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No information given about the actual activities ongoing here so I’ll focus on the service providers behaviour directly. Given the meteoric rise of companies c

No information given about the actual activities ongoing here so I’ll focus on the service providers behaviour directly. Given the meteoric rise of companies charging for services with no support of any type available for consumers other than hoping for traction on social media, how do we legislate to basically enforce some alternative to ‘computer says no, just make a new account and hope it doesnt happen again’. This seems like something consumer protections agencies should be all over. Australia’s consumer protection body is actually quite active in enforcing our rights when dealing with these sorts of things. Does America not have a similar agency or has it been captured by the companies it’s supposed to regulate? These companies are collecting sizeable profits and part of the way they’re achieving this is by simply disregarding all the support and engagement processes ‘normal’ businesses have to have claiming their scale makes them impossible. That should just not be an acceptable answer as far as consumer remedies are concerned.

lmm 3y ago
Payment processors are a natural monopoly and as such they should be regulated like utilities, i.e. not allowed to deny service without good reason. Unfortunately the government rather likes having a way to destroy the livelihoods of undesirables without any of that pesky due process.
- wmf 3y ago
  The payment networks (Visa/MC/etc.) may be monopolies but there are ton of processors (Stripe/Paypal/etc.). Sure, all the smaller processors "suck" but somehow they worked before Stripe was founded.
  - somsak2 3y ago
    isn't the reason that stripe grew so quickly was because these smaller processors don't really work that well? i also keep hearing that there's a ton of choice but whenever it's brought up, true alternatives to PP/Stripe are rarely actually given
    - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
      A lot of the other options are far more expensive to the service provider. They're mostly used by industries that the big players won't touch (porn, gambling). There is a much higher risk of invalid chargebacks in these industries. (That is, someone genuinely does use their card, and then denies it.) So the processor charges are higher to compensate the extra work involved. (Also because they can.)
      - somsak2 3y ago
        'friendly fraud', they call it
- adrr 3y ago
  You have hundreds of choices to take credit cards online. You can just go the traditional method and get a merchant account and payment gateway.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    All of them are at the whims of the main networks, however. The policies they set trickles down to affect everyone (see for example how damn hard it is to take payment for porn).
- majani 3y ago
  Payment processors are not a natural monopoly, especially not online ones
xmprt 3y ago
Not sure if anyone has experimented with this but I wonder if there is a solution but it's just relatively unused. I've heard suing the company (or in most cases, taking them to arbitration) works and often times the company is the one paying for the fees (because that's how arbitration works).
reaperducer 3y ago
Does America not have a similar agency It does, but it's still newish, and faces a lot of opposition from both politicians and businesses. In 20 or 30 years, once the various lawsuits and codes get sorted out, it might work. But it's still in its toddler phase, and everyone is seeing if they can push the baby over.
- IIsi50MHz 3y ago
  The Federal Trade Commission seems relevant. I've not tested them on these "no support; no recourse" situations, but have had good results for other issues. Anybody thinking of the "Better Business Bureau" should note that the BBB is not a government organisation and behaves more like a Better Extortion Bureau: paying members can keep their good rating by unilaterally declaring a claim has been resolved (often requiring claims to be reasserted multiple times), while non-members or non-paying members cannot even contest claims via the bureau.
lamontcg 3y ago
We need some new snappy word to describe what service providers are doing. I know you could probably say that its just some other existing legal construct which we should just enforce, but the point is that the media needs some snappy new very specific word to talk about to make politicians pay attention. Things like swatting, phishing, slamming, gaslighting and boofing we all know about and are easy to write articles on with decent enough SEO. So what is the snappy new 21st century term for this, so that we can complain about it and write blogs and articles about it and demand politicians do something about it?
- franciscop 3y ago
  "Deaf corporations" since they cannot hear, "Divine corporations" since they won't listen to you, "Nosumers" as the opposite of prosumers and a nice play with no-sum (you heard it first here)
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    I like the brainstorming. "Deaf corporations" I think nails the concept and is easy to understand. I don't think its quite snappy enough to roll off the tongue or the keyboard though. (Although if we don't come up with anything better off the cuff, we could just start calling them "deaf corporations" and then someone moar cleverer might come up with something better later)
    - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
      I really don't like it as a term, because Deaf people can communicate just fine, thank you. (Also, as a practical concern, I have an interest in Deafness and signed languages, and get irritated by phrases like "turned a deaf ear" which pollute my search results.)
- janalsncm 3y ago
  Every business wishes it could be a vending machine. Strip out all employees and customer service and damn the consequences if your soda gets stuck. Too many people and businesses have been relying on these vending machines, partially because they have no other choice. Everything has been hollowed out, every store runs on a skeleton crew. You know this if you’ve walked around a store wondering if anyone even works there. I never noticed this until I traveled to other countries and found businesses that actually felt like they wanted to please me instead of feeling like I was expected to be grateful that BigBoxStore (tm) exists.
genmud 3y ago
We also have an issue of enforcement, I'm not sure if you know... but many, if not all of these behaviors could be acted on with existing legislation. Anti-trust at the federal level and a multitude of state laws on paper make it illegal to do this type of behavior. The problem is that it's really hard to take action on large corporations. As a consumer, if I wanted to seek remedy for say, false advertising of ingress protection on a phone, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Without a significant war chest it's almost impossible to hold most companies to account as an individual, and the agencies supposed to be enforcing these issues either won't or can't enforce the laws on the books.
barrysteve 3y ago
The Aussie government has the same new account cycling that corporate culture does. It's just that the gov has call centres and support staff. Do you think there's any incentive to fix these problems when the constant inconvenience and technical gremlins can be more easily and excitingly solved with biometric IDs and whatever else? Let's be honest, the Australian government may clamp down on corporations, but it plays the same game and doesn't care for anyone's dissent in the long run.
majani 3y ago
The claim that scale makes support impossible is ridiculous. Just make support a paid service and it'll easily pay for itself and scale proportionally. The will is simply not there

lmm 3y ago

Payment processors are a natural monopoly and as such they should be regulated like utilities, i.e. not allowed to deny service without good reason. Unfortunately the government rather likes having a way to destroy the livelihoods of undesirables without any of that pesky due process.

wmf 3y ago
The payment networks (Visa/MC/etc.) may be monopolies but there are ton of processors (Stripe/Paypal/etc.). Sure, all the smaller processors "suck" but somehow they worked before Stripe was founded.
- somsak2 3y ago
  isn't the reason that stripe grew so quickly was because these smaller processors don't really work that well? i also keep hearing that there's a ton of choice but whenever it's brought up, true alternatives to PP/Stripe are rarely actually given
  - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
    A lot of the other options are far more expensive to the service provider. They're mostly used by industries that the big players won't touch (porn, gambling). There is a much higher risk of invalid chargebacks in these industries. (That is, someone genuinely does use their card, and then denies it.) So the processor charges are higher to compensate the extra work involved. (Also because they can.)
    - somsak2 3y ago
      'friendly fraud', they call it
adrr 3y ago
You have hundreds of choices to take credit cards online. You can just go the traditional method and get a merchant account and payment gateway.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  All of them are at the whims of the main networks, however. The policies they set trickles down to affect everyone (see for example how damn hard it is to take payment for porn).
majani 3y ago
Payment processors are not a natural monopoly, especially not online ones

xmprt 3y ago

Not sure if anyone has experimented with this but I wonder if there is a solution but it's just relatively unused. I've heard suing the company (or in most cases, taking them to arbitration) works and often times the company is the one paying for the fees (because that's how arbitration works).

reaperducer 3y ago

Does America not have a similar agency It does, but it's still newish, and faces a lot of opposition from both politicians and businesses. In 20 or 30 years, once the various lawsuits and codes get sorted out, it might work. But it's still in its toddler phase, and everyone is seeing if they can push the baby over.

IIsi50MHz 3y ago
The Federal Trade Commission seems relevant. I've not tested them on these "no support; no recourse" situations, but have had good results for other issues. Anybody thinking of the "Better Business Bureau" should note that the BBB is not a government organisation and behaves more like a Better Extortion Bureau: paying members can keep their good rating by unilaterally declaring a claim has been resolved (often requiring claims to be reasserted multiple times), while non-members or non-paying members cannot even contest claims via the bureau.

lamontcg 3y ago

We need some new snappy word to describe what service providers are doing. I know you could probably say that its just some other existing legal construct which we should just enforce, but the point is that the media needs some snappy new very specific word to talk about to make politicians pay attention. Things like swatting, phishing, slamming, gaslighting and boofing we all know about and are easy to write articles on with decent enough SEO. So what is the snappy new 21st century term for this, so that we can complain about it and write blogs and articles about it and demand politicians do something about it?

franciscop 3y ago
"Deaf corporations" since they cannot hear, "Divine corporations" since they won't listen to you, "Nosumers" as the opposite of prosumers and a nice play with no-sum (you heard it first here)
- lamontcg 3y ago
  I like the brainstorming. "Deaf corporations" I think nails the concept and is easy to understand. I don't think its quite snappy enough to roll off the tongue or the keyboard though. (Although if we don't come up with anything better off the cuff, we could just start calling them "deaf corporations" and then someone moar cleverer might come up with something better later)
  - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
    I really don't like it as a term, because Deaf people can communicate just fine, thank you. (Also, as a practical concern, I have an interest in Deafness and signed languages, and get irritated by phrases like "turned a deaf ear" which pollute my search results.)
janalsncm 3y ago
Every business wishes it could be a vending machine. Strip out all employees and customer service and damn the consequences if your soda gets stuck. Too many people and businesses have been relying on these vending machines, partially because they have no other choice. Everything has been hollowed out, every store runs on a skeleton crew. You know this if you’ve walked around a store wondering if anyone even works there. I never noticed this until I traveled to other countries and found businesses that actually felt like they wanted to please me instead of feeling like I was expected to be grateful that BigBoxStore (tm) exists.

genmud 3y ago

We also have an issue of enforcement, I'm not sure if you know... but many, if not all of these behaviors could be acted on with existing legislation. Anti-trust at the federal level and a multitude of state laws on paper make it illegal to do this type of behavior. The problem is that it's really hard to take action on large corporations. As a consumer, if I wanted to seek remedy for say, false advertising of ingress protection on a phone, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Without a significant war chest it's almost impossible to hold most companies to account as an individual, and the agencies supposed to be enforcing these issues either won't or can't enforce the laws on the books.

barrysteve 3y ago

The Aussie government has the same new account cycling that corporate culture does. It's just that the gov has call centres and support staff. Do you think there's any incentive to fix these problems when the constant inconvenience and technical gremlins can be more easily and excitingly solved with biometric IDs and whatever else? Let's be honest, the Australian government may clamp down on corporations, but it plays the same game and doesn't care for anyone's dissent in the long run.

majani 3y ago

The claim that scale makes support impossible is ridiculous. Just make support a paid service and it'll easily pay for itself and scale proportionally. The will is simply not there