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I will upvote and comment to hopefully gain visibility at the minimum. Google really has an unfortunate customer support set up, in that there isn't one. Your
by ecshafer 5y ago
I will upvote and comment to hopefully gain visibility at the minimum.
Google really has an unfortunate customer support set up, in that there isn't one. Your best bet when Google does something bad to their customers like this (And regardless if its a bad AI or bad bot, its still Google doing it), is to post it on twitter or hackernews and hope it gets the visibility for a Google employee to fix it, or contact someone who can fit it. That isn't a support model.
- kvathupo 5y agoExplains my experience with GCP...
- cm2187 5y agoAnd to teach other users to stop critically relying on such a capricious service. I have less sympathy when it happens to someone techy, who should know better, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
- actually_a_dog 5y agoIMO, the real issue is relying on any single storage solution for such critical and hard to replace data. You should always have multiple, redundant, tested backups of such data, the minimum being 3 copies, in 2 different formats, with at least one located offsite. That said, Google does ha reputation for this shit, especially on their free plans, so, you should definitely keep that in mind when storing data on Google Drive. https://www.unitrends.com/blog/3-2-1-backup-sucks https://www.unitrends.com/blog/3-2-1-backup-sucks
- okdjnfweonfe 5y agoIn addition, encrypted backup means they can't do arbitrary scans and decide your content is wrong While it does make it harder to share things directly, its well worth the hassle
- Aeolun 5y agoOr they decide it must be wrong because it’s encrypted.
- userbinator 5y agoThat's when you start using steganography...
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoAnd drive a tank and live in a bunker. Maybe the laws should actually protect us, what the hell do we pay taxes for
- rrdharan 5y agoGoogle One, and Google Workspaces both offer paid support plans that cover Google Drive.
- tantalor 5y agohttps://one.google.com/about https://one.google.com/about $2/mo or $20/yr
- jazzyjackson 5y agodo you still have access to support if your account is locked?
- whymauri 5y agoGoogle workspaces requires you to attach a non-workspaces-related account. Unless they both go down, you can still contact them. Worst case, I believe Workspaces requires a phone number now -- at least Google can't wipe that!
- Miraste 5y agoUnless you have Google Fi!
- datguacdoh 5y agohaven't had to deal with it, but I would assume it works since you can call them. you don't have to be logged in to request support. https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9177339 https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9177339
- lucasverra 5y agoI pay for Google one since approx 24 months and have had surprisingly decent phone support with less than 3 clicks. PS: I tend to avoid google services, but google workplace is too damn superior
- jhart99 5y ago
- paulpauper 5y agoit is like this for almost anything in which money is not being exchanged. Impossible to get support unless you know someone who can give you a signal boost. Or if your compliant goes viral. otherwise, forget about it.
- irrational 5y agoI have to assume they realize this is terrible PR for them and engenders feelings of distrust, yet, they don’t seem care. Is it hubris?
- edoceo 5y agoThis news will be gone tomorrow, forgotten by Friday and they can spin a flashy thing on Monday. Solved! (for some limited definition of solved)
- shoto_io 5y agoI recently decided against G Drive and for office.com for our tiny startup. One reason being the unreliable customer support often mentioned here on HN. I hope MS customer support is better…
- hypothesis 5y agoIronically, someone recently attributed “hope is not a strategy” to Google’s engineering… I definitely understand the sentiment and curious if you researched options before making this switch?
- x0x0 5y agoG Suite / Google Workspace / whatever they're calling it this month has generally very good support. eg I had to fix a domain issue, albeit a domain issue caused by some stupid google stuff, and was connected to helpful competent people within a minute or two. Peers have similar experiences. The paying stuff is fine.
- edoceo 5y agoI'm a payer, on multiple domains. I disagree with "fine" and suggest "not absolute trash" as a replacement.
- sangnoir 5y agoGoogle Workspace has excellent support - unlike Google's free offerings.
- apecat 5y agoAny paid Google service with an SLA is perfectly fine. The choice between Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace should mostly be a matter of taste. Google Workspace is very straightforward and largely offers better finish and UX. I personally dislike Google's material design and find myself confused by it, but most people seem fine with it. M365 Business Standard on the other hand is arguably a better deal if you value the macOS and Windows versions of Microsoft's office apps. The UI isn't always good and the web versions suck, but everything is also very flexible and intended to scale to almost everything the IT dept of a Fortune 500 companies with tricky compliancy requirements might require to control a fleet of Windows machines.
- ohgodplsno 5y agoTo Google, this is not unfortunate, this is planned. They truly do not give a single shit about you. Consume content and shut up is exactly what they want you to do.
- amelius 5y agoExactly, it doesn't matter if the customer has a problem, they will fix it when it becomes a problem for them.
- Haga 5y agoActually it is, it's just well hidden, their support is their developers in their spare time and reachability is your social connectivity graph distance to the next googleyesguy. Ps: you can increase likelihood of solution by adding words that suggest legal liabilities.
- version_five 5y agoI saw comment in another one of these discussions saying you should treat google as a potentially hostile adversary and have a contingency plan for what to do when they turn on you. I agree with this really in relation to every cloud provider. If your business continuity and data are important, there should be a plan for how to keep the lights on if a provider through malice or incompetence stops playing nice. The google specific problem is they are into so much stuff that its not just a question of not using them, you also have to consider what happens when your emails are flagged as spam our you're delisted from search, etc
- B1FF_PSUVM 5y agoI have no activity on YouTube, Blogger, or any other Google service since they tied up all the accounts, just to minimize the chance of getting my Gmail chopped off. (Note to self: stop giving feedback on Maps routing. You never know.)
- hunter-gatherer 5y agoIn a past job I was frequently around the globe and was not able to have my phone and SMS always with me. No matter how many settings I tweaked, it just seemed that google would not let me get into my gmail without my phone. Of course my banks would not let me in without my email. Ultimately I had to "de google" for the sake of being able to use the needed internet services wherever there was internet. When so much is tied to email these days, paying for a service that at least has a phone number to call if something goes wrong seems worth it to me, especially since most paid email services are reasonably priced.
- Dylovell 5y agoMan, That's dark. "You went to X location a few years ago, now there's bad stuff happening there. Your google account is banned." Leave your phone at home if your are going to protest, no matter what or where you are protesting.
- adolph 5y ago
- Causality1 5y agoGoogle's fetish for not providing human support is so counter-productive it makes me think there must be a single powerful individual executive maintaining the policy. It's too stupid to have widespread support among Googlers.
- Tenoke 5y agoFor what is worth, Drive as part of 'One' actually comes with support - I've been on live chat with them. They weren't super helpful overall but I was amazed I could get instant chat support in the first place from Google that I let it go.
- Avicebron 5y agoI imagine this theoretical powerful individual is rewarded handsomely for the decrease in "labor costs" presented quarter to quarter
- shadowgovt 5y agoIt doesn't exactly have widespread support; it's more that nobody can propose a better solution that doesn't blow the budget completely out of the water.
- falcor84 5y agoHere's one - how about allowing you to pay to get official support if your account has been locked. And maybe even, god forbid, refund you if your complaint had merit.
- JGM_io 5y agoVery obvious : they don't care about you... You're just ore to mine
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- verisimi 5y agoWell, when you're making an omelette you have to break some eggs. There has been a literal, yet largely silent, book burning going on with Google services in recent years. On youtube, many alternative voices are silenced, billions of comments deleted. I know its a private company, but in the US there are free speech laws + the possibility of using the court system (if someone makes a libellous statement). But no, silencing voices is in the realms of corporate policy - the rule of law has been deemed to not apply.
- saxonww 5y agoPlease don't characterize this as a political voices thing. Of course it's _related_, but this instance is about misclassification of private data, not silencing voices online. Also, Google is not a private company.
- dreamcompiler 5y agoThey are a private company in the sense that they are not a government entity, and thus the first amendment does not apply to them. This is a different sense of the word "private" than whether their stock is or is not publicly traded on an exchange.
- Igelau 5y agoWhat do you do when all speech takes place on corporate-owned platforms?
- PKop 5y agoThe nature of the problem (a big monopolist behemoth of a corporation is too big and powerful and lacks incentives to change) and the solution (only state action, regulation, mandates, i.e. something more powerful than Google must enforce Google to act) is by definition a political problem. This is like the epitome of what politics is for.
- dude187 5y agoI remember during the BLM riots, I had shared probably 50 videos of individual destructive and/or violent acts by the rioters in a Slack channel I'm a part of. Probably 6 months later, I went back to look at some. I found a total of 3 that _hadn't_ been deleted.
- travoc 5y agoThat’s why making your business completely dependent on AWS or GCP is absolutely insane.
- ycombigator 5y agoHonestly don't understand why anyone would use their services unless they had to.
- toss1 5y agoGoogle is so bad that I'm surprised that he got enough information on even have a clue as to why it was locked/flagged by Google. To say they have no support is too generous. It is more like they have an aggressively anti-support model. Sadly, it seems that this should be so well known as to be considered foolish to use Google (and many others) for anything critical. Its is not like Google lacks the capital or organizational scale to provide good support - they just refuse to do so. If they actually did it, they could probably do an amazing job, but that is not their goal.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- GuB-42 5y agoI think it will be Google downfall if they don't change. No one wants to deal with a company that can shut you down any moment for no good reason and with no way to resolve the situation. If they continue like that, their dominance may be slowly eroded by smaller companies that actually care for all of their customers. It won't happen overnight, but once the movement has gained momentum, it will be hard for a giant like Google to adjust.
- rhizome 5y agoLike Facebook and content moderation, Google is incapable of support. Look at the terms: at the very least, they'll be opening themselves up to people calling in with every KilledByGoogle complaint and lament. My impression from watching Google since they launched is that they absolutely do not want to do anything even close to that. Ever, as in the dictionary definition of 'anathema.' Like Facebook and content moderation, it's a problem entirely of their own making. Zero sympathy, caveat emptor.
- asiachick 5y agoI see this complaint and it doesn't fit my experience at all. I pay for a google account (GSuite) and every time I've asked for help I've gotten it quickly/timely. Maybe if you aren't paying?