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Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

• kderbyma 4y ago
  we need to force google and apple to replace their app review process .... there is tooucb up in the air...they use they position to dominate the competition and unfairly punish people whilst forcing their app store in the first places...
• koala_man 4y ago
  HN is the only useful escalation mechanism at this point, so have an upvote.
  • TimTheTinker 4y ago
    I somewhat doubt Google responds effectively anymore to bad PR on HN, because (a) they're so large and each group is acting in its own best interest, and (b) Google has for so long had a cultural belief in the fiction that better automation™ or at least mechanical turk-style automation (low-cost, powerless, script-following, outsourced support agents) is always preferable to personally serving people. In other words, the further they position themselves from the people they serve, the better and more "scalable" their business will be.
    • jldugger 4y ago
      Im confident theres a few googlers watching things and happy to play the role of Harry Tuttle.
      • ergocoder 4y ago
        I'm an ex googler, and I am furious. If I was still at Google, I would have posted this shit on memegen making fun of the Play team all day. They should be ashamed for handling customers like this.
        • solardev 4y ago
          > They should be ashamed for handling customers like this. That's been the case with almost every Google service I've ever used =/ Even paid ones, like GCloud, Adwords, Workspace... even when you can get in touch with a human (which is hard enough on its own), they are usually not helpful at all. Customer service really isn't your ex-company's forte. I think the one exception to that has been Google Fi, the tiny wireless MVNO. For some reason their support has always been amazing, quick and helpful and to the point. No runarounds, they just do what it takes to solve your issues. I was astounded how much better they were not just compared to the rest of Google, but also compared to major carriers like Verizon and AT&T.
        • mcv 4y ago
          > They should be ashamed for handling customers like this. But is shame allowed by Play policy?
    • iepathos 4y ago
      I've seen posts on HN within last year where Google screwed something up with censorship or app review. Posts get massively upvoted here and within a day or two Google fixes it. Could be coincidental, but highly probable that some Googlers read HN and act to fix high publicity problems or even just problems that they weren't really aware of until reading about it here.
      • jiggawatts 4y ago
        I ranted here about a YouTube app problem that only occurs on Google TV (Android-based), and within like two weeks it was fixed. Coincidence?
• puffoflogic 4y ago
  Idk, maybe I just speak bot but it seems obvious from the wording that the app needs to split out its "report" button into "report content" and "report user". I don't think they need to do different things, but it will check the box of > We confirm that your app has options to report and block abusive users but your app does not contain functionality to report objectionable content. To be clear, I don't think this will actually make the Play bot go away and not keep coming back with bullshit, but it will trigger the bot to generate new bullshit which will almost feel like progress, if your soul has already been destroyed.
  • netsharc 4y ago
    That changeset needs to come with an easter egg that says "Fuck you Anthonyyyy!" if triggered.
  • Aeolun 4y ago
    If you have to long press the comment to bring up the report screen. How do you conclude that you are reporting a user? I'd find it more logical if that related to reporting the content.
    • brokenmachine 4y ago
      What makes you think this is about logic?
• dataflow 4y ago
  It's not clear from the screenshot that the "Report" button is reporting content rather than a user, especially when it's listed right under "Block user". (Also keep in mind the viewer of the image has no idea how you brought up that popup, like whether you tapped someone's name or their comment, so that context is missing.) I would just make that clear in the app + screenshot by calling it "Report post" or "Report comment" or something like that.
  • wvenable 4y ago
    There was a previous topic about this issue where the developer just iterated on things (changing font size, labels, add text, remove text) to past whatever bots they have. I think that approach would be valid here. Change the link to "report content", etc.
    • bagels 4y ago
      That is exactly the solution I was thinking of. Under the block user, just add 'report content' and call it a day. You can't convince the machine that it is insane.
• ncallaway 4y ago
  I think at least one thing worth a try is: make a tiny, relatively inconsequential change, and submit it again. If you had a 93% success ratio before, you've got pretty good odds that you'll get a new reviewer on the next update and it'll be approved. Maybe something like the copy change puffoflogic recommended. Just make any tiny change in the area, re-submit the app, and hope you get lucky with a better reviewer.
  • Grimburger 4y ago
    That's the sad thing about this story, it really just sounds like Goodhart's law in action, a certain % of apps need to get rejected/reviewed/appealed each month.
  • TrueGeek 4y ago
    From my experience this is exactly what you need to do. You don’t even need to change the app. If your CICD pipeline is already incrementing the build number then just kick off a new build and re-submit that. If you frequently get apps kicked back then add notes to the “how to test section” like “you can test reporting user generated content by doing x, y, z. This is the only user generated content in our app.” It does seem like the “how to test notes” actually get read whereas the appeal notes do not.
  • megablast 4y ago
    You don’t have to change anything to submit a new version.
  • BillinghamJ 4y ago
    Bingo. On Google Play - even for fairly serious alleged policy violations - if you just submit another update, it's very likely to be accepted and typically the policy issue won't be checked anyway. We had a situation where one of our updates was rejected because they didn't like the app listing description (which has nothing to do with the update). The next update we pushed, we didn't change the listing metadata, and then it was accepted. Always quite infuriating to work with Google Play. The App Store is strict, but we've found it _far_ more consistent on applying the rules, and also dramatically faster to accept updates (usually accepts updates within about 6 hours, vs up to a week for Google Play).
• binkHN 4y ago
  As a little side project I wrote an Android app and went through similar turmoil—guess I can’t feel too bad for myself when the cofounder and lead developer of “~100” apps runs into similar issues. In this vein, I too wrote a similar story and it’s at https://medium.com/@mtc.dev/my-first-android-app-story-331c98270ec4?source=friends_link&sk=d01250707057ed71f2c7af8ed4ac9eea https://medium.com/@mtc.dev/my-first-android-app-story-331c9....
  • JimDabell 4y ago
    We have ~500 applications in the Play Store and we have experienced the same thing from Google multiple times. Literally the exact same thing – we already have robust reporting mechanisms and Google are seemingly blind to them for a proportion of our applications.
    • Nemo_bis 4y ago
      This makes me think that they have some internal rating mechanism (perhaps based on reviews or previous reports or who knows what) which flags some apps for extra "review".
• _yb2s 4y ago
  This whole app store thing with Apple/Google is BS. Imagine if your car could only drive to locations approved as safe by the car manufacturer, and they could auto-ban your Grandma's house with no recourse.
  • Tenoke 4y ago
    It's more like if you could only drive approved cars on the regular roads.. which is already the case but regulated by the government instead.
    • lostmsu 4y ago
      > if you could only drive approved cars on convenient roads.. which is already the case huh?
    • michael_j_x 4y ago
      I think the analogy is more if you could only drive your car on government approved roads.
    • smt88 4y ago
      My car happily drives on private roads, and even dirt and gravel, without government approval.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • happyopossum 4y ago
        You’re getting the analogy backwards - you can’t drive an unapproved car on a public road.
        • smt88 4y ago
          It's a terrible analogy no matter how you interpret it. Approval of cars is based on whether those cars can harm other cars. If I want to "drive" (use) an unapproved "car" (app store) on a "public road" (my own device), I should be able to do that.
• encryptluks2 4y ago
• praxulus 4y ago
  It'd be great if google offered an option for a video call with a reviewer for $500/hr as an escalation option for businesses who are getting nowhere with the regular process. Ideally you'd get a refund if you turned out to be correct, but I'd be happy even without that.
  • benlivengood 4y ago
    Automated rules and policies are saving Google hundreds of millions of dollars an hour; they don't want to open the floodgates of spammers reverse-engineering ways to socially engineer the hapless app review humans.
    • CamperBob2 4y ago
      That sounds a lot like Google's problem, not ours.
      • typon 4y ago
        Actually it sounds like our problem, given the content of TFA.
      • renewiltord 4y ago
        It appears that they've solved it, then. And now you have a problem.
      • imron 4y ago
        Google already fixed the problem from their end
    • Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
      >Automated rules and policies are saving Google hundreds of millions of dollars an hour Surely this is exageration, right?
  • dane-pgp 4y ago
    That sounds like you'd just create an incentive for reviewers to block more apps, and refuse to admit they were wrong.
• ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  We are well past the point that any respectable developer should simply drop the Play Store and tell users to buy a better phone. As long as you're willing to give them business, this system is working as intended. It's not going to change.
  • readthenotes1 4y ago
    "tell users to buy a better phone" Funny, given the author says that he usually expects problems like this from Apple. I guess all respectable app developers require jail broken phones?
  • tmtvl 4y ago
    Exactly, pinephones for everyone! ...actually, doesn't Amazon have a separate store for Android? Anyone know if they're better?
    • Induane 4y ago
      No, but there are some good apps on the F-Droid store.
• csdvrx 4y ago
  There's only one conclusion: stay far away from google. Don't use their products, as the possibility of having gmail cut off from you is a serious threat. Same for google voice and google cloud. Don't publish apps for android - not at all if possible, or at least don't use the google store if you must deal with android, as the possibility of having your app that was A-OK for 5 years suddenly targeted like that is a serious threat too. I'd add, don't ever work for google. There're not many jobs I would refuse to do, but having google as an employer is where I'd draw the line. It might be a lesser hell and easier for my conscience to work for a weapon manufacturer.
  • not2b 4y ago
    The problem is that Apple does the same kind of thing (arbitrary app store review by bots), so you're saying not to do any mobile apps.
• celestialcheese 4y ago
  At this point, why not just add the link to report your non-UGC. If this is what they want, give it to them. You can just ignore the reports on the backend. You can probably remove it next update when you don't get Anthony since it's pretty clear it's just one stubborn, lazy reviewer. All that said - the Play Store and App Store review hell is one dystopia I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'm so happy to work on the web now.
  • danuker 4y ago
    Good thing web browsers aren't fully controlled by Google and Apple
    • typon 4y ago
      This is why its the ethical responsibility of every dev to use Firefox when they can.
      • TylerE 4y ago
        How’s the view from up on your pedestal?
        • typon 4y ago
          Pretty good. We have Containers Tabs :)
      • danuker 4y ago
        As if Firefox is not funded by Google.
        • miloignis 4y ago
          They've divorced themselves from Google funding in the past (and signed with Yahoo in the US, other search engines elsewhere) and likely could again. Not to mention being paid by Google for a service and literally being Google are two very different things.
• dekhn 4y ago
  Is there any large group representing App developers that could manage the large-scale negotiation and legal wrangling required to force Apple and Google to be more helpful when rejecting legitimate applications? When I worked in Google (Ads, then later in Recommendations for Play and youtube) people often said this was intention to avoid teaching spammers how to get around the rules. But it's clear there are enough legitimate developers acting in good faith who are trying to change their applications without significant guidance that it seems entirely reasonable for a large-scale group negotiation.
  • cwkoss 4y ago
    A union for customers of monolithic tech companies who provide negligent support could be cool.
    • jehb 4y ago
      I've been chewing on this idea for a while now. I would love to join a software buyer's cooperative and pool my money with other like-minded individuals.
      • johndhi 4y ago
        Me too! It's an interesting idea.
    • 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
      Sounds like in this case it needs to be a craft union or industrial union: a union made up of laborers of a craft or industry (in this case, mobile app developers). Get enough developers of high-profile apps on board, and now you have negotiating power. If they balk, make a union-controlled app store, threaten to sell apps only on the union store.
      • sgjohnson 4y ago
• human 4y ago
  If the future of customer-service is full of AI like “Anthony”, I’m moving to the woods.
  • edflsafoiewq 4y ago
    Why wait? Anthonies are already the present of customer service.
  • rrwo 4y ago
    I wonder if part of the problem is that Anthony is not a fluent English speaker, and perhaps does not realize that he is not as clear as he thinks he is.
    • thrill 4y ago
      He's as clear as the inability to elevate this problem requires him to be.
  • tenarshins 4y ago
    You are much too late. The woods are already full of people who escaped.
  • Reason077 4y ago
    If "Anthony" is an AI, why does he take days to reply? Surely a sufficiently capable developer relations AI could handle dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of developer queries simultaneously!
    • jq-r 4y ago
      Rate limiting. They wouldnt like to make the conversation too fast for them. And also to keep the conversation more “realistic”.
• rrwo 4y ago
  Reading this and similar stories makes me glad that I've not gotten into mobile app development.
• CamperBob2 4y ago
  Legislation is clearly the only answer, assuming it is impractical for developers to band together in a union or other collective that would be large enough to harm Google's business or at least catch their eye. Contact your state and Federal representatives. Provide them with a copy of this transcript, and maybe attach a copy of your financial statement showing what's at stake. Eiter way, whatever happens, these companies have brought it on themselves.
  • rrwo 4y ago
    How is legislation going to help? of anything, countries will add their own bizarre restrictilns to protect children, morality, religion and politicians. "We're sorry, but your app will be removed until you can satiafy legal reatrictions for Saudi Arabia, Popua New Guinea, France and Alabama."
    • CamperBob2 4y ago
      The notion that companies with a presence on the Internet have to obey laws all over the planet is not how the Internet was ever supposed to work. Eventually people will remember that we used to think that way, and why. So, as Google is a US company, US law would apply. Developers in other countries would presumably benefit from the same requirement to provide a human support contact. If not, that's unfortunate.
      • rrwo 4y ago
        The problem isn't the lack of a human contact. The problem is having no choice but to participate in a closed app store with opaque rules with no oversight or appeals.
        • CamperBob2 4y ago
          You're right, but that's the abstract view. The more immediate issue is precisely the lack of a human contact with the necessary agency to fix the problem. There's no reason to think "Anthony" was a human. If he is now, he won't be next year. Eventually market regulators will understand that companies like Apple and Google aren't just corporations, but their competition. Things will change in a hurry at that point. These companies simply can't be allowed to control entire markets without corresponding accountability to the public.
• Noumenon72 4y ago
  I clicked on this thinking "immature rant incoming", but darned if I didn't end up increasing my anger at the exact pace he did with every step! Nothing more frustrating than talking to a human refusing to behave like a human, and a process that isn't a process.
  • danuker 4y ago
    You'd love "The Trial" by Kafka.
• _yb2s 4y ago
  As a scientist, I often have to deal with similar BS of a reviewer misunderstanding a submitted journal article, literally insisting we do something we already did, and explained in the paper. I try to just own the fact that I didn't make my explanation clear and visible enough, so I just submit an updated version along with a comment like "We thank the reviewer for pointing out that we didn't clearly articulate our work on X, so we revised the manuscript accordingly." In this case change around the UI for this tool to make it slightly more idiot proof, resubmit, and it will be approved. Getting angry and adversarial will only make them have a bad attitude and intentionally be unhelpful. Take them seriously, stroke their egos, and take fully responsibility for having presented your feature in a way they didn't understand. Thank them for pointing out this huge flaw in your program and giving you the opportunity to fix it!
  • dekhn 4y ago
    Your solution for Reviewer 3 works, but often times, I just work with the editor to convince them the reviewer is confused.
    • zakki 4y ago
      Genuine question, which one is easier: - convince editor - write something that reviewer will understand
      • _yb2s 4y ago
        The editor reads the reviewer comments and replies also. In most cases replying to the reviewer like I suggest will allow the editor to realize it was the reviewers mistake, and they won't even bother sending it back to the reviewer... but if they do you've targeted both strategies with one response.
  • andirk 4y ago
    This advice is relevant in many aspects of daily life too. I visualize it like tug-o-war. The more they disagree, the more they both back up + pull harder. But the more they "agree" (it's all in the delivery as @universehacker mentioned) the more they approach one another + relax their grip. Meet in the "middle"!
• Havoc 4y ago
  >Are you a human? If not, please put me in contact with one. Little did he know that the entire google play store was set up as a gigantic Turing test. It was never about the apps... GLaDOS: Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center activity.
• kristopolous 4y ago
  Not only all this but the system doesn't work. The play store is flooded with low quality baiting garbage. Somehow their onerous policies block out legitimate users and have a VIP line for spammers
  • Aeolun 4y ago
    This is not entirely surprising since spammers have all day long to reverse engineer the process, while legitimate users have a business to run.
    • agf 4y ago
      This is an under-appreciated point. Look at the solution suggested in the top comment -- paraphrasing, it's "learn to game the system like the spammers, and accept that as a cost of doing business". Google should be specifically designing towards mitigating this.
  • typon 4y ago
    This is what surprises me the most about these stories of dealing with Google/Apple app stores. Most of the apps that aren't produced by very well-known studios or large corporations are just trash. There are few gems here and there but its like digging through a landfill to find anything decent.
    • Induane 4y ago
      It's amazing how good some of the apps on the F-Droid app-store are.
• strix_varius 4y ago
  This is why I'm still betting on the web. Every day, that vision gets closer. I know, I know, it isn't the same... Yet. But on desktop, most of my apps have become web apps: email, docs, videoconf, design, slides, chat, even a little development. Many people use laptops where the OS is a browser. I hope this trend continues to miniaturize.
• Aeolun 4y ago
  Special HackerNews support line speaking. Up to the top you go.
• supernova87a 4y ago
  I want to guess the following and maybe knowledgeable people can chime in: I would guess that the people reviewing these are contractors, paid by the app they review, and with a certain set of criteria that they're supposed to apply, but they make mistakes. And the supervisors of these contractors (who themselves are contractors) don't have great ways of comparing the work of one person to another / enforcing consistency, except by the customer escalating it. I would guess that this is approached by Google as a piecework customer service task for contractors (a pure cost center to review and QA app submissions) and not employees, so it means that even something so important as developer experience is being outsourced, and not being daily internalized or felt by Google's own engineering team or product managers (who have moved on to more year-end-review-favorable projects after setting the top-level guidelines). They probably only review (and whose job is it full time?) error reports / QA / complaints about this process every week and all you are is a line on a sheet that says to them well, "not that many people are upset, so it's going ok, we don't need to worry / put someone on it full time". Until you get to be a huge revenue developer and worthy of some employee's attention -- and even then only on the "interesting" aspect of your needs, not the day-to-day is it working well experience. You're in the hands of minimum wage contractors reviewing whether you've adhered to sometimes subjective rules, with only so much interest in resolving something they have to study to understand -- and who has the patience for that? They're not SWEs themselves, they have no idea what your description of the problem is really trying to convey (unless they're talented people, and if so they're probably out of there soon). Until that changes, there will be really frustrating cases like this. Even if your livelihood has come to depend on the app you built. Am I guessing wrong?
  • hgsgm 4y ago
    It's worse. The reviewers are explicitly forbidden from being helpful, as a protection against scammers "gaming" the reviews. The store doesn't care about your app, unless you are a major company like Epic. They won't profit from your small apps' commissions enough to make paying for proper support worthwhile.
  • tadfisher 4y ago
    At least for my company's app, 100% of logins for the Google Play reviewer account come from IP addresses which geolocate to various cities in India. These are absolutely human reviewers because they have to use backup codes for TOTP. I don't know if the reviewers have a contractual or employee relationship with Google, though.
• ShardPhoenix 4y ago
  Based on the chat transcript Demz seems like either another bot or someone who just doesn't give a shit. Can't be bothered helping someone? Just spam the "I'm sorry you're frustrated" macro then cut them off. Easy job.
• speedyapoc 4y ago
  As ridiculous as it sounds, have you considered adding report functionality to the other (non-UGC) content in the app? It seems like the review team isn't budging with your current argument so it may be worthwhile to add report functionality (even if the actual reporting is basically a no-op) just to appease them. Heck, even feature flag it and disable it once the app gets in. Probably won't be flagged again in subsequent reviews.
• chresko 4y ago
  The screenshot provided doesn’t make it clear if you’re reporting a user or a comment. Would suggest changing the copy in the UI (reporting a user, reporting a comment) and submit an update.
  • hgsgm 4y ago
• ok123456 4y ago
  At what point will developers just detect if it's being tested by the play store and just disable any feature which would prompt further review?
  • public_defender 4y ago
    It's Stripe for Play Store reviewer sandbox detection and anti-analysis! I'm ready to invest.
• ajkjk 4y ago
  The ideal way this works is that you can sue them for a lot of money for doing this unfairly, so that they are forced to build a better system in order to avoid losing a lot of money.
• orf 4y ago
  > We confirm that your app has options to report and block abusive users but your app does not contain functionality to report objectionable content. Isn’t this the crux of the issue? Are the not asking for a separate “objectionable content” report type, distinct from the generic “report” option? They also don’t seem to show what happens after you press report? Does the app give reporting options? Is “objectionable content” an explicit one of those?
• xapata 4y ago
  > Nothing has ever angered me more than ... I understand that hyperbolic expressions have some rhetorical value, but I seem to be encountering them more frequently over time, and I don't think the value has changed over time.
  • Dylan16807 4y ago
    Why do you think it's hyperbolic? If I had to go through this, I think it would become the most angering experience I've had. I've have bureaucratic problems but nothing approaching this, and no personal conflict has ever gotten that bad.
    • rufus_foreman 4y ago
      >> I've have bureaucratic problems but nothing approaching this, and no personal conflict has ever gotten that bad I agree with the OP. You sweet summer child.
      • Dylan16807 4y ago
        I think calling me a sweet summer child means you're agreeing with me because that means it wouldn't be hyperbole if I said it. More seriously though, google is threatening severe damage to someone's professional livelihood here. It's not the biggest threat but it's in the top ten percent. And google is one of the most frustrating entities to deal with period. Combine those and you have a real contender.
    • xapata 4y ago
      When I read the phrase yesterday (or the day before?), my first thought was of historically significant atrocities. The Holocaust is an easy example. My second thought was of the various contemporary disasters. I suppose it's reasonable for one to think more about personal conflicts on a daily basis, but such a superlative as "nothing has ever angered me more" seems begging for a more terrible comparison.
      • 4y ago
• COGlory 4y ago
  The link here will fix this, but it's insane to begin with that they can't tell you what your charges are. That ought to be illegal.
• DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
  Has there been any reputable research on the traffic hit you'd take by offering a website and not an Google or Apple app? I know the Apple vs. Epic is one thing but maybe a yoga studio app should be web?
• myko 4y ago
  Honestly lucky to get white labeled apps through at all
• mfDjB 4y ago
  What I've learned from Google is that you are always talking to a bot, it just happens to be that some of those bots are human. Even though they are walking and talking simians they are executing a conversation script and have no agency and ability to control an outcome spare the most banal common issues.
  • matheusmoreira 4y ago
    It's funny. Google will flood us with captchas if it thinks we're not human but they subject people to inhuman treatment whenever we need to contact them. Bots for me but not for thee.
    • CoastalCoder 4y ago
      Power asymmetry is vexing.
    • mcv 4y ago
      At every step, we need to prove our validity to Google's AI. Whether it's as Real Human, or for a legitimate app. I'm developing a new appreciation for the old Paranoia RPG. At least Google doesn't have the power to disintegrate us yet.
  • danuker 4y ago
    Maybe they don't even have the option of replying, just picking one of a few canned responses.
    • solardev 4y ago
      They probably have to solve a reCAPTCHA just to override the autocomplete. > Press TAB to reply to this customer with our suggested response. If you wish to choose another canned response, please first find the house numbers hiding inside these fire hydrants in the hills.
• ledauphin 4y ago
  This is relatable. I have spent many hours attempting to get someone at the IRS to answer my questions, and the best part is that they have always ended up hanging up on me after putting me on hold, and there is no way to pick back up where you left off with them since it's all done verbally. I shall now go read The Metamorphosis.
  • _jal 4y ago
    They've been starved for labor. That is being fixed, but it will take a while. Last time I had to actually talk to someone at the IRS was over a decade ago, but I recall it being an efficient conversation, and as pleasant as it could have been, given the topic. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted
    • ledauphin 4y ago
      Regardless of the reason, it's maddening when someone is holding onto a quantity of your money that is not quite large enough to want to fight for it in court, but plenty large enough to be meaningful to you, and essentially keeps it by successfully avoiding meaningful communication.
  • ldx1024 4y ago
    Give The Castle a read...
    • lioeters 4y ago
      It's sadly appropriate that the author died before being able to finish the nightmare.
  • anonymousiam 4y ago
    Having dealt with the IRS a few times, I can relate. You'll get a different answer (from a different person) to the same question each time you ask. My advice is to never deal with the IRS yourself. Hire a tax attorney who has some experience in dealing with them. Also, are you referring to "The Trial" (also by Kafka)?
• the42thdoctor 4y ago
  It seems like an algorithm evaluates your app and the support guy simply sends you the result. He has no saying in the process. It's dumb I know, but it's what looks like.
• ksec 4y ago
  Consider it for a moment that "Nothing" is now actually a brand name for Android Phone. I had a small pause to try and compute what is going on in the headline. But on to the article. I believe most of Apple or Google apologist were suggesting something similar to Macrumors comments. It is their App Store. They can do whatever they want with it. If you are so unhappy, go and create something yourself.
• johndhi 4y ago
  As someone who writes policies like the one you're battling I also feel for the customer service agents you're haranguing. There are a lot of reasons we're here today: -due to Google's massive success, whether or not you can add something to their marketplace basically makes or breaks your career. Crazy. -because every regulator in the world constantly hounds Google their lawyers have instructed everyone to be conservative -theyve also tried to write a policy that makes sense for a zillion use cases but failed. Sucks. Sorry.
  • kazinator 4y ago
    > I also feel for the customer service agents you're haranguing I feel vaguely sorry that people have to do these jobs where they are set up to be harrangued. However, I sincerely hope they are at least prepared for it. A normal person, including Anthony, would say something like: Sorry, I'm working with an automated system which doesn't provide me with any more information, and cannot obtain any more help from my organization; even though I may appear to be an insider, in a real sense I am an 'employed outsider'. I have no contact information for escalating these kinds of problems, nothing. Let me put this in the clearest possible terms: even if I wrote an application myself which got rejected, and if I by dumb luck I were assigned to my own support case, I would not be able to help myself. Get it? The best I would be able to do is perhaps randomly change the application or rewrite it and hope that the new one sticks. Someone obviously knows the machinery, and why it rejects certain applications, but I'm not allowed to know who that is. And it's not even clear they would do anything about it. What I'm saying is effectively that I could perform this support job to its full extent if I were sitting over there with you, looking over your shoulder, relying on what you have on your screen. In short, I am completely useless to you, in this matter. I am here to answer the dumb questions that smart people people like you can resolve by themselves, for the sake of that minority who aren't able to. Think of me like someone who CAN google, rather than someone AT Google. In addition to that, I can do stunningly realistic impressions. If we go to voice chat, I will introduce you to Putin! The closest Anthony came to the above was admitting that the repeated material was all the information that was given to him. This means basically one thing; Anthony was trained to push back on these requests and just use the provided information, and also trained not to talk about the circumstances of his support work in any personal way. That job is acceptable to Anthony and so there he is; whether that means it sucks to be Anthony is hard to say. Maybe it's better than jobs he had before and he's happy for now. Maybe Anthony is able to help a good fraction of the cases, and feels good about that.
• Julesman 4y ago
  Labor costs and the primary purpose of call centers or bot chats: attrition. At a large scale a central focus of managing customer service is lowering labor costs. Less service. Automated call centers are literally designed to ensure that a certain percentage of people do not talk to a human, irrespective of whether their problem was resolved. Friction is added on purpose. And of course, with AI playing an ever more prominent role, we can be certain that it's probably not a real person, soon enough even on the phone. We can do better. :)
• olooney 4y ago
  This kind of moderation is broken across the board. No one knows how to scale it. 1. Amazon has completely lost the battle with fake reviews. Not only are they completely incapable of removing even a fraction of the huge swaths of obviously fake reviews, they also flag accounts more or less at random and permanently shut off their ability to post reviews. Escalating to support and they simply respond, "we've reviewed this and found it correct. This decision is final" with no indication that anything like common sense was used. It's clear that review moderation has been outsourced to an team who is incentivized to flag accounts and never unflag them and which acts without accountability or oversight and is taking random action in a vain attempt to be seen to be doing something rather than admitting they cannot cope. 2. Youtubers routinely complain about demonetization, content strikes, and spurious DCMA takedown. Even for Youtubers earning a living wage - and therefore presumably earning Google a high multiple of that in ad revenue - have huge amounts of trouble getting a reasonable human being on the other end. In the B2B space that level of spend would at least get you a named account person who you could contact to resolve issues. Heck, buying a burger at McDonalds gives you more access to a reasonable human you can escalate complaints to. 3. Sellers on Etsy or Ebay have little to no recourse when customers demand refunds. The only way to survive is to simply refund anyone who asks and roll it into your prices as a cost of doing business. 4. Both the Apple App Store and Google Play are awful to develop for because of all the intrusive demands they make and their seeming unwillingness to provide clear or consistent feedback. Despite this, both are stuffed to the gills with copyright infringing knock-offs designed to skirt gambling laws by selling addictive skinner boxes to children and actively fraudulent products that try to trick you into paying $1.99/month for the rest of time for a flashlight app, neither of which seeming have any trouble getting approved. What's the point of trying to pretend you have high quality standards while rubber-stamping garbage?
  • geraldwhen 4y ago
    You can get banned from amazon for fake reviews? I’ve made a good bit of money with reviews for nonsense products; probably at least $1,000. It’s so obvious to me when I see a fake review now. Short but not too short. Mentions a specific product feature or cast member (show reviews are fake too.) padded worse than a 6th grade book report on conjunctions and other words to match a word county.
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• busymom0 4y ago
  I am the developer of HACK which is a hacker news client app for iOS and android. I recently went through very similar experience with both Apple and Google, though Apple was more annoying. Both Apple and Google have been very annoying in review process albeit Google has been more annoying than Apple. Here was a recent Apple example: My app works by parsing the HTML of hacker news site. Recently, the site had a few small changes behind the scenes in the html which broke the XPath for the parser and thus broke my app. So I quickly fixed the issue and submitted updated to both Apple and Google. Usually Google used to be faster in reviewing apps in the past but something has changed and now Google seems to take longer to review app than Apple. Google took 4 days to review and approve the update this time. Basically the app was entirely broken for those days and I got countless justified emails from users. Apple was even more annoying. My app is available for both iOS and MacOS. It’s the same code base. MacOS one got approved within couple hours. iOS one is where the problem started. They rejected the iOS update telling me my app didn’t have features to report users, block users, flag objectionable content etc. This was the second time Apple had rejected for this same issue. I responded that I have already dealt with this in past and they need to login to the app with a user account before seeing buttons to flag objectionable content. Seemed obvious. Next they rejected the update again and this time it was even more annoying. They told me that my app didn’t have a way for users to delete their user account. I responded that my app is merely a client for hacker news and doesn’t have access to user accounts. They kept rejecting it. Eventually, I ended up adding a button for deleting user account: https://i.imgur.com/bvaZxBI_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium https://i.imgur.com/bvaZxBI_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&... The button tells the user to contact HN via email to delete accounts. Apple rejected it again saying this was not enough and having to email to delete account is not appropriate. After several back and forth, I asked them to call me. They did. I explained my situation and they finally understood my point that I don’t run hacker news. I merely provide a client app and explain to the user the steps HN provides for deleting accounts. After all this, they finally approved it. Apple in the past has also had situations where they will reject an update, I will respond, they will approve and then next update, they will reject again for the same issue. It’s like they don’t seem to read the previous review notes. With that said, Apple at least lets me talk to a human being and they seem to finally understand the issue. With Google, that seems impossible to do. Overall, I will rate Apple review 5/10 and Google would be 4/10. Neither should be happy with how they deal with it.
• neilv 4y ago
  (My own related frustration comes from Apple -- the double-whammy of being an Apple App Store developer and an early Swift UI guinea pig. It's a good thing I was WFH, with all the curse words I was shouting, sometimes like a mantra, as I plowed through their sociopathic nonsense.) You know how tech founder and worker professed self-images often include the phrase "we're changing the world"? I doubt anyone ever sat down and congratulated themselves on changing the world to be more Kafkaesque.
• ignoramous 4y ago
  Just this past week, our app got the boot too. The reason was that the app was in violation of "user privacy". May be it was strings.xml that angered the Algorithm, may be it was the user reviews, may be it was something on our website... Then, magically, the app came back up. It turned out that as we were migrating our domain name to a new DNS Nameserver, the cached DNS entries probably pointed to an IP address that didn't exist, and the privacy policy web page was therefore 404 for a brief while. Downloads from our website for the app went up by 2x, but that number dwarfs in comparison to installs from the Play Store. What can I say, Android developers are slaves to The Algorithm. At least until some other Algorithm at Google decides to properly staff up its support centers for developers. As a contingency, what we do is: - Sign our own APKs. - Bake in a custom update mechanism as an escape hatch (this is against ToS, but whatever...).
  • tadfisher 4y ago
    How are you able to sign your own APKs? Are you grandfathered in before the change to require Google Play app signing?
    • JimDabell 4y ago
      You can provide your own key when setting up Play App Signing. There are three or four options for setting it up; only the default option has Google generate the key, the rest you supply the key.
• kartayyar 4y ago
  I had a similar experience with an Adwords account getting banned for "Circumventing systems", and we were completely confused as to why we got the rejection. And then the appeals process after that was just like yours: copy pasta email without any explanation about how to fix the problem.
• fleddr 4y ago
  And this is why we need to cherish the web. I see no reason why a yoga app can't be done on the web. I do know that apps tend to convert better, if only we could bridge that gap. It's in particular troubling how much of this madness we've internalized to just accept. The idea that you need to resubmit a 100 apps because Google decided you need to target a different internal version number is insane. It would be very bad if the SDK had a breaking change, but in this case it's just busy work: upping a number and resubmitting. And what about the rule to be able to report user generated content? Who the hell is Google to interfere on such app-specific functionality? What if my moderation workflow would only allow draft posts, each manually approved, making reporting them pointless? Does Google actually check if a report gets sent or followed up? I don't think so. So it's an invasive power grab, and then poorly regulated. These platforms and gatekeepers have become far too powerful and leveled up the arrogance that comes with it.
  • nyuszika7h 4y ago
    > What if my moderation workflow would only allow draft posts, each manually approved, making reporting them pointless? this implies you never make mistakes. even if there's manual approval there should be a way to report content that slipped through.
  • jackbravo 4y ago
    So much this! Wish we could have again this idea of publishing web apps as real apps in our phones.
    • john-radio 4y ago
      Slightly relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1367/ https://xkcd.com/1367/
      • yencabulator 4y ago
        100% reliable offline access is a huge deal. Meanwhile, the world is slowly moving to a direction where even "real apps" don't work offline. Lots of Google's apps keep offline copies, but their sync logic is broken in such a way that if you have a very very slow internet connection -- but are technically connected -- the app becomes unusable.
• radiojasper 4y ago
  Needs more big red circles on your screenshots. Make it easy for them to see what they need to see - and be sure to keep on submitting new requests every hour. At one point your penpal is not working and then maybe somebody with actually more than 1 braincell can clear this dumb situation up for you.
• trhr 4y ago
  Stay off Google. Stay off Apple. Stay off Facebook. Stay off Amazon. Stay off Microsoft. Stay off Reddit. Stay off Twitter. Stay off Adobe. Stay off Salesforce. Stay off Oracle. Stay off Sony. Stay off eBay. Stay off GoDaddy. Stay off PayPal. Stay off Etsy. Stay off Steam. Stay off Comcast. Stay off RCA. Own your platform from the bottom to the top. If your business model requires you to rely on one of these companies, pivot. We have lost. They have won. They can deplatform anyone for anything or for nothing. Your continued use of the platform depends on whether or not you make them money. You are entitled to nothing they have built. They are not providing public services or utilities. Abandon them, or on your own head be it when, not if, you get fucked. If possible, stay off the U.S. Dollar.
  • kodt 4y ago
    You could have just said "Stay off the Internet"
    • pschuegr 4y ago
      Avoid life in all forms, if possible.
  • deviance 4y ago
    So very true, so few people realize it
  • erremerre 4y ago
    What about passing a law that if your company is whatever this big at providing services, automatically enforcing that they need to behave as a utility company. At this point, even Walmart, CVS, etc... should be treated as a utility company. the moment you got a big chunk of the economy depending on you, company lost ability of stop providing services, unless a court case is involved.
• throwthere 4y ago
  Solution: make a small change to the report screen. Right now it just says report or block. Write a sentence in a subdued font weight/size and color that says “this report button will do Xyz.” Then resubmit. See what happens. It’s kind of like all those times when you were learning how to code that you would make a small change, run the program and hope for the correct output. Rinse, repeat and eventually you’ll look into the right solution.
• fullstop 4y ago
  I had this problem with a phone case that I ordered from the Google Store. It shipped, allegedly, but the tracking never updated. After ten days I asked to cancel my order but was told that this could not be done as I had a tracking number. If I wished to return the item after it was received, I could do so for a full refund. I spent a week going back and forth with them and explaining that nothing had actually shipped and, again, asked for a refund. 90% of the time they sent me something telling me what the tracking number was and that I could return the item once it was received for a full refund. The other 10% of the time they assured me that I was being handed off to another service tier and that this group would surely be able to help me. The higher tier just sent me the same tracking number and seemingly ignored my pleas and my question of what happens if I do not receive the item before the return window had closed. It wasn't even worth that much, but I was being petty and tried to respond within minutes of them emailing me. My thought was that someone over there was desperately trying to keep their work queue empty, and I was going to do my best to prevent that from happening. They finally refunded my order 18 days after it had been placed. The tracking information still says that they're waiting for the package from Google. I'm half expecting a phone case to randomly arrive within the next few months.
• latexr 4y ago
  > Please note that contacting the Policy Support team is the best and only way to resolve the rejection issue. “The best and only way”.
• insaider 4y ago
  You seem to have missed a detail in their replies "We confirm that your app has options to report and block abusive users but your app does not contain functionality to report objectionable content." You complain that they haven't answered the specifics of your emails yet you've actually failed to address theirs. Unpopular opinion but it seems like their response was reasonable tbf.
  • Izkata 4y ago
    From the Day 2 email, they do have that already: > 1.) Comments (which you can report or block by tapping on the comment)
  • parkerhiggins 4y ago
    I agree, the author is conflating the ability to report and block a user due to their content and the ability to report specific content of that user. All they had to do is add a link to report the specific contentId that user created. The author was blinded by frustration and didn’t read.
    • Izkata 4y ago
      From the Day 2 email, they're not conflating the two: > The only user generated content on the app is > 1.) Comments (which you can report or block by tapping on the comment) > 2.) User Profiles (which you can report or block by tapping "More" in their profile
    • barneygale 4y ago
      This could be clarified by a quick phone call to a Google developer support engineer. If Google is "too big" to run a competent support department then it should be broken up.
  • Nemo_bis 4y ago
    Yes, I think this is an issue of language/context. Perhaps the developer doesn't appreciate the full scale of the meaning of the phrase "objectionable content". Google for some reason thinks this app may be a legal liability, and they won't tell exactly why because it would make their position worse if they admitted they knew something.
• googleclient 4y ago
  At Chatango we just gave up on our Android app. We don't have a report button because we don't want users to gang up and falsely report profiles. We are counting unwanted incoming conversation blocks and take action based on that, and have hierarchical moderation in each chat. That was way beyond what we could explain to the play store policing bots so about $500k in development was trashed by Google, we went website only, because it's an uphill battle. We have tens of millions of users.
  • abdusco 4y ago
    What would happen if it looked like users could report, but you actually did nothing on the backend? Like how it works on Youtube?
• hnburnsy 4y ago
  If your app is just a wrapper for your website do you still need things like privacy policies and reporting UGC to pass App Store rules?
• cirrus3 4y ago
  > So 93 were approved and 7 rejected even though they're the same code. This is a problem. I get that you want branded versions, but entirely different versions of the app sounds insane, and I would totally expect you would run into the problems you did given those odds.
• mianos 4y ago
  I think that the these support people don't actually have any access to anything themselves. It's like all the people in the official google support forums that don't have anything to do with Google and can only be as helpful as they can without any access to anything.
• happytiger 4y ago
  I would suggest an open revolt against walled gardens by developers. Nothing short of a coordinated rejection of this model will get the attention of the press, and raise enough awareness of the downside of allowing monopolistic control of the core technology platforms our society is based on.
• lyu07282 4y ago
  I bet the way this works is that google has some automated system that just runs the app, detects the user generated content and tries to report it. Then it gets stuck on some button or other because the label doesn't match the heuristic, or perhaps it tried to click it but there was a hickup with their automation and it failed to respond. So you got to resubmit a new version so their test automation runs again. Its like flaky ui tests, that would explain why most of the identical apps went through the review. Then you have some guy somewhere working in "support" who when answering tickets can only select from a bunch of branching text lego blocks. To prevent them from getting social engineered to do or reveal or kinds of sensitive information. With Google scale its hard to imagine how you can implement the "elevate to a manager" button at their support centers without just causing spammer/scammer exploiting it in a second. We let two megacorps run these global infrastructures and think its normal, then complain about it, like as if this all supposed to make sense in the first place.
• stevage 4y ago
  >Who do I contact if Anthony is not doing his job correctly? Taking this kind of line is just never going to work. I don't really know how you deal with a situation like this with Google, but starting a personal attack on one of their staff members is definitely not the answer.
• FpUser 4y ago
  I did write some code for Android but I feel blessed that not once in my life I needed to release an app for Apple or Google app stores. Not that I would tolerate this kind of control over my code anyways.
• appleflaxen 4y ago
  I agree that Google customer support is the worst. But I read this: > We confirm that your app has options to report and block abusive users but your app does not contain functionality to report objectionable content. to be the answer to the question. I would try adding a link that says, exactly, "report objectionable content" to the user comments. It seems like the issue is that you aren't providing enough flavors of reporting, so give it to them. But I'm sorry OP has had to spend days on this, and suffer at the hands of unhelpful reps.
• john-radio 4y ago
  It's terrible that you are in this position. > Add a feature that already exists to our app. How the hell am I suppose to do that... I don't know. It sounds to me like this was the "correct" answer (from a perspective of "make the problem go away," not how things should be, ofc). Do a refactor of your source code that changes nothing, push updates with release notes saying "Major updates to UCG oversight system," email Anthony asking "him?" to review the updates addressing the problems.
• knlam 4y ago
  And Apple is the same or even worse. Our app is in reviewed for 3 weeks without any contact from apple. Any attempt to contact meet with the standard just wait email. At that point, I don't really know what to do Considering Apple behavior, I don't know if I should speak out or not, for Apple will ban developer in retaliation
• throwawaytoilet 4y ago
  I would have replied on day 3 “Ok, not sure what the issue is exactly but this release needs to get out and that feature isn’t important so I’ve removed the whole feature. New build uploaded” Then when approved, toggle feature flag back on.
• MikeGale 4y ago
  I'm unconvinced that this was dealing with humans. To me it looks like automated systems that synthesise human style interactions. The code isn't ready for release but they did anyway. A person can't be that stupid, can they?
• smsm42 4y ago
  You are picking pennies in front of a steamroller. The steamroller has all the power. You have zero power. One day steamroller hurts you. You go and rant on the internet. The steamroller continues as always, you keep picking pennies in the company of thousands like you. There's enough pennies to make it worth it, so why are you complaining?
• bogwog 4y ago
  This is what monopolies look like.
• batch12 4y ago
  Hm. Maybe rename some variables or make some other change that would show the region that has the report code in a diff, increment the version number, and upload the new app. Not something anyone should have to do, but maybe a hacky workaround.
• d_graeme 4y ago
  In my opinion, compared to dealing with Apple's frequently frustrating reviewers, dealing with Google is a cakewalk
• hkgjjgjfjfjfjf 4y ago
• legec 4y ago
  We have had a similar experience, spanning over several months, where even updating the application and giving instructions on how to test it didn't trigger any reaction (just the same repetitive mail: "Your app does not comply with Google Play rules ..."). When I mean "give instructions on how to test it" : we created a test subscription on our platform, sent instructions on how to register and see what our app is doing, and our logs showed that no one attempted to go to that test subscription. We also asked ourselves if we were exchanging emails with a human or a robot, and couldn't reach a conclusion.
• megablast 4y ago
  100 of the same app?? Weird.
• barbarbar 4y ago
  It is their platform. At some point one must realize that they will do what ever they want. There is simply nothing to do about it. So it is a risk a business owner must consider.
  • JetAlone 4y ago
    Those boots are so clean. Good job.
• ur-whale 4y ago
  Play store is a monopoly. We've allowed them to become one. This is what you get when you allow a monopoly to grow and take hold. We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company.
• can16358p 4y ago
  Whenever I need to interact with anything Google as a dev, I end up more frustrated than solving the problems. Whether it is Play Console where I can't find anything I need, their cryptic maps APIs, or virtually everything else. It's a big, big, mess.
• nurettin 4y ago
  I don't get why the publisher is confused. Google confirmed that they understood the existence of a block button, but they want an additional report button so that the app providers can curate the users. Do you really have to go to HN to figure out your company emails?
• richardfey 4y ago
  I think the problem is that they need a separate report functionality for content on the user profiles. That's different from reporting the profile itself. Also, he was clearly asking about policy related problems in the live chat, that's why that person couldn't answer.
• monksy 4y ago
  But yet they keep apps that siphon your email and just completely ruin your phone on the market place. (My older parent downloaded it thinking it was something else.. required a full reset of her phone) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.myhomescreen.email&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.myhomescre... Despite reporting..it's still up months later.
• paraknight 4y ago
  Can't believe you've published 100 apps and are only now experiencing this. That's the craziest part to me. It's not just Google Play btw -- the app stores are so notoriously bad that they nearly made me quit app development outright. Your experience is not just common, it's actually relatively mild. Something to look forward to: having your app accepted onto the play store only to randomly be taken down for policy violations a few weeks later with no warning or explanation. This will happen several times until it almost kills your company. It's a rite of passage to get bullied into desperation by big tech. For the sake of your sanity, minimise the number of interactions you need to do with the app stores. Submit a bare bones app to the stores with all the native libraries you might need, then live the rest of your days on OTA updates (expo-updates, codepush, etc). This is against store policies but everyone does it and I've never heard of an app being taken down for it.
• perryizgr8 4y ago
  My suggestion would be to: 1. Add another button with the exact words they are pasting in their email. This will probably un-block you immediately. 2. Upload your apk to Fdroid and give users the option to use that instead of play store. This will take care of any sudden rejections. People will still be able to install your app.
• samoit 4y ago
  Its sad but it is what happen when you depend on a thirty party. I have always hated this software monopolies. If you can, host the app on your own web and tell your clients to download it from there
• auggierose 4y ago
  I can understand the anger. If you don't want to be dependent on Apple or Google App reviews, maybe start developing Web apps instead? That would actually be doing something about the problem.
• juliushuijnk 4y ago
  I was also thinking I was talking to an AI after a number of emails, so eventually I tested it out: > I wish to speak to a human. If you are human and are allowed to write anything, please use the word "cow" in your reply. Response: > We appreciate you getting back to us and we apologize for any inconvenience this is causing you. Yes, you are communicating to a human being and per your request, please see the word "cow". The most dry way to user 'cow' ever. Humor must be crime within that department. -- Even today I got a rejection to my appeal at the same time my app update went live. They don't hold any record of previous communication or history on app updates and rejections. The rejection was for a too minimalist text I fixed already in an earlier update. They quoted a text that was not part of the update (!). Multiple times I have overcome a rejection, by just adding a single character to my main app store text (a space char will do). And just re-submit. Then you get to re-role the dice, and perhaps the update can go live. I also always appeal everything, use their feedback tools, give single star ratings to review process, etc, hope it will set something in motion.
  • loup-vaillant 4y ago
    > I also always appeal everything, use their feedback tools, give single star ratings to review process, etc, hope it will set something in motion. Or it will flag you as overly negative, someone whose reviews can safely be ignored. Who knows.
  • majkinetor 4y ago
    I really much doubt humans write and talk like that. This is probably AI again and your query wasn't "clever" enough IMO. Perhaps introduce some typo that will AI take on literary and human wont...
  • solarkraft 4y ago
    > Yes, you are communicating to a human being and per your request, please see the word "cow". GPT-2/3 can probably do this.
  • mcv 4y ago
    > We appreciate you getting back to us and we apologize for any inconvenience this is causing you. Yes, you are communicating to a human being and per your request, please see the word "cow". I'm not convinced. Are they training people to be more like AI?
• v3ss0n 4y ago
  You haven't dealt with apple store right?
• z9znz 4y ago
  This doesn't help OP, but since others are sharing stories... I recently received a series of notices from my credit card app about rejected $1241 charges on my card. My card company was rejecting the charges because I have my daily limit set lower (which I modify when I need). Someone got my credit card info and set it up as THEIR Facebook pay payment source. And while I don't use Facebook Pay, I can assume from my credit card transaction list that when setting up a new card, FBPAY makes a $1 charge/hold as a test to validate the card. If that hold succeeds, then I guess they are happy enough. What real companies do, if they want to ensure that you control the card you are using, is to make some small random charge and then require you to tell them how much the charge was. If they charge 0.61, you would only know the amount if you had access to the account behind the card. But no, Facebook just charges $1 and presumably doesn't even ask you "tell us how much we charged". I opened a support ticket with Facebook because I wanted the person responsible for the attempted fraud to at least get banned. I provided exactly all the data required, including screenshots of the failed transactions from my mobile credit card app. It should be pretty easy for FB to find in their system, since the crook made 10! attempts for the exact same amount over a period of hours. Oh and as I provided all my credit card details, that should be IN their system and easy to associate. Long story short, my very slow email interactions were just as stupid as TFA's. Worse even, the Facebook support moron kept trying to refer to my Facebook Ads account, which I do not have and never even mentioned. Eventually they just banned me from running any Facebook ads, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue. The support people at many of these companies are either stupid, non-human, or low budget non-English speaking people who copy/paste text from a cheatsheet. And the companies that run such support operations are assholes, top down. There is zero excuse for a "top tier" tech company to have the problems these companies have. It's just a shame that it is virtually impossible for anyone to do normal life/work stuff without having some dependency on these companies.