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Tell HN: 5+ Year Twilio Account suspended without Warning
Really upset with the lack of customer support I am receiving through Twilio.
I have recently had some messages filtered by carriers. For those that don't know some new industry practices and standards have been introduced.
I went through the A2P campaign approval process and had all of my campaigns approved. Yet, I still had a few messages filtered. I asked Twilio to look into the issue and asked to talk to their compliance team.
After days of back and forth of one sentence answers from their support staff, Their compliance team without warning suspended my account. They stated I am in violation of their TOS due to the nature of my business. Oddly enough their TOS doesn't explicitly prohibit my line of business, nor does The Campaign Registry (all my campaigns have been approved). Due to the nature of A2P messaging on-boarding with a new vendor this problem will take a few days to mitigate.
I wish I never asked for clarification! We've spent tens of thousands of dollars on Twilio over the past 5 years and I didn't even get so much as a courtesy phone call. The nature of my business hasn't changed since we started. If their compliance team didn't want to do business with us I feel like they should have informed us and we would have looked for another vendor; instead they continued to approve our campaigns and messages. This about face was very unexpected and now I have nobody to speak to on their team.
- mikece 3y agoI just posted about Twilio and their vague AUP yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36603591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36603591 There are a host of reasons why your account can be suspended or terminated, all at the judgement of Twilio as to whether you actually violated something or not, and there doesn't seem to be any recourse. Personally, I've dropped interest in Twilio for a project I'm working on and will be going forward with Telnyx.
- smithcoin 3y agoWhat's worse is with their layoffs and reorgs there is nobody to speak to. They have contradicting policy and TOS documents. They can decide to de-platform you for any reason they deem and provide you no support or recourse. So much for being "developer friendly". I vaguely recall an article being posted on here with a developer saying he was leaving because he didn't agree with the mission. I feel the same disillusionment with the service.
- movingmove 3y agoTwilio is falling apart for the past 2-3 years now internally! C-Levels hope they get bought out. Don’t use their services! Just stop!
- smithcoin 3y agoThey had a 17% layoff earlier this year that was already after an 11% layoff [0] - no wonder there is nobody to talk to! [0] https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/13/twilio-cuts-17-of-its-workforce-just-months-after-previous-round-of-layoffs/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/13/twilio-cuts-17-of-its-work...
- tuga 3y agocommas are also part of english gramma.
- mdrzn 3y ago"The nature of my business hasn't changed since we started." Could you explain what is the nature of your business, since it might very well be the main reason you got suspended as soon as compliance team took a look at it?
- joeframbach 3y agoThis conspicuously missing detail tells me that this is the main reason, and they know it too.
- smithcoin 3y agoFinancial Services. We're a Bitcoin ATM company, but we do not use twilio for any promotions of any kind, just two factor authentication and texting customers receipts. They have circled back and pointed to this[0] article. Stating that we are a forbidden messaging category. We've been using them for years and they are only now pointing this out to us. This is the only document that spells out not providing services to Cryptocurrency companies. It is not anywhere in their TOS. As I stated previously we have done all of our A2P applications through them so they have been aware of our messaging content for years. [0] https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045004974-Forbidden-Message-Categories-for-SMS-and-MMS-in-the-US-and-Canada https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045004974-Fo...
- rhatexer 3y ago> We're a Bitcoin ATM company What's a bitcoin ATM?
- andirk 3y agoIt's how you get spacecash in a jam. Not exactly sure the real use case but I like seeing them at gunshot gas stations.
- smithcoin 3y agoThere's no risk of charge back because the cash is in the machine. So we can send the coin to you instantly. For example if you wanted to bet with bitcoin on a sporting event (which is legal in the US). You might want to fund your account with BTC as it can be quicker than using bank deposit depending on the sportbook. Using a bitcoin ATM allows you to have the coin immediately, versus signing up for Coinbase and them holding onto your coin until the ACH cannot be charged back.
- xeladec 3y agoI switched to Vonage (nexmo) for my business after 3 years with Twilio. Got better prices and excellent customer service. Cannot fault them after 6 months so far. If you have to change, setup an abstraction layer so you can easily change again if needed. Lots of new rules coming into force last few weeks in US and Europe with vendors blocking sender id's.
- smithcoin 3y agoThis is a great idea. I've been reaching out to a bunch of services to get on-boarded as quickly as possible.