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Chargebacks can get your Google account locked. If you have a dispute with Google and protect yourself by reversing a credit card charge, Google might lock you

Chargebacks can get your Google account locked. If you have a dispute with Google and protect yourself by reversing a credit card charge, Google might lock you entirely out of your account. The Google Pixel subreddit has a bunch of people's stories about that: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/search/?q=chargeback https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/search/?q=chargeback Not sure if this counts as "policy reason" for the article's purposes; he sort of dismisses payment disputes. I could argue either side about whether a suspension like this is reasonable. In the Google Pixel case the chargebacks mostly start because Google outsources hardware support to a bunch of unreliable third parties. Some of whom seem to eitiher lose or just be stealing customers' phones when they are sent in for repair. My takeaway was that if I was ever in a dispute over a couple of hundred bucks for Google, I would not risk a chargeback for fear of retaliation. My account is one of Google's very first, when I worked there I launched one of the first products to ever use a Google account. I have no faith that as an outsider now I'd ever get a reasonable hearing over an account dispute.

dspillett 4y ago
> My takeaway was that if I was ever in a dispute over a couple of hundred bucks for Google, I would not risk a chargeback for fear of retaliation. My takeaway from that is to never spend more than a few quid (i.e. money I'd care about losing) on anything linked that directly to Google.
- mmcgaha 4y ago
  Or get yourself a chime account or something that does not allow overdraft and put that debit card on your google account.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  To me, a chargeback is a 'burn the bridges' moment. If a company has wronged me to the point I'm prepared to do a chargeback, then I obviously don't want anything to do with that company anymore, and I welcome them to close my account since I will never do business with them again. Why would you want to continue doing business with a company that has frustrated you to the point of doing a chargeback?
  - creata 4y ago
    Because you have to. For example, no matter how badly Microsoft wrongs them, people in many industries need to use Windows, or Office, or LinkedIn.
    - Maxburn 4y ago
      Microsoft, I get it. Google no. I am very very close to being able to kill my google account though I probably will just leave it parked. Believe it or not Google Voice is the one thing holding me at the moment. Nobody offers the same quality service period, let alone free. Come at me HN, I'm open to alternatives. Google Voice also has one killer feature nobody else has; the ability to make and receive calls using your carrier voice service and not DATA. Generally a higher quality connection that on most plans these days is unlimited, where as a lot of plans still count data usage whether it's a "unlimited" (but throttled) account or not. OpenPhone is the closest I've found and seems their customer service is horrible, I see people on reddit complaining about them all the time.
      - brewdad 4y ago
        Google Voice is the only service I don't have a good replacement for either. I pay for Youtube TV (cable streaming) because it has the best price/value proposition for my viewing habits but there are a half dozen other services I could switch to and be happy. I still have a shared calendar on Google but only because I can't convince my wife to try something different. I used to be all-in on Google but have spent the past 2 years getting away as much as I can.
        Maxburn 4y ago
        Maps was my killer app for google. Early on I started with TomTom on a PDA, but Google maps for years was the absolute best. Until all the blatant ads showed up. First every McDonalds is visible at far zoom levels. Then garbage I don't want starts showing up in search results. Viewing your travel history is mildly disturbing and even if you delete it you just know it's already been data mined. I hear OSM has some decent map and navigation solutions now, but for me Apple maps long ago passed the touring test. I only trust that Apple with all their positions and statements on privacy will suffer irreparable harm if it is discovered they sell user behavioral data like google blatantly does.
- thebytefairy 4y ago
  There are stories of Apple locking accounts over chargebacks too. Cutting both of those out would be nice but probably tough for me.
unity1001 4y ago
> My takeaway was that if I was ever in a dispute over a couple of hundred bucks for Google, I would not risk a chargeback for fear of retaliation And my takeaway is that it is high time that these corporations that hold people's livelihoods in their hands got regulated like public utilities...
- MaKey 4y ago
  Exactly! Maybe this way we could do something about mail delivery issues too. I think it shouldn't be okay to accept mail and then still drop it, yet Microsoft does it sometimes with new mail servers.
kioleanu 4y ago
It also really needs to be mentioned that Google’s store was (is) absolutely awful for buying gear. I wanted to buy 2 pixels from them. Put the order in, no news for 7 days, at the exact 7 day mark my order gets cancelled. Tried talking to customer support with no success because there isn’t any. So I put the order in the second time and the exact same thing happens: after exactly 7 days, my order gets cancelled. I say f’ it and buy from a local dealer, with next day delivery. A few days after the fact, I try using my credit card for something and my transaction gets denied (I had a -200 euros limit). I call the bank and they tell me that there’s a hold on my account from Google, for the price of both orders (about 1500 euros I think) and they are waiting for the funds so it can clear. My only two options is to talk to Google to cancel the charge (lol) or wait 30 days. I simply closed my card and got a new one. A few months later I started getting notifications that transactions on this card are being rejected - someone was trying to buy stuff for 1-3$ with my card but it was closed so they didn’t go through. Since I mostly use virtual cards for online stuff (which Google doesn’t like), and the physical card rarely, there is a really big chance that my credit card number got leaked from Google, but there is no way for me to prove that.
- NelsonMinar 4y ago
  They're so bad at it I wonder why they try. They clearly don't want to do it well.
- kyrra 4y ago
  Googler, opinions are my own. I work on payments, and have dealt with our credit card processing a bunch. As far as I know, we've never lost control of credit card numbers and had them leaked. We actually work very hard to make sure humans can never see card numbers (our internal controls are more strict than most banks and card networks). Also, I didn't think we would hold an auth on a card for 30 days (normally it's less than that). For the MCCs we charge payments on, I believe Visa and the others will only hold an auth for 7 days[0]. If the Auth is staying on your card for longer than that, it's likely your bank is holding the funds, not Google. We try to always cancel auth holds before they expire, to make sure we don't have lingering auths like you saw (I've tweaked this previously due to complaints like yours). I can maybe look into the payments on your account if you'd like (my work email is in my profile), but I wouldn't be able to reply. It would just give us data if we are failing to cancel auths in some cases. [0] https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/credit-card-authorization-holds https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/credit-card-authorizati...
oaiey 4y ago
That is very close to if not monopolistic behavior.
Ferret7446 4y ago
Is there any company that won't blacklist you if you do a chargeback? As far as I know, this "criticism" applies to every company in existence.
- brewdad 4y ago
  While it's true that most companies will probably blacklist you at least for a while, you can work around it by using a different card or having a partner make the purchase if you really want to continue doing business with them. Google knows more about me than the CIA and FBI. If they truly want to blacklist me, I'm not working around that without the aid of operators I'd rather not be associated with.

dspillett 4y ago

> My takeaway was that if I was ever in a dispute over a couple of hundred bucks for Google, I would not risk a chargeback for fear of retaliation. My takeaway from that is to never spend more than a few quid (i.e. money I'd care about losing) on anything linked that directly to Google.

mmcgaha 4y ago
Or get yourself a chime account or something that does not allow overdraft and put that debit card on your google account.
ryandrake 4y ago
To me, a chargeback is a 'burn the bridges' moment. If a company has wronged me to the point I'm prepared to do a chargeback, then I obviously don't want anything to do with that company anymore, and I welcome them to close my account since I will never do business with them again. Why would you want to continue doing business with a company that has frustrated you to the point of doing a chargeback?
- creata 4y ago
  Because you have to. For example, no matter how badly Microsoft wrongs them, people in many industries need to use Windows, or Office, or LinkedIn.
  - Maxburn 4y ago
    Microsoft, I get it. Google no. I am very very close to being able to kill my google account though I probably will just leave it parked. Believe it or not Google Voice is the one thing holding me at the moment. Nobody offers the same quality service period, let alone free. Come at me HN, I'm open to alternatives. Google Voice also has one killer feature nobody else has; the ability to make and receive calls using your carrier voice service and not DATA. Generally a higher quality connection that on most plans these days is unlimited, where as a lot of plans still count data usage whether it's a "unlimited" (but throttled) account or not. OpenPhone is the closest I've found and seems their customer service is horrible, I see people on reddit complaining about them all the time.
    - brewdad 4y ago
      Google Voice is the only service I don't have a good replacement for either. I pay for Youtube TV (cable streaming) because it has the best price/value proposition for my viewing habits but there are a half dozen other services I could switch to and be happy. I still have a shared calendar on Google but only because I can't convince my wife to try something different. I used to be all-in on Google but have spent the past 2 years getting away as much as I can.
      - Maxburn 4y ago
        Maps was my killer app for google. Early on I started with TomTom on a PDA, but Google maps for years was the absolute best. Until all the blatant ads showed up. First every McDonalds is visible at far zoom levels. Then garbage I don't want starts showing up in search results. Viewing your travel history is mildly disturbing and even if you delete it you just know it's already been data mined. I hear OSM has some decent map and navigation solutions now, but for me Apple maps long ago passed the touring test. I only trust that Apple with all their positions and statements on privacy will suffer irreparable harm if it is discovered they sell user behavioral data like google blatantly does.
thebytefairy 4y ago
There are stories of Apple locking accounts over chargebacks too. Cutting both of those out would be nice but probably tough for me.

unity1001 4y ago

> My takeaway was that if I was ever in a dispute over a couple of hundred bucks for Google, I would not risk a chargeback for fear of retaliation And my takeaway is that it is high time that these corporations that hold people's livelihoods in their hands got regulated like public utilities...

MaKey 4y ago
Exactly! Maybe this way we could do something about mail delivery issues too. I think it shouldn't be okay to accept mail and then still drop it, yet Microsoft does it sometimes with new mail servers.

kioleanu 4y ago

It also really needs to be mentioned that Google’s store was (is) absolutely awful for buying gear. I wanted to buy 2 pixels from them. Put the order in, no news for 7 days, at the exact 7 day mark my order gets cancelled. Tried talking to customer support with no success because there isn’t any. So I put the order in the second time and the exact same thing happens: after exactly 7 days, my order gets cancelled. I say f’ it and buy from a local dealer, with next day delivery. A few days after the fact, I try using my credit card for something and my transaction gets denied (I had a -200 euros limit). I call the bank and they tell me that there’s a hold on my account from Google, for the price of both orders (about 1500 euros I think) and they are waiting for the funds so it can clear. My only two options is to talk to Google to cancel the charge (lol) or wait 30 days. I simply closed my card and got a new one. A few months later I started getting notifications that transactions on this card are being rejected - someone was trying to buy stuff for 1-3$ with my card but it was closed so they didn’t go through. Since I mostly use virtual cards for online stuff (which Google doesn’t like), and the physical card rarely, there is a really big chance that my credit card number got leaked from Google, but there is no way for me to prove that.

NelsonMinar 4y ago
They're so bad at it I wonder why they try. They clearly don't want to do it well.
kyrra 4y ago
Googler, opinions are my own. I work on payments, and have dealt with our credit card processing a bunch. As far as I know, we've never lost control of credit card numbers and had them leaked. We actually work very hard to make sure humans can never see card numbers (our internal controls are more strict than most banks and card networks). Also, I didn't think we would hold an auth on a card for 30 days (normally it's less than that). For the MCCs we charge payments on, I believe Visa and the others will only hold an auth for 7 days[0]. If the Auth is staying on your card for longer than that, it's likely your bank is holding the funds, not Google. We try to always cancel auth holds before they expire, to make sure we don't have lingering auths like you saw (I've tweaked this previously due to complaints like yours). I can maybe look into the payments on your account if you'd like (my work email is in my profile), but I wouldn't be able to reply. It would just give us data if we are failing to cancel auths in some cases. [0] https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/credit-card-authorization-holds https://www.chargebackgurus.com/blog/credit-card-authorizati...

oaiey 4y ago

That is very close to if not monopolistic behavior.

Ferret7446 4y ago

Is there any company that won't blacklist you if you do a chargeback? As far as I know, this "criticism" applies to every company in existence.

brewdad 4y ago
While it's true that most companies will probably blacklist you at least for a while, you can work around it by using a different card or having a partner make the purchase if you really want to continue doing business with them. Google knows more about me than the CIA and FBI. If they truly want to blacklist me, I'm not working around that without the aid of operators I'd rather not be associated with.