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This is such a big thing nowadays and it needs regulation. Dispute a charge on Steam? Banned for life. Return one too many item according to some neural network

This is such a big thing nowadays and it needs regulation. Dispute a charge on Steam? Banned for life. Return one too many item according to some neural network on Amazon? Banned for life. Do nothing wrong at all? Random chance to wake up to a banned Google account, no recourse. Your business runs on GCP? Bad luck. There need to be serious consequences for this "the computer made a mistake" bullshit.

mullingitover 5y ago
It certainly feels illegal to have the threat of a ban when you make a good faith report of fraudulent charges. A business could have a pattern of deliberate overcharges that they layer in with regular transactions with the knowledge that enough users will just give in and eat the fraudulent charge to avoid losing access to the service. If the business has run the numbers and found that it's a net gain in profits from this practice, there would be a reasonable (if completely corrupt) motive for operating the scam.
- fedreserved 5y ago
  Rico cases are meant for more then just "criminals". A civil Rico case is one route
- judge2020 5y ago
  Regarding the dead sibling comment, it's never RICO. https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/ https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-...
caseysoftware 5y ago
As these systems become monopolies - or at least defacto standards - these blanket bans without insight into the process, appeal, or even notification is getting ugly. Right now, it's "only" a frustration in most cases but what happens when Amazon bans you while PillPack is how you receive your meds?
gabereiser 5y ago
The “Does your business run on GCP?” needs to be understood by every VP out there. If you are a software company, and a _cough_ security company, that’s all in on GCP, you don’t know what you are doing.
- neeleshs 5y ago
  Can you say more? The risk of account locks seems very similar on any of the major cloud providers? A brief search shows similar complaints on AWS, for example.
  - gabereiser 5y ago
    Indeed. AWS has kicked customers off too. Never said they didn’t. I’ve heard more stories from people getting booted from GCP than AWS. By order of 10x it seems like. I’m sure someone’s been kicked off Azure too. Hybrid cloud with some on-prem backup solution is the only way to truly be cloud agnostic and protect yourself and your data from deletion due to a variety of issues. GCP kicked off a game developer (and deleted his data). AWS kicked off Parler. What I’m saying is that if you’re a VP in charge of cloud strategy, make sure you have a solid DR plan should you intentionally or unintentionally run afoul of that providers rules. Either from policy or politically. Doesn’t matter. GCP just has more of a track record in my news feed of deplatforming than AWS. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/terraria-developer-cancels-google-stadia-port-after-youtube-account-ban/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/terraria-developer-c...
    - mullingitover 5y ago
      > What I’m saying is that if you’re a VP in charge of cloud strategy, make sure you have a solid DR plan should you intentionally or unintentionally run afoul of that providers rules. Really all you need is a mediocre Plan A: don't run afoul of the providers' rules. It's not hard. AWS hosts a lot of content that's even more offensive than Parler, the thing that got Parler in trouble was they weren't able or willing to act on Amazon's demand that they promptly remove content that encouraged or incited violence. So if you're running a platform that hosts content like that, or you're breaking the law or generally breaking the pretty straightforward rules, yeah, have a Plan B, C and D ready to go at a moment's notice. Most of us aren't running things that cater to people who are into political violence or other liability-causing activities so it's not a thing we need to spend a lot of time and money planning for. Only exception to this rule would be GCP or any other company that's widely known for atrocious service and capricious, random bans.
hyperdimension 5y ago
Sounds like the movie Brazil to me. Or Computers Don't Argue.
yuliyp 5y ago
Disputing charges with a credit card is an interesting thing. It's a consumer being able to unilaterally say "give me my money back" and the merchant basically being stuck with the tab. Doing a chargeback means the relationship between consumer and merchant is ineffective that they can't resolve their differences normally. That the merchant doesn't want to risk more money on serving such a customer in the future is perfectly rational.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Rational? Maybe for them. But when they refuse to help the consumer, it’s the customer’s right to issue a chargeback. That’s their purpose: to deal with bad merchants. Too many chargebacks can get you dropped from your payment processor. But when the merchant bans you to hide the fact that they suck (from the processor), that’s pretty messed up.
- mullingitover 5y ago
  Assuming the merchant is 100% honest and accurate, yes this is rational. If the merchant is error-prone and doesn't want their occasional erroneous (or intentional) overcharges affecting their relationship with credit services, it's also rational.
- hamiltonians 5y ago
  maybe if chargebacks are so bad try to invest in better dispute resoluton processes
- mxcrossr 5y ago
  The credit card company is the one that holds the power I guess. I wonder if someday visa will start threatening merchants who retaliate via bans as an extra card feature.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    Previously, Visa(?) had tried to prevent merchants from having separate cash and debit/credit prices (gas stations for example), and they got in trouble with “monopoly laws”. So I wouldn’t hold my breath on them retaliating on merchants who ban customers.
leephillips 5y ago
“Your business runs on GCP? Bad luck.” Luck has nothing to do with it. That’s bad planning. Really bad.

mullingitover 5y ago

It certainly feels illegal to have the threat of a ban when you make a good faith report of fraudulent charges. A business could have a pattern of deliberate overcharges that they layer in with regular transactions with the knowledge that enough users will just give in and eat the fraudulent charge to avoid losing access to the service. If the business has run the numbers and found that it's a net gain in profits from this practice, there would be a reasonable (if completely corrupt) motive for operating the scam.

fedreserved 5y ago
Rico cases are meant for more then just "criminals". A civil Rico case is one route
judge2020 5y ago
Regarding the dead sibling comment, it's never RICO. https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/ https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-...

caseysoftware 5y ago

As these systems become monopolies - or at least defacto standards - these blanket bans without insight into the process, appeal, or even notification is getting ugly. Right now, it's "only" a frustration in most cases but what happens when Amazon bans you while PillPack is how you receive your meds?

gabereiser 5y ago

The “Does your business run on GCP?” needs to be understood by every VP out there. If you are a software company, and a _cough_ security company, that’s all in on GCP, you don’t know what you are doing.

neeleshs 5y ago
Can you say more? The risk of account locks seems very similar on any of the major cloud providers? A brief search shows similar complaints on AWS, for example.
- gabereiser 5y ago
  Indeed. AWS has kicked customers off too. Never said they didn’t. I’ve heard more stories from people getting booted from GCP than AWS. By order of 10x it seems like. I’m sure someone’s been kicked off Azure too. Hybrid cloud with some on-prem backup solution is the only way to truly be cloud agnostic and protect yourself and your data from deletion due to a variety of issues. GCP kicked off a game developer (and deleted his data). AWS kicked off Parler. What I’m saying is that if you’re a VP in charge of cloud strategy, make sure you have a solid DR plan should you intentionally or unintentionally run afoul of that providers rules. Either from policy or politically. Doesn’t matter. GCP just has more of a track record in my news feed of deplatforming than AWS. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/terraria-developer-cancels-google-stadia-port-after-youtube-account-ban/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/terraria-developer-c...
  - mullingitover 5y ago
    > What I’m saying is that if you’re a VP in charge of cloud strategy, make sure you have a solid DR plan should you intentionally or unintentionally run afoul of that providers rules. Really all you need is a mediocre Plan A: don't run afoul of the providers' rules. It's not hard. AWS hosts a lot of content that's even more offensive than Parler, the thing that got Parler in trouble was they weren't able or willing to act on Amazon's demand that they promptly remove content that encouraged or incited violence. So if you're running a platform that hosts content like that, or you're breaking the law or generally breaking the pretty straightforward rules, yeah, have a Plan B, C and D ready to go at a moment's notice. Most of us aren't running things that cater to people who are into political violence or other liability-causing activities so it's not a thing we need to spend a lot of time and money planning for. Only exception to this rule would be GCP or any other company that's widely known for atrocious service and capricious, random bans.

hyperdimension 5y ago

Sounds like the movie Brazil to me. Or Computers Don't Argue.

yuliyp 5y ago

Disputing charges with a credit card is an interesting thing. It's a consumer being able to unilaterally say "give me my money back" and the merchant basically being stuck with the tab. Doing a chargeback means the relationship between consumer and merchant is ineffective that they can't resolve their differences normally. That the merchant doesn't want to risk more money on serving such a customer in the future is perfectly rational.

colejohnson66 5y ago
Rational? Maybe for them. But when they refuse to help the consumer, it’s the customer’s right to issue a chargeback. That’s their purpose: to deal with bad merchants. Too many chargebacks can get you dropped from your payment processor. But when the merchant bans you to hide the fact that they suck (from the processor), that’s pretty messed up.
mullingitover 5y ago
Assuming the merchant is 100% honest and accurate, yes this is rational. If the merchant is error-prone and doesn't want their occasional erroneous (or intentional) overcharges affecting their relationship with credit services, it's also rational.
hamiltonians 5y ago
maybe if chargebacks are so bad try to invest in better dispute resoluton processes
mxcrossr 5y ago
The credit card company is the one that holds the power I guess. I wonder if someday visa will start threatening merchants who retaliate via bans as an extra card feature.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Previously, Visa(?) had tried to prevent merchants from having separate cash and debit/credit prices (gas stations for example), and they got in trouble with “monopoly laws”. So I wouldn’t hold my breath on them retaliating on merchants who ban customers.

leephillips 5y ago

“Your business runs on GCP? Bad luck.” Luck has nothing to do with it. That’s bad planning. Really bad.