8 ms·

Ah yes, it was the customer's fault. Stupid customer using method recommended by service provider.

intellectronica 4y ago
- baobabKoodaa 4y ago
  For the record, I was being sarcastic and do not actually believe it was the customer's fault. I believe this is an abhorrent way of running business by Google.
  - rb666 4y ago
    And then you get hit by the car, even though the light was green. Doesn't help you, does it?
    - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
      More like: the driver stops and gestures me to walk over the road. As I step in front of the car, they suddenly jump on the gaspedal and drive over me.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Using Google is kinda like trying to cross a 10 lane highway without getting hit.
  - intellectronica 4y ago
    Right, but I think your sarcasm was misplaced. It is actually possible for customers to make a mistake. These mistakes are relatively easy to prevent. It could be that in this particular case there wasn't anything the OP could have done and they are simply unlucky. But that's very unlikely.
    - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
      I have taken your advice and will keep this in mind when dealing with cloud providers in the future. That said, I still place the blame on cloud providers when things like this happen.
    - TomSwirly 4y ago
      All - absolutely all - the evidence we have seems to show that Google was completely wrong - that a payment didn't go off because of a known Google outage, that the company then made a manual payment, but started to receive threatening messages, that they appealed to billing who told them they were safe, but then the site was cut off in the middle of the night on the weekend. Your argument appears to be this: "Facts are unimportant: the customer is almost certainly wrong in every case."
      - intellectronica 4y ago
        Epistimological check-in: we don't actually have any evidence, except for a very high level story from the OP without much relevant detail. So all we have is the base rate, which is in almost all cases when there are billing problems they are at least to some extent because of negligence or fraud on the part of the customer.
        yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
        The base rate of building problems is that the customer screwed up, and the base rate of Google support problems is that Google is negligent. I'm not sure how to compare these.
    - paskozdilar 4y ago
      > These mistakes are relatively easy to prevent. Assuming one knows about them. How would one learn about them, without making the same mistakes themselves?
      - intellectronica 4y ago
- e4325f 4y ago
  whoosh
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
Hang on - what would you do if you were running a business with hundreds of thousands of users and someone doesn't pay? Was it an accident? has the customer gone bust, or died, or are they trying to defraud you and get a month or two of free service. Credit cards are exceptionally finicky, very susceptible to fraud, and payment can often fail. They're great for one off purchases and services that don't matter if they don't go through - but not suitable unless you're going to check that payments are made, which the OP seems not to have done. Perhaps GCP notifications should be better (I've experience the similar scenario with AWS and everything got fixed within a day) - but surely its up to the customer to make sure they pay.
- nosianu 4y ago
  Your rhetorical questions don't match OPs story. According to OP they did pay, manually, not even by credit card. > however we went ahead and made a manual payment covering all the outstanding amount + extra (the entire last paragraph of OPs text has those and more details) I suggest not using and then arguing with and against fantasized stuff when we are talking about a concrete problem for which we have a concrete description, no? Given that OP paid, of what use is your objection about non-paying customers here? You also omit this important part: > They ... assured the project will not be suspended.
  - helsinkiandrew 4y ago
    > Your rhetorical questions don't match OPs story. According to OP they did pay, manually, not even by credit card. That's fair enough - somehow I completely misread/understood that part of the post. But my main point was that you should never be using credit cards for services that you rely on - particularly when billing/payment is automated and hidden from you. Credit card payments and checks fail regularly (10%+ for recurring payment charges) for legitimate (you don't have funds) and less legitimate reasons (a banks AI system thinking the charge looks fraudulent due to something outside of your account etc). Vendors are likely to stop the service as soon as they can get away with so they don't loose money.
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
Hnrobert42 4y ago
I don’t take GP’s comment that way. I take it as a suggestion for how to avoid issues. I try not to be quick to judge when someone is offering helpful information.
- Spooky23 4y ago
doix 4y ago
It's like looking both ways when crossing the road despite the light telling you that you can go. Sure you have right of way and if a car hits you, it's their fault. But at the end of the day, you are the one getting hit by the car. Google is at fault for how they handled it, but the parents comment is still good advice for anyone reading this thread.
- jquery 4y ago
  It sounds more like they looked both ways, they saw a car, they made eye contact and the driver gestured for them to cross, then when they began to cross the driver ran them over. And now they’re getting advice to never cross streets as a pedestrian. Sound advice can also be victim blaming.
  - Nebasuke 4y ago
    I got hit by a car in a situation similar to this. They made eye contact (I thought), were slowing down, and still hit me anyway by accelerating, despite me having the right of way on a bike. Turns out it was the first time they used the car, 1 minute into the drive and their focus was somewhere else. I would say the advice here is, wait until the car is basically stopped before you cross the street rather than trusting it will because you think all the signs say they will. I do think this is solid advice for the production systems as well. All the signs can point to yes, but making extra assurances to avoid the bad path is valid for something critical like your production systems (or your life).
    - black_puppydog 4y ago
      > wait until the car is basically stopped you mean like an email literally saying they acknowledge the situation and won't suspend your account?
      - Nebasuke 4y ago
        I think an email from support is more like "confirmation that they checked whether the car has seen me". I'm not sure how successfully you've dealt with support with companies, but I have almost never been able to rely on the promises of a support agent, as they are simply not the ones actually making the decisions (in this case on whether your account gets suspended or not).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jasonlotito 4y ago
If you are providing someone a service, and you rely on a third party to provide that service, and that third party screws you over, then by extension, you are screwing over your customers. That is your fault, and your customers have every right to blame you. You are responsible for the due diligence on which providers you use. Blaming a 3rd party might absolve you of some of the blame, but your still not providing the service you agreed to provide. And before you try to suggest anything else, the condition here was "having customers you can't let down." You have customers you can't let down. That's the context.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
soheil 4y ago
This is the line where HN becomes not so useful. Maybe try to imagine there are other professions beyond engineering that have existed in parallel that have their way doing things oh I don't know like following standards and best practices in accounting.
michaelcampbell 4y ago
I'll counterargue with a saying from the driving context; "The graveyard is full of people who were `right`."

baobabKoodaa 4y ago
For the record, I was being sarcastic and do not actually believe it was the customer's fault. I believe this is an abhorrent way of running business by Google.
- rb666 4y ago
  And then you get hit by the car, even though the light was green. Doesn't help you, does it?
  - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
    More like: the driver stops and gestures me to walk over the road. As I step in front of the car, they suddenly jump on the gaspedal and drive over me.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Using Google is kinda like trying to cross a 10 lane highway without getting hit.
- intellectronica 4y ago
  Right, but I think your sarcasm was misplaced. It is actually possible for customers to make a mistake. These mistakes are relatively easy to prevent. It could be that in this particular case there wasn't anything the OP could have done and they are simply unlucky. But that's very unlikely.
  - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
    I have taken your advice and will keep this in mind when dealing with cloud providers in the future. That said, I still place the blame on cloud providers when things like this happen.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    All - absolutely all - the evidence we have seems to show that Google was completely wrong - that a payment didn't go off because of a known Google outage, that the company then made a manual payment, but started to receive threatening messages, that they appealed to billing who told them they were safe, but then the site was cut off in the middle of the night on the weekend. Your argument appears to be this: "Facts are unimportant: the customer is almost certainly wrong in every case."
    - intellectronica 4y ago
      Epistimological check-in: we don't actually have any evidence, except for a very high level story from the OP without much relevant detail. So all we have is the base rate, which is in almost all cases when there are billing problems they are at least to some extent because of negligence or fraud on the part of the customer.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
        The base rate of building problems is that the customer screwed up, and the base rate of Google support problems is that Google is negligent. I'm not sure how to compare these.
  - paskozdilar 4y ago
    > These mistakes are relatively easy to prevent. Assuming one knows about them. How would one learn about them, without making the same mistakes themselves?
    - intellectronica 4y ago
e4325f 4y ago
whoosh
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Hang on - what would you do if you were running a business with hundreds of thousands of users and someone doesn't pay? Was it an accident? has the customer gone bust, or died, or are they trying to defraud you and get a month or two of free service. Credit cards are exceptionally finicky, very susceptible to fraud, and payment can often fail. They're great for one off purchases and services that don't matter if they don't go through - but not suitable unless you're going to check that payments are made, which the OP seems not to have done. Perhaps GCP notifications should be better (I've experience the similar scenario with AWS and everything got fixed within a day) - but surely its up to the customer to make sure they pay.

nosianu 4y ago
Your rhetorical questions don't match OPs story. According to OP they did pay, manually, not even by credit card. > however we went ahead and made a manual payment covering all the outstanding amount + extra (the entire last paragraph of OPs text has those and more details) I suggest not using and then arguing with and against fantasized stuff when we are talking about a concrete problem for which we have a concrete description, no? Given that OP paid, of what use is your objection about non-paying customers here? You also omit this important part: > They ... assured the project will not be suspended.
- helsinkiandrew 4y ago
  > Your rhetorical questions don't match OPs story. According to OP they did pay, manually, not even by credit card. That's fair enough - somehow I completely misread/understood that part of the post. But my main point was that you should never be using credit cards for services that you rely on - particularly when billing/payment is automated and hidden from you. Credit card payments and checks fail regularly (10%+ for recurring payment charges) for legitimate (you don't have funds) and less legitimate reasons (a banks AI system thinking the charge looks fraudulent due to something outside of your account etc). Vendors are likely to stop the service as soon as they can get away with so they don't loose money.
- snowwrestler 4y ago

Hnrobert42 4y ago

I don’t take GP’s comment that way. I take it as a suggestion for how to avoid issues. I try not to be quick to judge when someone is offering helpful information.

Spooky23 4y ago

doix 4y ago

It's like looking both ways when crossing the road despite the light telling you that you can go. Sure you have right of way and if a car hits you, it's their fault. But at the end of the day, you are the one getting hit by the car. Google is at fault for how they handled it, but the parents comment is still good advice for anyone reading this thread.

jquery 4y ago
It sounds more like they looked both ways, they saw a car, they made eye contact and the driver gestured for them to cross, then when they began to cross the driver ran them over. And now they’re getting advice to never cross streets as a pedestrian. Sound advice can also be victim blaming.
- Nebasuke 4y ago
  I got hit by a car in a situation similar to this. They made eye contact (I thought), were slowing down, and still hit me anyway by accelerating, despite me having the right of way on a bike. Turns out it was the first time they used the car, 1 minute into the drive and their focus was somewhere else. I would say the advice here is, wait until the car is basically stopped before you cross the street rather than trusting it will because you think all the signs say they will. I do think this is solid advice for the production systems as well. All the signs can point to yes, but making extra assurances to avoid the bad path is valid for something critical like your production systems (or your life).
  - black_puppydog 4y ago
    > wait until the car is basically stopped you mean like an email literally saying they acknowledge the situation and won't suspend your account?
    - Nebasuke 4y ago
      I think an email from support is more like "confirmation that they checked whether the car has seen me". I'm not sure how successfully you've dealt with support with companies, but I have almost never been able to rely on the promises of a support agent, as they are simply not the ones actually making the decisions (in this case on whether your account gets suspended or not).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jasonlotito 4y ago

If you are providing someone a service, and you rely on a third party to provide that service, and that third party screws you over, then by extension, you are screwing over your customers. That is your fault, and your customers have every right to blame you. You are responsible for the due diligence on which providers you use. Blaming a 3rd party might absolve you of some of the blame, but your still not providing the service you agreed to provide. And before you try to suggest anything else, the condition here was "having customers you can't let down." You have customers you can't let down. That's the context.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

soheil 4y ago

This is the line where HN becomes not so useful. Maybe try to imagine there are other professions beyond engineering that have existed in parallel that have their way doing things oh I don't know like following standards and best practices in accounting.

michaelcampbell 4y ago

I'll counterargue with a saying from the driving context; "The graveyard is full of people who were `right`."