated for using a fraudulent gift card. That human being even went to bat for the user and tried to convince corporate that buying the fraudulent gift card had been an honest mistake in trusting the wrong seller and not intentional fraud. This seems like quite a different experience from "you are banned for life and we won't even talk to you or tell you why".
    - AceJohnny2 7y ago
      Read on for the salient part. > This Senior Agent #2 was not as supportive as the first, and gave me information that contradicted Senior Agent #1: “Your account has been permanently disabled,” he said. “There is nothing else you can do, there is no escalation path.” > When I asked for an explanation as to why, all he would say is, “See the terms and conditions.” Ultimately, the author was able to get out of that dead-end, but it sounded awfully close.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - GeekyBear 7y ago
        The salient fact is that the user was easily able to contact customer support, find out exactly what the issue was, provide documentation showing what had happened, and appeal an adverse decision all the way to the top. This is significantly different than "we won't tell you what the issue is and we won't even accept communications from you".
- kryogen1c 7y ago
  > Just bizarre. It would be except you and other are still using their services.
- lallysingh 7y ago
  It's a classic "Go fuck yourself" response.
  - beamatronic 7y ago
    That would actually be a more honest response.
    - ggg3 7y ago
      american Puritanism. imply and do as much as you want, but for God, do not spell it out!
  - twoheadedboy 7y ago
    Modern life is so Kafkaesque.
- themagician 7y ago
  I had this exact issue with FB a while ago. Got that exact response. Fortunately I’d worked with FB before for major brands, so I knew the email to send to to get a real person. There is almost always a monitored email address for accounts receivable, and if you email them pretending like you are having trouble making a large payment, someone will respond. When they think it’s a fat check, suddenly “this decision is final” is just a mistake.
- microtherion 7y ago
  > In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up Ah, but is it really obvious? One of the benefits of virtual card numbers, in particular the Apple Card implementation, is that it's easy to switch them out, which makes tracking harder. Could it be that a company that makes its living off tracking users would not be overly fond of virtual card numbers? As long as users' reaction is "if you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again", it looks like the AI did exactly what it was meant to do.
  - harshreality 7y ago
    If that's the case, they should simply reject charges from virtual cards, rather than charging them and then banning the account.
    - microtherion 7y ago
      But as I've argued above, maybe the deterrent effect is a feature, as long as it's the use of virtual cards that is deterred and not the use of Google products.
      - wrs 7y ago
        Wouldn't you say that banning you from using Google products forever is a pretty darn effective way of deterring you from using those products?
        microtherion 7y ago
        That would be one way of looking at it. But the OP took the opposite conclusion, that one should avoid using Apple Card. So we have one user who is using neither Apple Card nor Google products, and a number of his readers, who are deterred from using Apple Card.
  - jonknee 7y ago
    I usually pay with Amex and sometimes a business will say "Oh sorry, we don't take Amex". Never once have they ushered me out the door and issued a trespass notice. Instead I just pay another way and we are both happy. That seems pretty optimal.
- optimiz3 7y ago
  Coinbase does the same thing. Perma-banned for reasons. Won't ever know why.
- duxup 7y ago
  We thought the sci-fi style evil AI would become the overlord making nonsensical decisions that can't be appealed. But really, humans are happy to do it to each other. It makes sense I guess as those sci-fi AIs are often to some extent or another trying to save us from, other humans, or at least that was their origin.
- jsonne 7y ago
  FWIW Facebook will also ban you without telling you which ad policy you violated. Most infuriating they can pull access to accounts or your ability to turn off ads while they're still running and connected to a credit card. To me, that seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
- howdisposs45 7y ago
  >in this case people literally trying to give you money! Gmail for Android has 2 core functions: to send and to receive mail. It fails at one of them. (Emails get stuck in its outbox indefinitely - you can force it to send by going into the "outbox" and dragging down to refresh, which is an action that has no button to show it is possible. There is no notification that your mail wasn't sent.) Here is a thread about it: https://support.google.com/mail/thread/3130686?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/thread/3130686?hl=en How is it possible for an app that has 2 functions, to fail to do one of them? This is like a salt and pepper set where the pepper side has no holes - the pepper is stuck inside. (You can unscrew the top and manually shake some out though.) Sure salt is more common. But it's literally a salt and pepper set that only functions as a salt shaker. Gmail for android is literally a mail sending and receiving app that can't send mail. How can this happen? I mean literally, how is the support thread I linked possible? If I were the CEO and I saw a thread like that, the issue would be fixed within 7 minutes, as every person within earshot of me rushed to make themselves look good to me. How is Google's CEO different?
  - kube-system 7y ago
    Easy. Google’s CEO runs an advertising company. You assumption is that the app has two functions functions: sending and receiving email. It actually only has one function, put eyes in front of ads.
    - howdisposs45 7y ago
      To be honest this doesn't make sense. If the salt and pepper set only had "one function" which is to display advertising in your home (the analogy works pretty well, as I could imagine the set plastered with ads) it still has to work as a salt and pepper set, or people wouldn't use it.
      - kube-system 7y ago
        In the example thread above, people are reacting by complaining about the problem. If they reacted by switching email providers, they wouldn’t be in that thread. I highly doubt Gmail’s active user count is affected by any more than a minuscule amount as a result.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  > Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. For non-negligible damages, heading immediately to small claims court (given you live in a sensible jurisdiction) seems to be the easiest thing in that case. Even if Google's ultimately in the right, they typically can't just ignore that entirely. From a decade ago: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_1... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_2...
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    Really, sometimes people forget (and I'm guilty as charged) they live in a society with laws and legal recourses. It's not as simple as "Google can cut you off no questions asked whenever they feel like it"
    - joemi 7y ago
      > It's not as simple as "Google can cut you off no questions asked whenever they feel like it" Are you sure about that? Often such terms are built into the user agreements.
      - raverbashing 7y ago
        Well, that's certainly what they want you to think ;) I suppose there are a couple of issues that haven't been tested in court. But besides that, anything you paid and wasn't rendered as services needs to be refunded. It doesn't look like they refund it most times, no?
        arielm 7y ago
        The problem is that regardless of whether they are or not, getting to a point where a judge looks it over is a process most can’t go through with an opponent like Google.
- noonespecial 7y ago
  Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. Its also almost certainly completely fake as they're done nothing of the sort. I'd be shocked if it wasn't as automatic as an away message.
- ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
  This is exactly what I said few hours back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20838089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20838089. Premium support in Google only exists to make sure your have paid them. They will ban your account after you have paid them. They usually want till your payment is cleared and then ban you. My colleague's play account was banned because he used PayPal not Google wallet, when it was launched
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. There isn't a week that goes by without that exact same story repeating itself. > I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. Maybe you could prepare for this by writing an angry blogpost ahead of time, to get it out of your system?
- sha666sum 7y ago
  Google ignoring their customers is a recurring theme,, and I'd like to think that I have a pretty good list of tech news that I follow. Since this is HN, which (at least used to) primarily cater to the startup crowd, I hope it goes without saying that Google does not fix this issue because they don't have a financial incentive to do so. This is basic capitalism at play, and what you as a developer/advertiser/user need to do is use and pay for competing products if you're not happy about the status quo.
  - lapnitnelav 7y ago
    Exactly, it's all about power. On one hand, in the online ads biz, Google is king and is happy to outsource its customer support for its most premium customers both large network of agencies and advertisers. I know it quite well, I was one of those guys for Doubleclick many moons ago. That is if you are big enough to be worthy of being a Google (DC) customer in the first place, which means, you have to be a large spender. But on the other hand, if you sign up for their Google Cloud thing despite being a nobody (me again), you'll have their sales folks hounding you for an upsell, mostly because GCloud is ridiculously behind both AWS and Azure. Funny how it goes.
- scohesc 7y ago
  It's absolutely fucking mind-boggling how these large, impenetrable silicon valley companies (mainly google here) like to hide behind their "algorithms". "Oh, sorry your main method of making money was terminated, we won't tell you why or how we came to that conclusion - must have been the algorithm, sorry!" What's that old saying - "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"? I'm starting to think that these massive companies aren't stupid and that they're actually designing their algorithms behind this and using it as a scapegoat to push their own agenda.
  - ghettoimp 7y ago
    I don't disagree with anything you have said. But, if your main method of making money is dependent on some particular entity continuing to do whatever they are currently doing, you have a problem.
    - ajnin 7y ago
      I hear that argument a lot from people trying to shift the blame to the victim. But we all depend on some particular entity in one form or another, we all depend on the government upholding the value of money, we depend on the transportation systems not to cease to operate, we do that not because we're sloppy but because there is no other way to do things. Try to run ads on the Internet without dealing with Google.
    - Wistar 7y ago
      ... the Federal reserve, for instance.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I’ve never once had a problem reaching a live human that could solve my problem on the business side working with AWS. As a consumer I’ve never had any issues with Amazon retail.
    - zenexer 7y ago
      It's pretty difficult to reach a human if you don't pay a ridiculous extra amount each month for support--and even then, they're rarely able to assist with actual bugs. They just assume everything that's wrong is your mistake, and when they finally come to the conclusion that it's a bug on their end, they give up.
- rapind 7y ago
  My theory is that Google is now being run by robots. They maintain a few token humans to propagate the facade. Before you disagree, ask yourself, would you know if they were(n't)?
  - jboles 7y ago
    The humans are too distracted by non-work activities maybe? This article paints a bizarre picture: https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james-damores-lawsuit-googles-office-environment/ https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james...
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  Yet there still are all kinds of scams advertised and millions of people download trojaned apps from Google Play.
- julianee 7y ago
  Unfortunately they practice these sorts of policy on the app store as well. We've been saying Google does this, Google does that. The thing is, a company is composed of its people. I am just curious, how does something like this, something most people with reasonable sense of "fairness" would flag as concerning and potentially very wrong, comes to be implemented? Even more so for a large company like Google? (smaller companies can have a "bad dictator boss" which can push this through without issue) Policies like these, which appear to have consistencies across their products, how far up does the chain of responsibility go? How does stuff like these occur? Does it start with some MBA grad who comes in, gets assigned a KPI to "cut costs" and then their natural bias is that customer service is the first to go, proposes it to their managers and it bubbles up for approval and implementation? All the while everyone at each level is oblivious to the potentially damaging collateral the policy would cause, but only think that "oh this is a great move, we would save a bunch!" and then finally gets implemented? Or would this more be a top-down thing where executives discuss and push this and then the employees, being good people at heart have no choice but to implement it? I just find it so difficult to imagine something like this being OK-ed by all the people involved within the company. Like, is everyone "in on it"? Or do they not know? Or they know but can't/unwilling to say anything?
  - wolco 7y ago
    It starts with someone coming up with a way of cutting costs. It continues because it can. Then it becomes part of their brand which would only matter if you had similiar choices for similiar services.
  - ben_jones 7y ago
    I think Google employees view their services as a gift to users who should be grateful and understanding of any deficiencies.
- WalterGR 7y ago
  I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. Me too. My favorite so far is Google threatening to take away my primary source of income because my site has content related to pirated software. Google is correct! My site is a dictionary, and it has the temerity to define the term “warez”.
scblock 7y ago
Wait, so Google once again proves how much they suck at customer service, and the conclusion is to be wary of Apple Card? That seems like a stretch.
- nodesocket 7y ago
  Seriously, the problem is not with Apple and virtual card numbers (which is awesome) but Google and their piss-poor customer service and lack of support for even paying users. Can't wait until the justice department drops the hammer on Google.
  - nodesocket 7y ago
    Looks like my prediction coming true https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20920731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20920731.
laurentdc 7y ago
Why the war on virtual cards? My bank lets me create infinite "throwaway" credit cards that work for a single payment or up to a certain expiry date. They're great for never having to expose your real card number and keeping track of maximum spend. Are these classified as virtual cards? I use them all the time for Facebook ads and was planning to set up a AdWords campaign too, but now I'm worried
- iampims 7y ago
  Which bank if I may ask?
  - X-Istence 7y ago
    Bank of America allows me to do this for my credit card with them.
  - laurentdc 7y ago
    Intesa (Italy). Deutsche Bank offers them too iirc
  - desigooner 7y ago
    Citi
  - joncrane 7y ago
    Capital One definitely does this (I used to work there and when we rolled it out it was considered quite innovative).
- cortesoft 7y ago
  The issue is that this is bypassing one of the things some companies use your credit card as - collateral. For example, if you rent something, the credit card is used as a guarantee that you will return the item. If you don't, they can charge the card for the full price. If you use virtual cards, they can't do that.
  - MereInterest 7y ago
hamandcheese 7y ago
> All I can say is that it's likely that he was either using a virtual card or his identity was tied to a previously suspended account. > After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the number that is generated in the wallet app (the only way you can get your card number for the Apple Card) is, infact, a virtual card. This seems like the likely cause.
- eridius 7y ago
  Why does Google hate virtual cards though? It's an anti-fraud mechanism. Google's declaring that using an anti-fraud mechanism is in fact an indication of fraud?
  - lallysingh 7y ago
    Probably because you can hide the same underlying account number, so you can burn virtual cards on new fraud accounts without the additional cost of setting up new underlying accounts.
- homologate 7y ago
  But as stated elsewhere on this post, Google's official policy states that virtual cards are accepted. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433 https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433 Credit cards and debit cards -> Make a payment with a one-time use credit card >In addition to regular credit cards, you can also use a one-time use credit card (also known as virtual credit card). It's commonly used as an alternative to physical credit cards when making online payments.
bovermyer 7y ago
The author offers it as a warning against using Apple Card. I read it as confirmation that Google would do well to focus on customer service for once.
- slenk 7y ago
  What's easier? Not getting an Apple card or changing Google.
  - jbarberu 7y ago
    I'm honestly not sure, I'd say getting off Google is the "better" choice with that kind of arbitrary risk of a ban.
  - jes 7y ago
    I'm taking a middle path, making changes at my own pace on things that lessen my interactions with Google, Facebook, etc. I'm enjoying Protonmail, for example.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Avoiding Apple card is no guarantee that you won't run into the same problem somewhere else. What's easier? Changing Google, or spending all of your time constantly worrying that your entire business could be disrupted or destroyed at random? You can't look at it as one isolated event with one isolated solution; the takeaway is, "even innocuous, good-faith 'mistakes' might be enough for Google to randomly shut me down with no explanation and no recourse." There's no way to guard against that except to stop using Google.
  - FDSGSG 7y ago
    Why would not getting an Apple card keep Google from banning you?
    - slenk 7y ago
      It would only keep them from banning you for the use of a virtual card...unless you used a virtual card of some other kind.
MartianSquirrel 7y ago
"Don't be evil."
WalterBright 7y ago
I learned the hard way to always have at least two ways people can buy things from you. Never bet your business on another business that uses algorithms to arbitrarily disconnect yours and algorithms to respond to customer service inquiries.
- riku_iki 7y ago
  You cut yourself from a lot of opportunities that way.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Don't say you weren't warned :-)
    - riku_iki 7y ago
      This is how modern life works: almost everybody's life circumstances are dependent on large institutions, which can screw you any given moment, except if you chose to live in jungles. Doing business is taking risks, and one has to be ready to lose.
- kamyarg 7y ago
  Paypal says hi :)
pixelbath 7y ago
>Companies like Google have waged war on virtual cards First, this seems a bit histrionic. That's a wide claim to make with a sample size of one. Second, the entire idea that the author was banned for using a virtual card comes from a friend who spoke to another friend who allegedly works as an "account manager" (presumably at Google?), who themselves admit they can't even see into the process.
- ytpete 7y ago
  Agreed - especially as another post pointed out that Google's official policy states they _do_ accept virtual cards: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433?hl=en
  - jimktrains2 7y ago
    That doesn't mean it doesn't increase the fraud score assigned to you/your transaction. e.g. the same behavior could trigger a ban with a virtual credit card but not with a physical one.
alanfranz 7y ago
Beyond the fact that I don't understand why a virtual card should be a problem, I think that this era of "we can deny you a service and tell you nothing" should stop. It's one of the biggest issues of the modern internet. I understand that laws are different around the world. In Italy, whatever is defined as a "public exercise" - anything offering its services to the anybody, be it a shop, a store, a cafè, a restaurant, MUST offer those services to anybody who a) can pay and b) satisfies any global and well-expressed condition (e.g. more than 18 years old, properly dressed, etc). You cannot just deny service to a random customer without a VERY GOOD reason. If you want to serve members only, you can build your private club. Then you're able to do almost whatever you like, but you cannot advertise or promote your activities to non-members. I suppose US law is different, although I think to remember that there're some rules against discrimination. Either the service is available to anyone, or to noone. If some infringement happens, it must be explicit and there must be the chance to appeal to a judge. Otherwise, how can this be non-discriminatory?
- skykooler 7y ago
  There's rules about discrimination for specific reasons: you can't discriminate based on age, race, gender, etc. "Which credit card" you use isn't one of those categories, so it's legal to discriminate based on it. (And is often done, though not to this extent; many places, for example, will accept Visa and Mastercard but not Discover.)
  - alanfranz 7y ago
    > many places, for example, will accept Visa and Mastercard but not Discover. But that's explicit and the same for everybody. If you accepted Discover from somebody and not from somebody else, THAT would be discrimination. Discriminating the credit card somebody is using without telling anybody... well, could still be discrimination. Younger people could be more prone to use an Apple card, couldn't them? Can you demonstrate the "feature" you're discriminating about can't be tied to age, race, gender, etc?
    - vageli 7y ago
geerlingguy 7y ago
> If you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again. That was the final line in the article, but from reading the rest of the article, it seems like the overarching problem was not the Apple Card, or the idea of virtual CC numbers... but more that time and time again, Google will shut down your [YouTube|Gmail|Ads|Cloud|anything] account with little or no notice, and arbitrary, non-contestable rulings, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it after the fact. I was nervous about staking anything financially important in the Google ecosystem, but after seeing this kind of post every week, there's no way I would tie any important business venture into Google's ecosystem.
- mleonhard 7y ago
  Companies producing Android apps have no choice.
  - zwerdlds 7y ago
    F-Droid is one alternative to the Play Store.
    - thekyle 7y ago
      Or even just distribute it via their website like Fortnite.
  - tfha 7y ago
    Pivot
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  If you’re planning on using Google for anything important, think again. They are at fault here, not Apple.
jxdxbx 7y ago
Google's actual policies state that it accepts virtual cards.https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433?hl=en
- chmaynard 7y ago
  Relevant section: In addition to regular credit cards, you can also use a one-time use credit card (also known as virtual credit card). It's commonly used as an alternative to physical credit cards when making online payments. Google Ads accepts these credit cards as long as they have a Visa or MasterCard logo. If you don't have a physical credit card, contact your bank to see if they offer them. Steps to use a one-time use credit card: Sign in to your Google Ads account at https://ads.google.com https://ads.google.com. Click the tool icon and choose Billing & payments. Go there now Click the Make a payment button. Click the "Pay with" drop-down and choose Add new payment method, then enter your one-time use credit card information. Enter the amount you'd like to make a payment for, then click the Make a payment button to review and finish your payment. Be sure to include $1 more than your payment amount for card verification.
  - slenk 7y ago
    > Be sure to include $1 more than your payment amount for card verification. That seems like something that could be easily missed
- bagacrap 7y ago
  which makes me think this person was banned for some other violation
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    Could be! The problem is we'll never know because Google's awful support makes it impossible to know what you did wrong, only that you did something and you're being punished and too bad if you want to know why.
- garysahota93 7y ago
tristanb 7y ago
I use and love privacy.com - and the fastest way for me to not sign up for your service is when you tell me I can't use one of the card numbers. It happens occasionally, but no way in hell am I giving out my real CC
StanAngeloff 7y ago
Another day, another horror story and with that a further confirmation of how profoundly broken Google's support is. I shall think twice before buying into any Google products and so should you. Imagine having you entire company cloud account suspended with no one to talk to... Or getting blocked from your domain/Gmail and unable to communicate... Or getting kicked out of the Play store when this is your only means of earning a living. These are not hypothetical, these are stories from HN front page just this year. Frightening and infuriating at the same time.
supernintendo 7y ago
> I'm not some huckster with a spam website. Ironically, you could make the case that Google itself fits this description.
philco 7y ago
Has nothing to do with the payment platform you chose is my best guess. Has to do with what you were paying to send ad traffic to, and possible misrepresentation of facts on that page. Were you testing landing pages for concepts where you didn't include terms of use, privacy policies or misrepresented the state of your product? That would be my best guess.
squarefoot 7y ago
Bad PR and popularity backlash is what corporations fear the most. We should wait for such things to happen (and then be quickly fixed because of the name) to some really popular figure who will make it public, then grab popcorn and watch Google, or any other corporation that screws "normal" customers, produce spectacular stunts to escape the unavoidable negative press.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  The thing is a popular figure, especially if they do semi-large numbers with Google, probably wouldn't get banned before outreach and if they did would be able to get decent support.
  - squarefoot 7y ago
    That would be the point. I want to read some day "Hi, I'm (insert popular name here). How come that I get immediate answers plus support while other users with the same problem either have to wait or are being banned?". That would hardly happen, but hope is free.
zupa-hu 7y ago
You should contact Apple. I'm sure they 1) have the power to get through 2) they are motivated to make the Apple Card work and instill trust in people.
deleted 7y ago
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veeti 7y ago
> And if you're planning on using Apple Card^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Google services for anything important, think again. Fixed that for you.
FDSGSG 7y ago
This has nothing to do with the Apple Card. Google loves suspending Ads accounts for doing any changes to their profiles. I've had to go through this BS at least 5 times. Odds are this guy would've been banned no matter which card he switched to. Given that smartprivacy pushes VPN stuff I wouldn't be surprised if this guy had been using a VPN to log into his Ads account, which would be a sure way to get your account fucked.
jacekm 7y ago
The stories like this can be heard every now and then and I think we all agree that Google's customer support could be vastly improved. But taking a step back, I am finding this particular story slightly suspicious as the site seems a little bit weird to me. The domain is only 4-months old and the entire site is almost empty, it consists of just a couple "reviews" of mostly VPNs and password managers and the author himself admits to participating in referral schemes. And despite advocating privacy he uses google analytics and one more tracking system on his site. The story he published is the only post that is not a review. If I had so much experience as he claims I would have better places to post my rant rather than at a newly created website. I can imagine a scheme where one posts a sensational story just to drive the traffic to their affiliate links-based business. Now, having said all of this - I do NOT accuse author of anything, their story may be true, it actually sounds plausible. I'd just like to remind you of another google ban story [1] that made headlines some time ago and was later debunked by Google. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_getting_google_to_ban_our_entire_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_gettin...
- lonelappde 7y ago
  What was the debunking?
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    It's linked in the top comment. https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banned_an_entire_company_gsuite_accounts/dzf8cuq/ https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banne... Not so much a debunking as an absolute denial that the circumstances described transpired. It's difficult to prove a negative.
    - jacekm 7y ago
      > Not so much a debunking Yup, 'debunk' is probably not the best word here. English is not my native tongue, I apologize. What I meant is that a different opinion was presented by Google. But you're right - it's still one word vs another, it's impossible to determine who is telling the truth.
ineedasername 7y ago
Yet another example of how Google "support" seems modeled on the senseless, frustrating, and destructive systems warned of in Kafka. Opaque rules and literally inhuman inflexibility. The problems is Google can suffer any number of these small scale gaffs without consequence, while any truly large account would probably be given the courtesy of outreach before a blind suspension, and real live support afterwards if it went that far. So for now they can do this with impunity. However with the Spectre of Amazon ads on the horizon true competition may arise, and Amazon has decent support. As things stand now, anyone starting out would be well advised to steer clear of relying on any part of Google services for critical needs.
PerilousD 7y ago
and yet you're still lining up to use Google? I dropped out of the Google ad system many tears ago when I realized the game was rigged (in their favor) and the only way to "win' was not to play. So when I read stories like yours which pop up frequently for Google - I cant help but think you're probably an intelligent person so "what's your point?"
ineedasername 7y ago
Everyone reading this that ever has a problem like this with Google support should write it up and submit it to HN. Then we as a community should come together and upvote the hell out of it. The more these things get publicized in the industry the harder it will become for Google to do this without repurcussions.
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chacha2 7y ago
SmartPrivacy.io uses Google ads?
MikeGale 7y ago
I have no idea whether this is relevant. I noticed that the site has reviews of anti-tracking products like Ghostery and Privacy Badger. (The reviews are a bit thin in my opinion.) Google may view those as existential threats and work to remove that material from the web.
qwerty456127 7y ago
> After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the number that is generated in the wallet app (the only way you can get your card number for the Apple Card) is, infact, a virtual card. > And if you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again. Using virtual cards is a perfectly legitimate activity. I'm a client of a top-tier bank in Europe and they always recommend to use a virtual card (they would ask if you'd like them to issue) for everything online. This doesn't seem like an Apple's fault (although it would be nice of Apple to clearly inform you the card is virtual). Google should be sued for this.
Justsignedup 7y ago
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You fell for the classic google trap: They only pick up the phone if you are a paying customer. If your payment isn't working you can go fuck yourself. I know, a common mistake. Seriously though, this is also the case with using their phone service, or any other account. If your payment ever bounces, you lose EVERYTHING.
joecool1029 7y ago
Tangentially related... in one of my last convos with an American Express business rep, they noted I set my cashback preference to advertising purchases. I was informed by them that Google Adwords has a history of 'blackflagging' accounts. He said they could generate up to 100 cards with unique numbers for free to my account and that it was fairly common for agencies to have big split-ring binders full of cards tied to each client.
therealmarv 7y ago
Google bans app xyz, Google bans AdSense account. Everyday a new Google horror story here. Does nobody from Google reads HN??
- munchbunny 7y ago
  The Google employees who are paying attention likely don't have the power to address the problem, and the Google employees who have the power to address the problem either aren't paying attention or actively decided not to address the problem.
bfrog 7y ago
The thing with monopolies is that they tend to abuse the privilege of being one. You are a consumer, buying their wares, and they could care less because you really only have one option. They made sure of it by buying most of the significant competition years ago. Welcome to the modern era of internet monopolies.
mabbo 7y ago
This is what I find so interesting about Amazon going into the ads business. (Bias note: I am employed by Amazon, but not involved in ads.) Google make a lot of their money from online advertising. But they have a reputation of not giving a shit about their customers, giving canned responses, etc. Amazon, criticize it as you will, has a reputation for good customer service (I literally give "Customer Obsession" training to new hires). What happens if enough Google ads customers get fed up and try out the competitor? 20 years ago, Google found a hose that money pours out of called "online advertising". All they do now is improve that hose and desperately search for another one. If someone comes along and siphons out a fraction, it could actually hit them hard. "If", of course. We'll see.
abstract7 7y ago
Google must be stopped from muscling its way into 'real' goods and services. Can you imagine getting locked out of your [insert] with an automated response and without recourse?
awinter-py 7y ago
traditional credit card companies waged contractual war with merchants for decades to ban cash discounts new payment tech will have a similar uphill battle to get people to treat them equally
mcbits 7y ago
If indeed they're banning accounts for using virtual cards, I see a parallel with the early days of Gmail. You couldn't use a Gmail account to sign up for a lot of sites because short-sighted admins categorically prohibited all free webmail accounts. In their minds, the only "real" email addresses were at AOL, Earthlink, employers, universities, etc. Never mind that Gmail was invite-only and probably a much stronger indicator of a legitimate person at the time. The victim grows up to become the bully.
scarface74 7y ago
I'm writing this to warn anyone else that intended to use the card online that you may experience... difficulties. And if you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again. Isn’t the better conclusion after almost a decade of people dealing with Google’s customer “service” and reading about how non responsive they are is not to base your livelihood on anything Google related? If your business plan is at all depending on Google, it’s probably a bad one.
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alyandon 7y ago
Can Google even really know if a presented card number is a "virtual" credit card or not? Could this be a case of a generated virtual card number matching a card number that was previously used with an account that was shut down for fraud and that's why Google immediately banned this unrelated account?
docker_up 7y ago
Can there not be a law that states that Google can't just say "Your account is suspended, and the decision is final, and we won't tell you why." This sounds like the type of monopolistic action that we need to break by petitioning our politicians. Google, Facebook, etc need to be regulated.
classics2 7y ago
Reminds me of when I was permanently suspended from PayPal “for reasons” after 20+ years of constant patronage and good standing. Same black box mentality, no human being made the decision and no human being would look at the situation and fix it. There really should be a catchy term for this sort of algorithmically generated deplatforming. Google ganking?

447 points by zxlk21e 7y ago

> Since this decision is final, the account will not be reinstated. > I offered [to] set my primary payment method back to the previous card. This is, to me, the most infuriating part: account is blackholed at the first misstep, that you cannot even guess, with no possible redemption, and with damages far beyond the initial misstep scope: if you use the same account, payment issue on google ads, your photos are inaccessible. How does that even make sense?

munchbunny 7y ago
It doesn't. In my opinion this is no longer a frustrating experience, it's a consumer protection problem.
anonymousab 7y ago
> How does that even make sense? They view losing this customer and all potential related profits, forever, as significantly cheaper than accountability and reasonability at their scale.

jonknee 7y ago

Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up, but the customer service person is probably also automated. They have so many people working on insane moonshots, but don't spend money for customer service for their core products (in this case people literally trying to give you money!). Just bizarre.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
> I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. Perhaps you should change this? If you're aware your entire livelihood is a game of Russian roulette, you should maybe work on making it something else.
- bauerd 7y ago
  I second this, recognising my Google account as a giant SPOF made me invest heavily into redundancy. I've gotten closer and closer to the point where I can realistically consider Google services as ephemeral.
  - jacekm 7y ago
    I took similar approach a while ago. I don't run google ads and I am not doing any business with them but I have lots of important data on my Google Drive (personal backup) that I really wouldn't want to lose. One day I read a story of a guy who had his account shut down for posting a video (innocent in his own claims) to youtube. As a result he lost access to his gmail and Drive too. This was a wake up call for me as I realised that I could be denied access to my data for whatever reason. I have several additional copies now, both on local hard drives and different cloud providers.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      I feel like people are slowly learning that one shouldn't use google for anything important unless there is no other option. Hardware equivalent is Intel for anything but PC and laptop microprocessors. Intel acts the same way google does. And people in the hardware business avoid Intel products when alternatives exist.
- atemerev 7y ago
  It is kind of hard to just “change” one’s principal passive income source. It’s not like taking another job if you don’t like the current one. Such things can take years.
zeta0134 7y ago
This whole practice reeks of being downright fraudulent. Especially with a new technology like Apple Card, which folks will understandably not have a strong familiarity with. I get that Google needs to combat fraud and all that, but they should at least inform the customer of why such a drastic action (a permanent ban! !!) was taken with almost no warning. Really, any respectable company in this situation would simply flag the account for a billing problem, deny the card, and let the customer try again. At which point, any legitimate customer will go, "Oh, guess they don't take Apple Card" and use something else. It's the same effect (account can't be used, "fraud" with the Apple Card if it exists is dodged) but is not nearly so user hostile as this... mess. Google's opacity here seems like it could only really have one benefit to the company: They can shut down any account they don't like, and since they're always vague with the reasoning, they don't necessarily have to have a valid reason. Their whole "you know what you did" approach is just uncertain enough to cause the victim to doubt themselves and be unlikely to mount a defense. I don't know what their actual motivations are (I know it's popular to hate on Google, but I have a hard time believing they're pulling stunts like this on purpose) but it looks bad no matter how you slice it.
- quanticle 7y ago
  I think an application of Hanlon's Razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) is applicable here. Google is in an oligopolistic position (along with Facebook) in the online ads space. Therefore, they face zero consequence for having extraordinarily poor customer service. As a result, they optimize their customer "service" to minimize work for themselves. I ran into a very similar situation with my gas company. I'd fat-fingered my bank account number in their online form, so they weren't able to debit my account. Instead of notifying me of this problem, they simply locked my account and threatened to cut me off for non-payment. Even after I'd called the company and appealed, they still prevented me from paying with my bank account for 12 months and forced me to pay with a credit card (which incurred an additional $3.75 "convenience fee").
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    Bank accounts and credit cards work very differently in making payments. Getting an ACH transaction disputed is far more time consuming and difficult. Fat fingering a bank account number number and not triple checking it for an ACH payment isn't something I would just shrug off.
janoc 7y ago
And why do you think this isn't intentional? Spending money on people solving company's screwups costs a lot of money. For the company the size of Google or Facebook one client (or hundred) like this are peanuts, drop in the bucket. The cost of losing them is minimal over the costs of paying a support person to deal with problems. Big client won't get banned - and if they do, they have also a non-public phone number to an account manager to make things right again too. Sadly this is a common trend - e.g. with ISPs it is almost impossible to find a contact to an actual person, only some online chats or automated hotline that will waste your time with canned responses not solving your problem.
- jonknee 7y ago
  It is intentional, I'm just saying it's ridiculous. the Google way is to treat everything like a programming problem. That works decently well for bits, but really breaks down when working with humans.
  - Godel_unicode 7y ago
    The thing is that it doesn't break down except in the extreme cases, and even then it's often less bad than the edge cases with traditional human-mediated customer service. Consider the Wells Fargo accounts snafu, or the Comcast customer nickname issue. Or PayPal just in general. Is Google actually worse, or are they the kind of better that makes their rarer screwups seem worse. Consider in your evaluation just how many people they deal with using their automated systems.
    - jonknee 7y ago
      Extreme cases like using a popular new credit card to pay? Please. Google uses an algorithm to ban people for life without recourse, it's insane. Not everything can be reduced to an algo, sometimes you need to make exceptions. It can even make your algo better (thousands of people are going to try using their new Apple cards in the coming weeks).
      - 7y ago
AceJohnny2 7y ago
> Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. Apple does that too [1]. I assume it's to prevent a DoS from fraudsters. (Obviously, it's a problem for legitimate users) [1] https://qz.com/1683460/what-happens-to-your-itunes-account-when-apple-says-youve-committed-fraud/ https://qz.com/1683460/what-happens-to-your-itunes-account-w...
- GeekyBear 7y ago
  In your example, the user was easily able to contact a real human being who informed them that their account had been terminated for using a fraudulent gift card. That human being even went to bat for the user and tried to convince corporate that buying the fraudulent gift card had been an honest mistake in trusting the wrong seller and not intentional fraud. This seems like quite a different experience from "you are banned for life and we won't even talk to you or tell you why".
  - AceJohnny2 7y ago
    Read on for the salient part. > This Senior Agent #2 was not as supportive as the first, and gave me information that contradicted Senior Agent #1: “Your account has been permanently disabled,” he said. “There is nothing else you can do, there is no escalation path.” > When I asked for an explanation as to why, all he would say is, “See the terms and conditions.” Ultimately, the author was able to get out of that dead-end, but it sounded awfully close.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - GeekyBear 7y ago
      The salient fact is that the user was easily able to contact customer support, find out exactly what the issue was, provide documentation showing what had happened, and appeal an adverse decision all the way to the top. This is significantly different than "we won't tell you what the issue is and we won't even accept communications from you".
kryogen1c 7y ago
> Just bizarre. It would be except you and other are still using their services.
lallysingh 7y ago
It's a classic "Go fuck yourself" response.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  That would actually be a more honest response.
  - ggg3 7y ago
    american Puritanism. imply and do as much as you want, but for God, do not spell it out!
- twoheadedboy 7y ago
  Modern life is so Kafkaesque.
themagician 7y ago
I had this exact issue with FB a while ago. Got that exact response. Fortunately I’d worked with FB before for major brands, so I knew the email to send to to get a real person. There is almost always a monitored email address for accounts receivable, and if you email them pretending like you are having trouble making a large payment, someone will respond. When they think it’s a fat check, suddenly “this decision is final” is just a mistake.
microtherion 7y ago
> In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up Ah, but is it really obvious? One of the benefits of virtual card numbers, in particular the Apple Card implementation, is that it's easy to switch them out, which makes tracking harder. Could it be that a company that makes its living off tracking users would not be overly fond of virtual card numbers? As long as users' reaction is "if you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again", it looks like the AI did exactly what it was meant to do.
- harshreality 7y ago
  If that's the case, they should simply reject charges from virtual cards, rather than charging them and then banning the account.
  - microtherion 7y ago
    But as I've argued above, maybe the deterrent effect is a feature, as long as it's the use of virtual cards that is deterred and not the use of Google products.
    - wrs 7y ago
      Wouldn't you say that banning you from using Google products forever is a pretty darn effective way of deterring you from using those products?
      - microtherion 7y ago
        That would be one way of looking at it. But the OP took the opposite conclusion, that one should avoid using Apple Card. So we have one user who is using neither Apple Card nor Google products, and a number of his readers, who are deterred from using Apple Card.
- jonknee 7y ago
  I usually pay with Amex and sometimes a business will say "Oh sorry, we don't take Amex". Never once have they ushered me out the door and issued a trespass notice. Instead I just pay another way and we are both happy. That seems pretty optimal.
optimiz3 7y ago
Coinbase does the same thing. Perma-banned for reasons. Won't ever know why.
duxup 7y ago
We thought the sci-fi style evil AI would become the overlord making nonsensical decisions that can't be appealed. But really, humans are happy to do it to each other. It makes sense I guess as those sci-fi AIs are often to some extent or another trying to save us from, other humans, or at least that was their origin.
jsonne 7y ago
FWIW Facebook will also ban you without telling you which ad policy you violated. Most infuriating they can pull access to accounts or your ability to turn off ads while they're still running and connected to a credit card. To me, that seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
howdisposs45 7y ago
>in this case people literally trying to give you money! Gmail for Android has 2 core functions: to send and to receive mail. It fails at one of them. (Emails get stuck in its outbox indefinitely - you can force it to send by going into the "outbox" and dragging down to refresh, which is an action that has no button to show it is possible. There is no notification that your mail wasn't sent.) Here is a thread about it: https://support.google.com/mail/thread/3130686?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/thread/3130686?hl=en How is it possible for an app that has 2 functions, to fail to do one of them? This is like a salt and pepper set where the pepper side has no holes - the pepper is stuck inside. (You can unscrew the top and manually shake some out though.) Sure salt is more common. But it's literally a salt and pepper set that only functions as a salt shaker. Gmail for android is literally a mail sending and receiving app that can't send mail. How can this happen? I mean literally, how is the support thread I linked possible? If I were the CEO and I saw a thread like that, the issue would be fixed within 7 minutes, as every person within earshot of me rushed to make themselves look good to me. How is Google's CEO different?
- kube-system 7y ago
  Easy. Google’s CEO runs an advertising company. You assumption is that the app has two functions functions: sending and receiving email. It actually only has one function, put eyes in front of ads.
  - howdisposs45 7y ago
    To be honest this doesn't make sense. If the salt and pepper set only had "one function" which is to display advertising in your home (the analogy works pretty well, as I could imagine the set plastered with ads) it still has to work as a salt and pepper set, or people wouldn't use it.
    - kube-system 7y ago
      In the example thread above, people are reacting by complaining about the problem. If they reacted by switching email providers, they wouldn’t be in that thread. I highly doubt Gmail’s active user count is affected by any more than a minuscule amount as a result.
Marsymars 7y ago
> Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. For non-negligible damages, heading immediately to small claims court (given you live in a sensible jurisdiction) seems to be the easiest thing in that case. Even if Google's ultimately in the right, they typically can't just ignore that entirely. From a decade ago: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_1... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_2...
- raverbashing 7y ago
  Really, sometimes people forget (and I'm guilty as charged) they live in a society with laws and legal recourses. It's not as simple as "Google can cut you off no questions asked whenever they feel like it"
  - joemi 7y ago
    > It's not as simple as "Google can cut you off no questions asked whenever they feel like it" Are you sure about that? Often such terms are built into the user agreements.
    - raverbashing 7y ago
      Well, that's certainly what they want you to think ;) I suppose there are a couple of issues that haven't been tested in court. But besides that, anything you paid and wasn't rendered as services needs to be refunded. It doesn't look like they refund it most times, no?
      - arielm 7y ago
        The problem is that regardless of whether they are or not, getting to a point where a judge looks it over is a process most can’t go through with an opponent like Google.
noonespecial 7y ago
Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. Its also almost certainly completely fake as they're done nothing of the sort. I'd be shocked if it wasn't as automatic as an away message.
ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
This is exactly what I said few hours back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20838089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20838089. Premium support in Google only exists to make sure your have paid them. They will ban your account after you have paid them. They usually want till your payment is cleared and then ban you. My colleague's play account was banned because he used PayPal not Google wallet, when it was launched
jacquesm 7y ago
> Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. There isn't a week that goes by without that exact same story repeating itself. > I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. Maybe you could prepare for this by writing an angry blogpost ahead of time, to get it out of your system?
sha666sum 7y ago
Google ignoring their customers is a recurring theme,, and I'd like to think that I have a pretty good list of tech news that I follow. Since this is HN, which (at least used to) primarily cater to the startup crowd, I hope it goes without saying that Google does not fix this issue because they don't have a financial incentive to do so. This is basic capitalism at play, and what you as a developer/advertiser/user need to do is use and pay for competing products if you're not happy about the status quo.
- lapnitnelav 7y ago
  Exactly, it's all about power. On one hand, in the online ads biz, Google is king and is happy to outsource its customer support for its most premium customers both large network of agencies and advertisers. I know it quite well, I was one of those guys for Doubleclick many moons ago. That is if you are big enough to be worthy of being a Google (DC) customer in the first place, which means, you have to be a large spender. But on the other hand, if you sign up for their Google Cloud thing despite being a nobody (me again), you'll have their sales folks hounding you for an upsell, mostly because GCloud is ridiculously behind both AWS and Azure. Funny how it goes.
scohesc 7y ago
It's absolutely fucking mind-boggling how these large, impenetrable silicon valley companies (mainly google here) like to hide behind their "algorithms". "Oh, sorry your main method of making money was terminated, we won't tell you why or how we came to that conclusion - must have been the algorithm, sorry!" What's that old saying - "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"? I'm starting to think that these massive companies aren't stupid and that they're actually designing their algorithms behind this and using it as a scapegoat to push their own agenda.
- ghettoimp 7y ago
  I don't disagree with anything you have said. But, if your main method of making money is dependent on some particular entity continuing to do whatever they are currently doing, you have a problem.
  - ajnin 7y ago
    I hear that argument a lot from people trying to shift the blame to the victim. But we all depend on some particular entity in one form or another, we all depend on the government upholding the value of money, we depend on the transportation systems not to cease to operate, we do that not because we're sloppy but because there is no other way to do things. Try to run ads on the Internet without dealing with Google.
  - Wistar 7y ago
    ... the Federal reserve, for instance.
- scarface74 7y ago
  I’ve never once had a problem reaching a live human that could solve my problem on the business side working with AWS. As a consumer I’ve never had any issues with Amazon retail.
  - zenexer 7y ago
    It's pretty difficult to reach a human if you don't pay a ridiculous extra amount each month for support--and even then, they're rarely able to assist with actual bugs. They just assume everything that's wrong is your mistake, and when they finally come to the conclusion that it's a bug on their end, they give up.
rapind 7y ago
My theory is that Google is now being run by robots. They maintain a few token humans to propagate the facade. Before you disagree, ask yourself, would you know if they were(n't)?
- jboles 7y ago
  The humans are too distracted by non-work activities maybe? This article paints a bizarre picture: https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james-damores-lawsuit-googles-office-environment/ https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james...
qwerty456127 7y ago
Yet there still are all kinds of scams advertised and millions of people download trojaned apps from Google Play.
julianee 7y ago
Unfortunately they practice these sorts of policy on the app store as well. We've been saying Google does this, Google does that. The thing is, a company is composed of its people. I am just curious, how does something like this, something most people with reasonable sense of "fairness" would flag as concerning and potentially very wrong, comes to be implemented? Even more so for a large company like Google? (smaller companies can have a "bad dictator boss" which can push this through without issue) Policies like these, which appear to have consistencies across their products, how far up does the chain of responsibility go? How does stuff like these occur? Does it start with some MBA grad who comes in, gets assigned a KPI to "cut costs" and then their natural bias is that customer service is the first to go, proposes it to their managers and it bubbles up for approval and implementation? All the while everyone at each level is oblivious to the potentially damaging collateral the policy would cause, but only think that "oh this is a great move, we would save a bunch!" and then finally gets implemented? Or would this more be a top-down thing where executives discuss and push this and then the employees, being good people at heart have no choice but to implement it? I just find it so difficult to imagine something like this being OK-ed by all the people involved within the company. Like, is everyone "in on it"? Or do they not know? Or they know but can't/unwilling to say anything?
- wolco 7y ago
  It starts with someone coming up with a way of cutting costs. It continues because it can. Then it becomes part of their brand which would only matter if you had similiar choices for similiar services.
- ben_jones 7y ago
  I think Google employees view their services as a gift to users who should be grateful and understanding of any deficiencies.
WalterGR 7y ago
I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. Me too. My favorite so far is Google threatening to take away my primary source of income because my site has content related to pirated software. Google is correct! My site is a dictionary, and it has the temerity to define the term “warez”.

scblock 7y ago

Wait, so Google once again proves how much they suck at customer service, and the conclusion is to be wary of Apple Card? That seems like a stretch.

nodesocket 7y ago
Seriously, the problem is not with Apple and virtual card numbers (which is awesome) but Google and their piss-poor customer service and lack of support for even paying users. Can't wait until the justice department drops the hammer on Google.
- nodesocket 7y ago
  Looks like my prediction coming true https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20920731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20920731.

laurentdc 7y ago

Why the war on virtual cards? My bank lets me create infinite "throwaway" credit cards that work for a single payment or up to a certain expiry date. They're great for never having to expose your real card number and keeping track of maximum spend. Are these classified as virtual cards? I use them all the time for Facebook ads and was planning to set up a AdWords campaign too, but now I'm worried

iampims 7y ago
Which bank if I may ask?
- X-Istence 7y ago
  Bank of America allows me to do this for my credit card with them.
- laurentdc 7y ago
  Intesa (Italy). Deutsche Bank offers them too iirc
- desigooner 7y ago
  Citi
- joncrane 7y ago
  Capital One definitely does this (I used to work there and when we rolled it out it was considered quite innovative).
cortesoft 7y ago
The issue is that this is bypassing one of the things some companies use your credit card as - collateral. For example, if you rent something, the credit card is used as a guarantee that you will return the item. If you don't, they can charge the card for the full price. If you use virtual cards, they can't do that.
- MereInterest 7y ago

hamandcheese 7y ago

> All I can say is that it's likely that he was either using a virtual card or his identity was tied to a previously suspended account. > After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the number that is generated in the wallet app (the only way you can get your card number for the Apple Card) is, infact, a virtual card. This seems like the likely cause.

eridius 7y ago
Why does Google hate virtual cards though? It's an anti-fraud mechanism. Google's declaring that using an anti-fraud mechanism is in fact an indication of fraud?
- lallysingh 7y ago
  Probably because you can hide the same underlying account number, so you can burn virtual cards on new fraud accounts without the additional cost of setting up new underlying accounts.
homologate 7y ago
But as stated elsewhere on this post, Google's official policy states that virtual cards are accepted. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433 https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433 Credit cards and debit cards -> Make a payment with a one-time use credit card >In addition to regular credit cards, you can also use a one-time use credit card (also known as virtual credit card). It's commonly used as an alternative to physical credit cards when making online payments.

bovermyer 7y ago

The author offers it as a warning against using Apple Card. I read it as confirmation that Google would do well to focus on customer service for once.

slenk 7y ago
What's easier? Not getting an Apple card or changing Google.
- jbarberu 7y ago
  I'm honestly not sure, I'd say getting off Google is the "better" choice with that kind of arbitrary risk of a ban.
- jes 7y ago
  I'm taking a middle path, making changes at my own pace on things that lessen my interactions with Google, Facebook, etc. I'm enjoying Protonmail, for example.
- danShumway 7y ago
  Avoiding Apple card is no guarantee that you won't run into the same problem somewhere else. What's easier? Changing Google, or spending all of your time constantly worrying that your entire business could be disrupted or destroyed at random? You can't look at it as one isolated event with one isolated solution; the takeaway is, "even innocuous, good-faith 'mistakes' might be enough for Google to randomly shut me down with no explanation and no recourse." There's no way to guard against that except to stop using Google.
- FDSGSG 7y ago
  Why would not getting an Apple card keep Google from banning you?
  - slenk 7y ago
    It would only keep them from banning you for the use of a virtual card...unless you used a virtual card of some other kind.

MartianSquirrel 7y ago

"Don't be evil."

WalterBright 7y ago

I learned the hard way to always have at least two ways people can buy things from you. Never bet your business on another business that uses algorithms to arbitrarily disconnect yours and algorithms to respond to customer service inquiries.

riku_iki 7y ago
You cut yourself from a lot of opportunities that way.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Don't say you weren't warned :-)
  - riku_iki 7y ago
    This is how modern life works: almost everybody's life circumstances are dependent on large institutions, which can screw you any given moment, except if you chose to live in jungles. Doing business is taking risks, and one has to be ready to lose.
kamyarg 7y ago
Paypal says hi :)

pixelbath 7y ago

>Companies like Google have waged war on virtual cards First, this seems a bit histrionic. That's a wide claim to make with a sample size of one. Second, the entire idea that the author was banned for using a virtual card comes from a friend who spoke to another friend who allegedly works as an "account manager" (presumably at Google?), who themselves admit they can't even see into the process.

ytpete 7y ago
Agreed - especially as another post pointed out that Google's official policy states they _do_ accept virtual cards: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433?hl=en
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  That doesn't mean it doesn't increase the fraud score assigned to you/your transaction. e.g. the same behavior could trigger a ban with a virtual credit card but not with a physical one.

alanfranz 7y ago

Beyond the fact that I don't understand why a virtual card should be a problem, I think that this era of "we can deny you a service and tell you nothing" should stop. It's one of the biggest issues of the modern internet. I understand that laws are different around the world. In Italy, whatever is defined as a "public exercise" - anything offering its services to the anybody, be it a shop, a store, a cafè, a restaurant, MUST offer those services to anybody who a) can pay and b) satisfies any global and well-expressed condition (e.g. more than 18 years old, properly dressed, etc). You cannot just deny service to a random customer without a VERY GOOD reason. If you want to serve members only, you can build your private club. Then you're able to do almost whatever you like, but you cannot advertise or promote your activities to non-members. I suppose US law is different, although I think to remember that there're some rules against discrimination. Either the service is available to anyone, or to noone. If some infringement happens, it must be explicit and there must be the chance to appeal to a judge. Otherwise, how can this be non-discriminatory?

skykooler 7y ago
There's rules about discrimination for specific reasons: you can't discriminate based on age, race, gender, etc. "Which credit card" you use isn't one of those categories, so it's legal to discriminate based on it. (And is often done, though not to this extent; many places, for example, will accept Visa and Mastercard but not Discover.)
- alanfranz 7y ago
  > many places, for example, will accept Visa and Mastercard but not Discover. But that's explicit and the same for everybody. If you accepted Discover from somebody and not from somebody else, THAT would be discrimination. Discriminating the credit card somebody is using without telling anybody... well, could still be discrimination. Younger people could be more prone to use an Apple card, couldn't them? Can you demonstrate the "feature" you're discriminating about can't be tied to age, race, gender, etc?
  - vageli 7y ago

geerlingguy 7y ago

> If you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again. That was the final line in the article, but from reading the rest of the article, it seems like the overarching problem was not the Apple Card, or the idea of virtual CC numbers... but more that time and time again, Google will shut down your [YouTube|Gmail|Ads|Cloud|anything] account with little or no notice, and arbitrary, non-contestable rulings, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it after the fact. I was nervous about staking anything financially important in the Google ecosystem, but after seeing this kind of post every week, there's no way I would tie any important business venture into Google's ecosystem.

mleonhard 7y ago
Companies producing Android apps have no choice.
- zwerdlds 7y ago
  F-Droid is one alternative to the Play Store.
  - thekyle 7y ago
    Or even just distribute it via their website like Fortnite.
- tfha 7y ago
  Pivot
tinus_hn 7y ago
If you’re planning on using Google for anything important, think again. They are at fault here, not Apple.

jxdxbx 7y ago

Google's actual policies state that it accepts virtual cards.https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375433?hl=en

chmaynard 7y ago
Relevant section: In addition to regular credit cards, you can also use a one-time use credit card (also known as virtual credit card). It's commonly used as an alternative to physical credit cards when making online payments. Google Ads accepts these credit cards as long as they have a Visa or MasterCard logo. If you don't have a physical credit card, contact your bank to see if they offer them. Steps to use a one-time use credit card: Sign in to your Google Ads account at https://ads.google.com https://ads.google.com. Click the tool icon and choose Billing & payments. Go there now Click the Make a payment button. Click the "Pay with" drop-down and choose Add new payment method, then enter your one-time use credit card information. Enter the amount you'd like to make a payment for, then click the Make a payment button to review and finish your payment. Be sure to include $1 more than your payment amount for card verification.
- slenk 7y ago
  > Be sure to include $1 more than your payment amount for card verification. That seems like something that could be easily missed
bagacrap 7y ago
which makes me think this person was banned for some other violation
- ineedasername 7y ago
  Could be! The problem is we'll never know because Google's awful support makes it impossible to know what you did wrong, only that you did something and you're being punished and too bad if you want to know why.
garysahota93 7y ago

tristanb 7y ago

I use and love privacy.com - and the fastest way for me to not sign up for your service is when you tell me I can't use one of the card numbers. It happens occasionally, but no way in hell am I giving out my real CC

StanAngeloff 7y ago

Another day, another horror story and with that a further confirmation of how profoundly broken Google's support is. I shall think twice before buying into any Google products and so should you. Imagine having you entire company cloud account suspended with no one to talk to... Or getting blocked from your domain/Gmail and unable to communicate... Or getting kicked out of the Play store when this is your only means of earning a living. These are not hypothetical, these are stories from HN front page just this year. Frightening and infuriating at the same time.

supernintendo 7y ago

> I'm not some huckster with a spam website. Ironically, you could make the case that Google itself fits this description.

philco 7y ago

Has nothing to do with the payment platform you chose is my best guess. Has to do with what you were paying to send ad traffic to, and possible misrepresentation of facts on that page. Were you testing landing pages for concepts where you didn't include terms of use, privacy policies or misrepresented the state of your product? That would be my best guess.

squarefoot 7y ago

Bad PR and popularity backlash is what corporations fear the most. We should wait for such things to happen (and then be quickly fixed because of the name) to some really popular figure who will make it public, then grab popcorn and watch Google, or any other corporation that screws "normal" customers, produce spectacular stunts to escape the unavoidable negative press.

ineedasername 7y ago
The thing is a popular figure, especially if they do semi-large numbers with Google, probably wouldn't get banned before outreach and if they did would be able to get decent support.
- squarefoot 7y ago
  That would be the point. I want to read some day "Hi, I'm (insert popular name here). How come that I get immediate answers plus support while other users with the same problem either have to wait or are being banned?". That would hardly happen, but hope is free.

zupa-hu 7y ago

You should contact Apple. I'm sure they 1) have the power to get through 2) they are motivated to make the Apple Card work and instill trust in people.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

veeti 7y ago

> And if you're planning on using Apple Card^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Google services for anything important, think again. Fixed that for you.

FDSGSG 7y ago

This has nothing to do with the Apple Card. Google loves suspending Ads accounts for doing any changes to their profiles. I've had to go through this BS at least 5 times. Odds are this guy would've been banned no matter which card he switched to. Given that smartprivacy pushes VPN stuff I wouldn't be surprised if this guy had been using a VPN to log into his Ads account, which would be a sure way to get your account fucked.

jacekm 7y ago

The stories like this can be heard every now and then and I think we all agree that Google's customer support could be vastly improved. But taking a step back, I am finding this particular story slightly suspicious as the site seems a little bit weird to me. The domain is only 4-months old and the entire site is almost empty, it consists of just a couple "reviews" of mostly VPNs and password managers and the author himself admits to participating in referral schemes. And despite advocating privacy he uses google analytics and one more tracking system on his site. The story he published is the only post that is not a review. If I had so much experience as he claims I would have better places to post my rant rather than at a newly created website. I can imagine a scheme where one posts a sensational story just to drive the traffic to their affiliate links-based business. Now, having said all of this - I do NOT accuse author of anything, their story may be true, it actually sounds plausible. I'd just like to remind you of another google ban story [1] that made headlines some time ago and was later debunked by Google. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_getting_google_to_ban_our_entire_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_gettin...

lonelappde 7y ago
What was the debunking?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  It's linked in the top comment. https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banned_an_entire_company_gsuite_accounts/dzf8cuq/ https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banne... Not so much a debunking as an absolute denial that the circumstances described transpired. It's difficult to prove a negative.
  - jacekm 7y ago
    > Not so much a debunking Yup, 'debunk' is probably not the best word here. English is not my native tongue, I apologize. What I meant is that a different opinion was presented by Google. But you're right - it's still one word vs another, it's impossible to determine who is telling the truth.

ineedasername 7y ago

Yet another example of how Google "support" seems modeled on the senseless, frustrating, and destructive systems warned of in Kafka. Opaque rules and literally inhuman inflexibility. The problems is Google can suffer any number of these small scale gaffs without consequence, while any truly large account would probably be given the courtesy of outreach before a blind suspension, and real live support afterwards if it went that far. So for now they can do this with impunity. However with the Spectre of Amazon ads on the horizon true competition may arise, and Amazon has decent support. As things stand now, anyone starting out would be well advised to steer clear of relying on any part of Google services for critical needs.

PerilousD 7y ago

and yet you're still lining up to use Google? I dropped out of the Google ad system many tears ago when I realized the game was rigged (in their favor) and the only way to "win' was not to play. So when I read stories like yours which pop up frequently for Google - I cant help but think you're probably an intelligent person so "what's your point?"

ineedasername 7y ago

Everyone reading this that ever has a problem like this with Google support should write it up and submit it to HN. Then we as a community should come together and upvote the hell out of it. The more these things get publicized in the industry the harder it will become for Google to do this without repurcussions.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

chacha2 7y ago

SmartPrivacy.io uses Google ads?

MikeGale 7y ago

I have no idea whether this is relevant. I noticed that the site has reviews of anti-tracking products like Ghostery and Privacy Badger. (The reviews are a bit thin in my opinion.) Google may view those as existential threats and work to remove that material from the web.

qwerty456127 7y ago

> After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the number that is generated in the wallet app (the only way you can get your card number for the Apple Card) is, infact, a virtual card. > And if you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again. Using virtual cards is a perfectly legitimate activity. I'm a client of a top-tier bank in Europe and they always recommend to use a virtual card (they would ask if you'd like them to issue) for everything online. This doesn't seem like an Apple's fault (although it would be nice of Apple to clearly inform you the card is virtual). Google should be sued for this.

Justsignedup 7y ago

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You fell for the classic google trap: They only pick up the phone if you are a paying customer. If your payment isn't working you can go fuck yourself. I know, a common mistake. Seriously though, this is also the case with using their phone service, or any other account. If your payment ever bounces, you lose EVERYTHING.

joecool1029 7y ago

Tangentially related... in one of my last convos with an American Express business rep, they noted I set my cashback preference to advertising purchases. I was informed by them that Google Adwords has a history of 'blackflagging' accounts. He said they could generate up to 100 cards with unique numbers for free to my account and that it was fairly common for agencies to have big split-ring binders full of cards tied to each client.

therealmarv 7y ago

Google bans app xyz, Google bans AdSense account. Everyday a new Google horror story here. Does nobody from Google reads HN??

munchbunny 7y ago
The Google employees who are paying attention likely don't have the power to address the problem, and the Google employees who have the power to address the problem either aren't paying attention or actively decided not to address the problem.

bfrog 7y ago

The thing with monopolies is that they tend to abuse the privilege of being one. You are a consumer, buying their wares, and they could care less because you really only have one option. They made sure of it by buying most of the significant competition years ago. Welcome to the modern era of internet monopolies.

mabbo 7y ago

This is what I find so interesting about Amazon going into the ads business. (Bias note: I am employed by Amazon, but not involved in ads.) Google make a lot of their money from online advertising. But they have a reputation of not giving a shit about their customers, giving canned responses, etc. Amazon, criticize it as you will, has a reputation for good customer service (I literally give "Customer Obsession" training to new hires). What happens if enough Google ads customers get fed up and try out the competitor? 20 years ago, Google found a hose that money pours out of called "online advertising". All they do now is improve that hose and desperately search for another one. If someone comes along and siphons out a fraction, it could actually hit them hard. "If", of course. We'll see.

abstract7 7y ago

Google must be stopped from muscling its way into 'real' goods and services. Can you imagine getting locked out of your [insert] with an automated response and without recourse?

awinter-py 7y ago

traditional credit card companies waged contractual war with merchants for decades to ban cash discounts new payment tech will have a similar uphill battle to get people to treat them equally

mcbits 7y ago

If indeed they're banning accounts for using virtual cards, I see a parallel with the early days of Gmail. You couldn't use a Gmail account to sign up for a lot of sites because short-sighted admins categorically prohibited all free webmail accounts. In their minds, the only "real" email addresses were at AOL, Earthlink, employers, universities, etc. Never mind that Gmail was invite-only and probably a much stronger indicator of a legitimate person at the time. The victim grows up to become the bully.

scarface74 7y ago

I'm writing this to warn anyone else that intended to use the card online that you may experience... difficulties. And if you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again. Isn’t the better conclusion after almost a decade of people dealing with Google’s customer “service” and reading about how non responsive they are is not to base your livelihood on anything Google related? If your business plan is at all depending on Google, it’s probably a bad one.

deleted 7y ago

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alyandon 7y ago

Can Google even really know if a presented card number is a "virtual" credit card or not? Could this be a case of a generated virtual card number matching a card number that was previously used with an account that was shut down for fraud and that's why Google immediately banned this unrelated account?

docker_up 7y ago

Can there not be a law that states that Google can't just say "Your account is suspended, and the decision is final, and we won't tell you why." This sounds like the type of monopolistic action that we need to break by petitioning our politicians. Google, Facebook, etc need to be regulated.

classics2 7y ago

Reminds me of when I was permanently suspended from PayPal “for reasons” after 20+ years of constant patronage and good standing. Same black box mentality, no human being made the decision and no human being would look at the situation and fix it. There really should be a catchy term for this sort of algorithmically generated deplatforming. Google ganking?