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Please don't miscategorize asking for honest business practices as "a more lenient stance on fraud". What's Google's alleged to have done here -- deprived paym

by Steko 15y ago

Please don't miscategorize asking for honest business practices as "a more lenient stance on fraud". What's Google's alleged to have done here -- deprived payment for services rendered -- is morally equivalent to fraud.

ajross 15y ago
Indeed. And what Hatchlings is alleged to have done is likewise fraud (or perhaps accessory to fraud). We have no evidence either way (though as I've mentioned, I'm on the whole not predisposed to believing spammy Facebook games companies), yet you've jumped in on one side. Why? Look, this isn't "PayPal vs. regretsy" here. It's one company in a business area rife with (pseudo-)fraud trying to make a living and getting into a tussle with another company which is badly exposed to risks from the same fraud. Yawn.
- yeldarb 15y ago
  I just want to jump in here and say that we (Hatchlings) are also not asking for more leniency on fraud. We've been on the opposite side of the advertiser/publisher fence too and fraud on the campaigns we run is not acceptable. It's not even necessarily false-positives that we're against either. Mistakes happen. The real issue is that we've been doing everything possible for the last year to get this issue resolved and have been willfully ignored. We, a small 5 person startup, take care to provide personal support for our 3.5 million users (yes, even to the non-paying ones) and we don't think it's too much to ask for Google to do the same especially with an issue as big as this. PS - the "spammy Facebook games companies" is a whole different issue. We try not to be spammy either and the FB platform is a similar situation where there are bad actors who tend to ruin it for everyone else.
  - ajross 15y ago
    If it's really $40k, you haven't done everything possible. Call a lawyer, file a suit. This kind of money won't pay for a big firm, but you can absolutely get someone local. And in discovery you'll learn why you were banned. Or you get some of it back in a settlement.
- Steko 15y ago
  "And what Hatchlings is alleged to have done is likewise fraud (or perhaps accessory to fraud)." Wait where is anything alleged to have been done by Hatchlings? Did you just make that up? "yet you've jumped in on one side. Why?" Because the issue appears one sided? {ignoring for the moment the many other people saying this is exactly how google operates). "Look, this isn't "PayPal vs. regretsy" here. " Funny it bore a striking resemblance. Web companies grow up and their shitty to nonexistent customer service doesn't go over so well when they decide to shutter a business account with significant balances. "It's one company in a business area rife with (pseudo-)fraud trying to make a living and getting into a tussle with another company which is badly exposed to risks from the same fraud. Yawn." There's lots of fraud in financial transactions and credit card issuers (banks) are exposed to this but if your bank suddenly closed up your account and never communicated with you I'll bet you wouldn't be yawning, you'd be screaming bloody murder.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Not to continue a pointless flame war, except to respond to your very last point: you realize that banks do terminate merchant accounts at the drop of a hat, right? The situation there is absolutely symmetrical with the one here. They also will freeze a customer's card at the barest hint of strangeness, forcing you to call in and verbally OK the transactions. This happens to me once a year at least.
    - DanBC 15y ago
      > forcing you to call in and verbally OK the transactions This is the bit that people seem to get most frustrated about. Banks have telephone numbers. Even if that support is outsourced to Mumbai you still get a person to talk to.
    - bromley 15y ago
      When you call your bank they generally pick up the phone. In contrast it seems the only way to get help from Google is to know someone influential or have a high profile blog on which you can embarrass them publicly.
    - 15y ago

by Steko 15y ago

ajross 15y ago

Indeed. And what Hatchlings is alleged to have done is likewise fraud (or perhaps accessory to fraud). We have no evidence either way (though as I've mentioned, I'm on the whole not predisposed to believing spammy Facebook games companies), yet you've jumped in on one side. Why? Look, this isn't "PayPal vs. regretsy" here. It's one company in a business area rife with (pseudo-)fraud trying to make a living and getting into a tussle with another company which is badly exposed to risks from the same fraud. Yawn.

yeldarb 15y ago
I just want to jump in here and say that we (Hatchlings) are also not asking for more leniency on fraud. We've been on the opposite side of the advertiser/publisher fence too and fraud on the campaigns we run is not acceptable. It's not even necessarily false-positives that we're against either. Mistakes happen. The real issue is that we've been doing everything possible for the last year to get this issue resolved and have been willfully ignored. We, a small 5 person startup, take care to provide personal support for our 3.5 million users (yes, even to the non-paying ones) and we don't think it's too much to ask for Google to do the same especially with an issue as big as this. PS - the "spammy Facebook games companies" is a whole different issue. We try not to be spammy either and the FB platform is a similar situation where there are bad actors who tend to ruin it for everyone else.
- ajross 15y ago
  If it's really $40k, you haven't done everything possible. Call a lawyer, file a suit. This kind of money won't pay for a big firm, but you can absolutely get someone local. And in discovery you'll learn why you were banned. Or you get some of it back in a settlement.
Steko 15y ago
"And what Hatchlings is alleged to have done is likewise fraud (or perhaps accessory to fraud)." Wait where is anything alleged to have been done by Hatchlings? Did you just make that up? "yet you've jumped in on one side. Why?" Because the issue appears one sided? {ignoring for the moment the many other people saying this is exactly how google operates). "Look, this isn't "PayPal vs. regretsy" here. " Funny it bore a striking resemblance. Web companies grow up and their shitty to nonexistent customer service doesn't go over so well when they decide to shutter a business account with significant balances. "It's one company in a business area rife with (pseudo-)fraud trying to make a living and getting into a tussle with another company which is badly exposed to risks from the same fraud. Yawn." There's lots of fraud in financial transactions and credit card issuers (banks) are exposed to this but if your bank suddenly closed up your account and never communicated with you I'll bet you wouldn't be yawning, you'd be screaming bloody murder.
- ajross 15y ago
  Not to continue a pointless flame war, except to respond to your very last point: you realize that banks do terminate merchant accounts at the drop of a hat, right? The situation there is absolutely symmetrical with the one here. They also will freeze a customer's card at the barest hint of strangeness, forcing you to call in and verbally OK the transactions. This happens to me once a year at least.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    > forcing you to call in and verbally OK the transactions This is the bit that people seem to get most frustrated about. Banks have telephone numbers. Even if that support is outsourced to Mumbai you still get a person to talk to.
  - bromley 15y ago
    When you call your bank they generally pick up the phone. In contrast it seems the only way to get help from Google is to know someone influential or have a high profile blog on which you can embarrass them publicly.
  - 15y ago