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> You couldn't (and still can't) get customer support from Google and many other customer-hostile companies Not to derail you but I have an anecdote. I had an

> You couldn't (and still can't) get customer support from Google and many other customer-hostile companies Not to derail you but I have an anecdote. I had an issue with my Google Fi account. Support was a breeze. I completed a web form that said "call me" and within a minute or two I was on the phone with a very helpful human who actually fixed my problem.

withinboredom 3y ago
That wasn't Google's customer support though. IIRC, they initially partnered with Sprint to handle the infrastructure and support (and later one of the other companies, but that was after I stopped caring). That's who you were talking to.
- MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
  If they are outsourcing, is it any different than outsourcing software? In the end the person on the line represents Google.
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    Depends. Can they actually represent Google? If you call, saying you cannot access your account, will they help you or just refer you to Google? If you call and ask about AdWords, will they transfer you to an AdWords representative or refer you to Google. White label support is much different than outsourced support.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - smt88 3y ago
    It is different because literally no other service they offer has even basic customer support. My friend's agency was buying $1M/year of ads and couldn't get his account unblocked after it was flagged for no reason. Google admitted it was flagged by accident and just put him in an endless cycle of "we're working on it" emails.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    If the person on the line can help me with my other Google account issues then sure, but that's probably not the case.
smt88 3y ago
I also have an anecdote. My brother is mentally ill, and he hadn't set up 2fa on his Gmail account. It asked him to do that, and then it somehow got flagged as suspicious activity. I spent the next 6 months in a hellish loop trying to recover it. I was even able to forward them the invite email I sent him from ~2004 when Gmail was invite-only to prove that he was the owner of the account. It was never reviewed by a human. I would have paid $5,000 to talk to a human for 10 minutes to resolve it. It was a devastating problem because there were so many accounts and documents we were locked out of. It delayed his mental health care for months because of a similarly Kafkaesque issue with his hospital. I finally got a human to respond by tweeting to Google about it. They informed me that they couldn't help unless I logged in the Twitter with the email address he couldn't access and then tweeted at them. We'd still be locked out of the account if I didn't have a friend's husband working at Google with access to their internal support. So your anecdote means basically nothing when Google casually allows people's lives to be destroyed because they were ignorant enough to trust Google's word on anything.
- itishappy 3y ago
  Absolutely terrifying.
- MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
  Yep this is scary, and is absolutely one of my fears. Years ago I forgot my Google password and couldn't follow the normal recovery path for some reason. (Forgot my backup email password? I forget.) I had to go through a lot of automated hoops and weird verification steps but eventually I broke through.
- jquast 3y ago
  > We'd still be locked out of the account if I didn't have a friend's husband working at Google with access to their internal support. Working exactly as designed, requiring you to be rich and powerful enough to have the influence necessary to get the help you need. Google employs just the right amount of support to ensure that they do not have to interface with the poor.

withinboredom 3y ago

That wasn't Google's customer support though. IIRC, they initially partnered with Sprint to handle the infrastructure and support (and later one of the other companies, but that was after I stopped caring). That's who you were talking to.

MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
If they are outsourcing, is it any different than outsourcing software? In the end the person on the line represents Google.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  Depends. Can they actually represent Google? If you call, saying you cannot access your account, will they help you or just refer you to Google? If you call and ask about AdWords, will they transfer you to an AdWords representative or refer you to Google. White label support is much different than outsourced support.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- smt88 3y ago
  It is different because literally no other service they offer has even basic customer support. My friend's agency was buying $1M/year of ads and couldn't get his account unblocked after it was flagged for no reason. Google admitted it was flagged by accident and just put him in an endless cycle of "we're working on it" emails.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  If the person on the line can help me with my other Google account issues then sure, but that's probably not the case.

smt88 3y ago

I also have an anecdote. My brother is mentally ill, and he hadn't set up 2fa on his Gmail account. It asked him to do that, and then it somehow got flagged as suspicious activity. I spent the next 6 months in a hellish loop trying to recover it. I was even able to forward them the invite email I sent him from ~2004 when Gmail was invite-only to prove that he was the owner of the account. It was never reviewed by a human. I would have paid $5,000 to talk to a human for 10 minutes to resolve it. It was a devastating problem because there were so many accounts and documents we were locked out of. It delayed his mental health care for months because of a similarly Kafkaesque issue with his hospital. I finally got a human to respond by tweeting to Google about it. They informed me that they couldn't help unless I logged in the Twitter with the email address he couldn't access and then tweeted at them. We'd still be locked out of the account if I didn't have a friend's husband working at Google with access to their internal support. So your anecdote means basically nothing when Google casually allows people's lives to be destroyed because they were ignorant enough to trust Google's word on anything.

itishappy 3y ago
Absolutely terrifying.
MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
Yep this is scary, and is absolutely one of my fears. Years ago I forgot my Google password and couldn't follow the normal recovery path for some reason. (Forgot my backup email password? I forget.) I had to go through a lot of automated hoops and weird verification steps but eventually I broke through.
jquast 3y ago
> We'd still be locked out of the account if I didn't have a friend's husband working at Google with access to their internal support. Working exactly as designed, requiring you to be rich and powerful enough to have the influence necessary to get the help you need. Google employs just the right amount of support to ensure that they do not have to interface with the poor.