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And some of these companies pride themselves as AI technology pioneers. Yet it seems their automated systems in this case are simply doing keyword matching. Mi
by 0xpgm 3y ago
And some of these companies pride themselves as AI technology pioneers. Yet it seems their automated systems in this case are simply doing keyword matching.
Mind-boggling!
- nxobject 3y agoTo be fair, it's also a failure of empathy for a user who might be flagged as a false positive.
- 0xpgm 3y agoTrue. Sometimes we pursue technology to its own ends forgetting that technology is supposed to help humans.
- Anchor 3y agoAnother sad anecdote: A bank in Finland suspended an account for a text in free-form message field of a bank transfer. The message was for a vet visit of a dog named Ira. When you say "Ira's payment" in Finnish, you add suffix -n, so the text field said Iran, which of course must indicate money transfer to a sanctioned country. It is comforting to know that the bank system catches all the illegal activity that the sanction-busting criminals helpfully announce.
- BrandoElFollito 3y agoA bank in France (Boursorama, now Boursobank IIRC) locked someone's account because they did not provide the document. Yes, "the document", without telling which document. When calling the support, they first said that it must be indicated, no kidding. And then they said that it was not possible (despite getting screenshots). It is sometimes a matter of having the wrong attribute set somewhere in a database and welcome to hell.
- specproc 3y agoIRA is also a possibly shady acronym in some parts of the world.
- jjgreen 3y agoLikewise ISIS: https://isismagazine.org.uk/ https://isismagazine.org.uk/
- squarefoot 3y agoIsis is the name of a main ancient Egyptian goddess; I can imagine many researchers triggering alerts when mentioning her in their emails.
- robocat 3y agoA friend's daughter got her email blocked the other day because she mentioned "Niger" in the message (talking about her school assignment).
- distances 3y agoAn acquaintance of mine (in Europe) had a default bank transfer message "al-qaeda terrorist fund" for years and years. That did finally raise some flags, but a visit to a bank office was enough to get the account unblocked. Being a bit stubborn, he still kept the message and just applied rot13 to it.
- wiz21c 3y agoI once wanted to make a small network of bots hosted at frriend's homes. These bots would talk each other by sending some Shakespeare's play excerpts where you would replace the names of the characters by names of various criminals. Just to see how long before I get caught :-) Until I read that the law in my country explictely forbids "deceiving" the police...
- klik99 3y agoWhat's funny about this is that multiple people at this bank think that a terrorist group would just freely advertise itself this way. Like some local cell leader names his accounts "Groceries", "Home Repair", "Bombing Supplies"
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y agoI chuckled. And I know you have a point. I just immediately translated the story to US and this person would have a hard time keeping that account ( or any if he continued ). Still, actual terror group would do it the same way intelligence agencies call their division 'room 10' as a code for something else. As a species, we certainly are a little weird.
- Macha 3y agoThey're scared of the bad press that that one criminal that does announce their payment's purpose and later gets caught will bring "See, it even said in the note field that it's for Iran and they didn't catch it. Bank X is so incompetent"
- seanhunter 3y agoFun fact: one of the biggest banks in France has a branche on “Avenue de Cuba” in some city in South America (maybe Buenos Aires but I can’t quite remember because it was about 10 years ago I found this out). They get bank transfers to and from that branch blocked from time to time for “sanctions busting” because people just string match on the name “Cuba”.
- rapht 3y agoGot the exact same with a bank located rue de Téhéran :p
- MintsJohn 3y agoAt least you got an explanation, I had my Vivid account blocked without one, the only interaction was by chatbot, the only response I got was can't disclose the reason because of compliance issues. For extra fun trying to get the funds on the account back I had to go to an online form, which didn't have the fields I was told to fill in, and again was met by no response. Eventually had to go through EU dispute settlement to get a human response and an email link to an app for digital identity validation, eventually I at least got my funds transferred to my main bank. Why the account was blocked remains a mystery, I only used it for online payments and never even contested, refunded or failed one. Anyway, it's utterly bizarre to me that banks can get a license to run their business with what seems only a marketing and it-team with virtually no recourse for the customer, it was a WTF moment for me and I hope to never get in such a dystopian situation for something I really rely on, be it banking or (utility) services. (and I got a slightly better understanding how it must feel like for the victims of the Dutch childcare benefits scandal (https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-scandal-serves-as-a-warning-for-europe-over-risks-of-using-algorithms/ https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-scandal-serves-as-a-wa...))
- plagiarist 3y agoI had a financial company attempt to withhold my money so I skipped the chatbot and went straight to the CFPB. They were suddenly able to ACH the funds back to the account they originally took them from. Just goes to show how arbitrary and capricious all these companies are.
- jorvi 3y agoHonestly I’m not so sure it would help, as these bots would be trained on previous customer service interaction. I’ve been trying to get an Instagram account deleted for the better part of a year, and even with quintuple (!) ID verification and threatening to bring an GDPR case to bear, all I get is what amounts to “computer says no”, in such a talking-in-circles kind of way I am not sure I am talking to a human.
- bmicraft 3y agoJust an idea, but try looking for a gdpr specific email/contact form. Usually companies have a specific one for that purpose because they actually have to comply with them. In case that leads nowhere, you should raise a complaint with you local data protection agency, for example https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
- jorvi 3y agoI already did that, otherwise Instagram provides no support. I’ve been trying to escalate it to a manager, because I feel once the Irish data authority gets involved it will be handed off to legal.
- bombcar 3y agoIs it your account you want deleted or someone impersonating you? Because killing your own account can be easily done by posting objectionable content.
- philpem 3y agoSounds like a great way to get yourself on a watchlist, too. Or banned from other things.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago>on a watchlist, too honestly spam is the easiest and safest way to get banned. easy to automate as well. doubly efficient if you scrape the site to power your bot.