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A study in contrasts, I signed up my business with Hetzner. And the first thing I saw during onboarding was a demand to upload my ID to spend $5 to test their
by areoform 3mo ago
A study in contrasts,
I signed up my business with Hetzner. And the first thing I saw during onboarding was a demand to upload my ID to spend $5 to test their service (I was testing before we bought). I wrote to customer service and got,
Dear Client,
We received your email. Thanks for writing to us.
You have probably realized that this is an automated message.
We need some time to process each email that we receive, but we will write back to you personally as soon as we can.
Kind regards
Hetzner Online GmbH
[...]
www.hetzner.com
Digital Ocean? They just let me do it.
Guess where I'm going to recommend spending our money?
- KingOfCoders 3mo agoWhat works best for you I guess.
- chpatrick 3mo agoHetzner if you have sense.
- sam_lowry_ 3mo agoWelcome to Europe, the land of sustainable business. We do not need to grow just to pollute our planet and die a painful death, individually and as a species. If you still think your Hetzner registration process is convoluted, try getting a license for IDA Pro. You'll love the experience, I promise. !/s
- inigyou 3mo agoYeah I've noticed that while America takes the approach of trying to keep your personal information secret, Europe takes the approach of requiring it to be shared around, but also protecting it with harsh laws for misuse. Things that are anonymous sign-up in America are KYC in Europe.
- ThePhysicist 3mo agoDigitalOcean simply does this at a later stage and will then just cut you off, Hetzner is doing it from the start. Their obligations aren't so different, they just approach this differently. It's the same thing with Stripe, it's cool that they just let you sign up and process transactions but at some point they will look at your business and if they don't like it they will just cut you off. Also Hetzner really doesn't care much about individuals as far as I know, they mostly do business with other businesses and that's where the money is, their business is not designed to handle millions of individual users, DigitalOcean might also simply have a different strategy there.
- inigyou 3mo agoHetzner is totally fine with individuals, they're probably sad to get less money but they don't care. Remember that in Germany a GmbH company costs $25,000, and if you're not a GmbH you're (in most cases) an individual sole trader. They're also a bit picky with who they allow to sign up and they discriminate by country of origin. I had no problem being from a first world country with a passport, but I've heard the horror stories. If you're from Asia or Africa you may have an issue - if you have a registered business (even a sole tradership) in Europe, that would probably help convince them.
- andor 3mo agoLow friction is cool but it leads to tons of abuse
- altairprime 3mo agoThis reads like an ad for Hetzner. Thanks, antispam experience!
- cryo32 3mo agoI haven't found a competent supplier who doesn't want to know who you are. I entirely exclude Digital Ocean from competent suppliers.
- mr_toad 3mo agoAWS, GCP, Azure don’t care either.
- throw1234567891 3mo agoSure. That’s why they call you to verify that you open a new account. That’s why they ask me for company information. Because they don’t care…
- rafram 3mo agoThey verify a phone number, but you can use the same number on as many accounts as you want, and it's just a verification code.
- throw1234567891 3mo agoYeah, for which I had to identify myself with an ID with a picture and an address on it!
- cryo32 3mo agoAWS does care. You have to sign up with a credit card and verify a phone number. And if you want to spend serious money you have to actually provide business documentation.
- raverbashing 3mo agoYes but not for initial $5
- p-e-w 3mo agoJust because a company wants to know who you are doesn’t mean they are entitled to a scan of a sensitive government document that can be used to commit identity theft. I’m amazed that it is even legal for businesses to ask for that at all, outside of a few exceptional cases of which “I want to rent a server” most certainly isn’t one.
- raverbashing 3mo agoCount on German companies to make things more complicated than they need and to squander clients for minor nitpicks
- inigyou 3mo agoName one B2B relationship you have where you didn't provide ID of you or your business.
- raverbashing 3mo agoNot at an initial sign up and minor spend Companies usually know how to handle customers (Yes some do want to verify the customer for every single purchase - but I usually skip those)
- inigyou 3mo agoName one
- raverbashing 3mo agolol AWS, DigitalOcean for a start And many others I've used and never bothered me or ask for ID
- sparkling 3mo agoTo be fair: all hosting providers deal with A LOT of abuse happening on their systems. Malware being hosted, people abusing trial periods ands free plans etc. No sure if requiring a ID upfront is the perfect solution (if i recall, i never had to provide a ID on my private or business Hetzner accounts) but it isn't just there to annoy you.
- throw1234567891 3mo agoIn a hostile jurisdiction, I suppose based on your argument.
- mft_ 3mo agoIf your entire business decision is driven solely by an emotional response to Hetzner having a policy that needs ID, maybe you’re not the right person to be making these sort of decisions?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- akersten 3mo ago> emotional response to Hetzner having a policy that needs ID It seems to me more like smart business tact, figuring out early on whether your infrastructure provider will be easy to work with or a bureaucratic pain in the ass
- inigyou 3mo agoCan you name one B2B contract you have that didn't require any identification of you or your business?
- mft_ 3mo agoNot from a single data point. You have no way of knowing whether this is, on the one hand, a single reasonable request or, on the other, the start of a pattern of bureaucratic pain.
- Havoc 3mo agoThe German providers have always been more aggressive on KYC & simply saying no to potential clients in some cases.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- duckerduck 3mo agoWhen was this? I signed up recently and don't remember this requirement.