5 ms·

Google is the worst offender, but a lot of companies are increasingly hiding themselves behind a wall of automated systems to completely neuter users ability to

by OptionX 18d ago

Google is the worst offender, but a lot of companies are increasingly hiding themselves behind a wall of automated systems to completely neuter users ability to challenge any decision unilaterally taken by the them. The LLM-age has worsen the situation but it started well before it. At some point it may be necessary to add the requirement for large companies to have a both human contact point and perhaps a requirement for specifics on account terminations and the like, or at least a way to request them, to the letter of the law.

usernametaken29 18d ago
It’s a strategy. Ask RyanAir. They systematically shut down any way to communicate with them, except lawsuits. Tried their chatbot, hotline, email, letter, fax, small claims court (I’m not joking they don’t even care about that). Unless you turn up with a court order and confiscate a plane, they simply won’t give a fuck, and I’m sure it’s a tactic to deter 99% of their problems before they start
- sscaryterry 18d ago
  The fact that this has become acceptable is the real problem.
  - tcfhgj 18d ago
    You don't want to harm the economy, do you?
    - sscaryterry 18d ago
      I'm sure the people who will get hurt have plenty of money.
- ShinyLeftPad 18d ago
  Same with Amazon Japan. It blocked my account with no way to contact them, never used again.
- sensanaty 18d ago
  British Airways is the same. After they wrongfully didn't let me board my flight I had to escalate to the Dutch aviation authority (ILT, they sided in my favor within 3 days of me sending my letter in, that's how blatantly in the right I was) in order to get them to stop ignoring my emails, and even with the letter from ILT I still had to escalate to CEDR and they still took forever to compensate me what I was owed after legally being bound to do so. Along the way they tried every scummy tactic that exists, including sending me an email to close my CEDR case and they pinky promise they'll compensate me if I do that (which should be HIGHLY illegal but apparently isn't). They even went over the legally enforced time limits! They had 2 months after CEDR made their ruling in my favor to pay me back, and I STILL had to hound them after 2 and a half months to get my fucking money! If I wasn't as idiotically stubborn as I am, I would've given up a month into the 8 month ordeal it eventually turned into. I guarantee you the vast majority of people wouldn't bother escalating to their CAA, or contact the relevant courts or authorities, which is what these scummy tactics are designed for. They would've been ignored like I did, then they would've given up because what's even the point? The fact that we're allowing companies to get away with bullshit like this is ludicrous to me
  - cube00 18d ago
    >The fact that we're allowing companies to get away with bullshit like this is ludicrous to me. If they decide to not reply it becomes much more resource consuming to go down the legal road. I had this with DoorDash, even if you call they just say some specialised team needs to look at it and they'll email you back, surprise, they never do.
    - anjel 18d ago
      This isn't laissez faire. Along with useless binding arbitration they precisely lobbied for a marketplace devoid of consumer protections or redress channels. We now live in an age of strict Non-liability.
      - iteria 18d ago
        This is why after 2 good faith attempts, I just report them to the government. It turns out when you report a car insurance company to the state regulatory body, you suddenly know how to contact you. Nope, to bad. Deal with the government. Felt sweet to get a check in the mail from the IRS after resolution. That was the most recent time, but I've done it a couple of times. I do everything digitally, so it's always easy to prove my case.
- Retr0id 18d ago
  > small claims court (I’m not joking they don’t even care about that) If they don't show up, doesn't that mean you win by default? (And then you can indeed send a bailiff to seize a plane...)
  - StilesCrisis 18d ago
    Yes, you can win in small claims if the other party doesn't show. I suspect a plane might exceed the "small claims" limit though!
    - Retr0id 18d ago
      €890 is apparently enough https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/13/bailiffs-board-ryanair-plane-after-airline-refused-to-pay-compensation-over-delayed-flight https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/13/bailiffs-bo...
      - 72deluxe 17d ago
        Pity it still departed for London after the notice had been affixed.
    - joshuaissac 18d ago
      The limit applies to what you can claim, rather than what you can impound in enforcing the court order.
  - sscaryterry 18d ago
    Depending on the jurisdiction, getting a judgement alone doesn't allow you to have a bailiff enforce it.
    - deleted 18d ago
      [deleted]
  - usernametaken29 17d ago
    Oh it does but just because you win doesn’t mean they start caring. A bailiff won’t really get involved for 500 euro compensation. A debt collection agency might. They want a cut of your compensation to deal with RyanAir because they know how annoying they are. Like, sure, you can start a 10 month project over 500 euros and maybe it’ll be fruitful eventually. But who does that? It’s insane. Answer your emails for fuck sake
- ryandrake 18d ago
  These companies have correctly figured out that customers will still give them money, even if they provide no customer support, are actively hostile to their customers, and only respond to lawsuits. Such a weird timeline we are on! People willingly do business with companies who are actively against them.
  - dam_jackalopes 18d ago
    Sometimes you don't get a choice, which is even more frustrating. We got an admittedly very good deal to switch cell carriers. Part of that deal was receiving a debit card with my phone's trade in value loaded. That card turned out to be digital. I put it on my phone without thinking too much of it. However, given my lack of experience with Apple Pay, I didn't realize that I now didn't have access to my own card number. When I try to use the debit card, I am asked for a PIN that I've never been given an option to set up. When I call the card provider, the automated system demands a card number. Which I don't have. Granted, it was my ignorance as a user that is responsible for some of this but it's pretty clear that the lack of access and support is intentional.
  - matkoniecz 18d ago
    Ryanair admittedly wins on price and regulatory setup in EU provides guarantees that planes are safe. Yes, Ryanair stole 100 euro from me once, but if next flight is 50 to 250 euro cheaper than competition... I did some big projects motivated entirely by spite (project was overall helpful, but I would not do this if someone would be less nasty). But I still would use Ryanair.
    - ben_w 17d ago
      > Yes, Ryanair stole 100 euro from me once, but if next flight is 50 to 250 euro cheaper than competition... I swore off them a few years ago. Plane started boarding around when it was due to land. We got on, seeing about 3cm of snow around. It went to the runway, whereupon the weather wasn't good enough so the plane waited. And waited. And waited. And then the pilot turned off internal power because we were waiting so long. And then the airspace was closed for the night and every Ryanair plane did what we did and taxied back to the airport and deplaned all of us, creating a queue at the help desk that didn't clear until 8am the next morning, or at least that was when I got to the front having stood up all night. I was supposed to be back in the office and working by this point. They told us to check online for rebookings: couldn't do that, their website was overloaded, though I could sometimes get as far as the schedule before it failed on me, and the next official opening was about 5 days later at the start of the queue and 7 days later when I reached the end. Other airlines were now charging £1000 for next-day flights. Got a standby ticket for a few hours later. Went through security again. It was also cancelled. At this point I went to my brother's place near Portsmouth, slept enough to recover, took the ferry to France, and took the train from Caen to Berlin, and this was still both cheaper than any replacement flight and faster than waiting for Ryanair to offer another flight that would also be subject to the same general climate. If the plane had landed on time before it got to us, it would've taken off before the weather got so bad. Had a very understanding boss at the time. I miss working with him.
nellophonic 18d ago
Funny you should say that. I'm not a big Instagram user, but have had an account for years. The company I work for has just started an Instagram campaign, and asked anyone who wanted to, to check out their campaign and give it a like. I did so, and a minute later received this email: "Your Instagram account has been suspended. This is because your account, or activity on it, doesn't follow our Community Standards on account integrity. If you think that we made a mistake, you have until 8 March 2027 to appeal." I've now uploaded my drivers licence, a photo of my passport and still apparently that's not good enough for them. My latest rejection says I have only one more chance. No idea what the transgression was, but apparently there is no recourse. I guess it's a good thing I don't really give a crap about Instagram in the first place, isn't it.
- x______________ 18d ago
  > I've now uploaded my drivers licence, a photo of my passport and still apparently that's not good enough for them. That's not a good practice to begin with. Your insta account doesn't matter but your privacy and government-issued documents do matter.
- kevin_thibedeau 18d ago
  > uploaded my drivers licence, a photo of my passport Sounds like its working as designed. This is why you never cross streams between work and personal life.
- WarmWash 18d ago
  Meta knows you work for them, and sees it as boosting or gaming the algo. There are a gazillion accounts that do this constantly, and all of them appeal.
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
- deltoidmaximus 18d ago
  > I guess it's a good thing I don't really give a crap about Instagram in the first place, isn't it. If you were willing to upload your driver's license and passport for a mere chance at getting back an account you don't give a crap about I'd hate to see what you'd do for one you do care about! Facebook demanded my driver's license at one point out of the blue. I simply abandoned the account, I was already pretty over them at that point anyway. About a year later it let me log in just fine and had forgotten all about how badly it had needed a scan of my license for security. In fact I didn't even remember the password, it just auto logged in from an email link. You kind of confirm what I suspected though, that they'll just keep asking for more stuff leaving you more exposed and they're under no obligation to actually give you the account back no matter what you do. I don't use discord but IIRC I read that if your account was banned they were asking for a mobile number to get it back. Instead of getting it back if you complied they just added the mobile number to their ban list so you couldn't make a new account with it.
Cthulhu_ 18d ago
> At some point it may be necessary to add the requirement for large companies to have a both human contact point and perhaps a requirement for specifics on account terminations and the like, or at least a way to request them, to the letter of the law. This is already implemented, under the EU's Digital Services Act, you can appeal and get specifics about account terminations - see https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-out-court-dispute-settlement https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-out-co...
- pjc50 18d ago
  Per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49625933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49625933 - is it actually enforced?
tryauuum 18d ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 17d ago
  WTF? Please don't fantasize about building concentration camps or use vile terms of derision on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here, and we have to ban accounts that do this repeatedly. No matter how upset you are at GitHub, you owe this community better if you want to participate here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
trashb 18d ago
Making the decision is easy, dealing with the consequences is not.
an0malous 17d ago
I opened a Google Workspace account for my solo business to have an email address at my domain, got suspended a month later, had no way of contacting support since they require login and I was the only user, filed an appeal, got no response after a month, eventually contacted their Twitter support account and had access restored, but through this all they charged me for the subscription three times while I was locked out and before I could cancel. I contacted their support after I was restored and they said they wouldn’t refund me because the Workspace account wasn’t suspended just my individual user (even though they acknowledged I was the only user). I had receipts and screenshots of everything including confirmation from Google’s own UI that I was suspended for that entire period, but I just have to let Google steal $100 from me now because what else am I going to do? Also their explanation for the lockout was that I failed the verification step too many times, which I don’t recall failing even once.
- franklymail 17d ago
  [dead]

by OptionX 18d ago

usernametaken29 18d ago

It’s a strategy. Ask RyanAir. They systematically shut down any way to communicate with them, except lawsuits. Tried their chatbot, hotline, email, letter, fax, small claims court (I’m not joking they don’t even care about that). Unless you turn up with a court order and confiscate a plane, they simply won’t give a fuck, and I’m sure it’s a tactic to deter 99% of their problems before they start

sscaryterry 18d ago
The fact that this has become acceptable is the real problem.
- tcfhgj 18d ago
  You don't want to harm the economy, do you?
  - sscaryterry 18d ago
    I'm sure the people who will get hurt have plenty of money.
ShinyLeftPad 18d ago
Same with Amazon Japan. It blocked my account with no way to contact them, never used again.
sensanaty 18d ago
British Airways is the same. After they wrongfully didn't let me board my flight I had to escalate to the Dutch aviation authority (ILT, they sided in my favor within 3 days of me sending my letter in, that's how blatantly in the right I was) in order to get them to stop ignoring my emails, and even with the letter from ILT I still had to escalate to CEDR and they still took forever to compensate me what I was owed after legally being bound to do so. Along the way they tried every scummy tactic that exists, including sending me an email to close my CEDR case and they pinky promise they'll compensate me if I do that (which should be HIGHLY illegal but apparently isn't). They even went over the legally enforced time limits! They had 2 months after CEDR made their ruling in my favor to pay me back, and I STILL had to hound them after 2 and a half months to get my fucking money! If I wasn't as idiotically stubborn as I am, I would've given up a month into the 8 month ordeal it eventually turned into. I guarantee you the vast majority of people wouldn't bother escalating to their CAA, or contact the relevant courts or authorities, which is what these scummy tactics are designed for. They would've been ignored like I did, then they would've given up because what's even the point? The fact that we're allowing companies to get away with bullshit like this is ludicrous to me
- cube00 18d ago
  >The fact that we're allowing companies to get away with bullshit like this is ludicrous to me. If they decide to not reply it becomes much more resource consuming to go down the legal road. I had this with DoorDash, even if you call they just say some specialised team needs to look at it and they'll email you back, surprise, they never do.
  - anjel 18d ago
    This isn't laissez faire. Along with useless binding arbitration they precisely lobbied for a marketplace devoid of consumer protections or redress channels. We now live in an age of strict Non-liability.
    - iteria 18d ago
      This is why after 2 good faith attempts, I just report them to the government. It turns out when you report a car insurance company to the state regulatory body, you suddenly know how to contact you. Nope, to bad. Deal with the government. Felt sweet to get a check in the mail from the IRS after resolution. That was the most recent time, but I've done it a couple of times. I do everything digitally, so it's always easy to prove my case.
Retr0id 18d ago
> small claims court (I’m not joking they don’t even care about that) If they don't show up, doesn't that mean you win by default? (And then you can indeed send a bailiff to seize a plane...)
- StilesCrisis 18d ago
  Yes, you can win in small claims if the other party doesn't show. I suspect a plane might exceed the "small claims" limit though!
  - Retr0id 18d ago
    €890 is apparently enough https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/13/bailiffs-board-ryanair-plane-after-airline-refused-to-pay-compensation-over-delayed-flight https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/13/bailiffs-bo...
    - 72deluxe 17d ago
      Pity it still departed for London after the notice had been affixed.
  - joshuaissac 18d ago
    The limit applies to what you can claim, rather than what you can impound in enforcing the court order.
- sscaryterry 18d ago
  Depending on the jurisdiction, getting a judgement alone doesn't allow you to have a bailiff enforce it.
  - deleted 18d ago
    [deleted]
- usernametaken29 17d ago
  Oh it does but just because you win doesn’t mean they start caring. A bailiff won’t really get involved for 500 euro compensation. A debt collection agency might. They want a cut of your compensation to deal with RyanAir because they know how annoying they are. Like, sure, you can start a 10 month project over 500 euros and maybe it’ll be fruitful eventually. But who does that? It’s insane. Answer your emails for fuck sake
ryandrake 18d ago
These companies have correctly figured out that customers will still give them money, even if they provide no customer support, are actively hostile to their customers, and only respond to lawsuits. Such a weird timeline we are on! People willingly do business with companies who are actively against them.
- dam_jackalopes 18d ago
  Sometimes you don't get a choice, which is even more frustrating. We got an admittedly very good deal to switch cell carriers. Part of that deal was receiving a debit card with my phone's trade in value loaded. That card turned out to be digital. I put it on my phone without thinking too much of it. However, given my lack of experience with Apple Pay, I didn't realize that I now didn't have access to my own card number. When I try to use the debit card, I am asked for a PIN that I've never been given an option to set up. When I call the card provider, the automated system demands a card number. Which I don't have. Granted, it was my ignorance as a user that is responsible for some of this but it's pretty clear that the lack of access and support is intentional.
- matkoniecz 18d ago
  Ryanair admittedly wins on price and regulatory setup in EU provides guarantees that planes are safe. Yes, Ryanair stole 100 euro from me once, but if next flight is 50 to 250 euro cheaper than competition... I did some big projects motivated entirely by spite (project was overall helpful, but I would not do this if someone would be less nasty). But I still would use Ryanair.
  - ben_w 17d ago
    > Yes, Ryanair stole 100 euro from me once, but if next flight is 50 to 250 euro cheaper than competition... I swore off them a few years ago. Plane started boarding around when it was due to land. We got on, seeing about 3cm of snow around. It went to the runway, whereupon the weather wasn't good enough so the plane waited. And waited. And waited. And then the pilot turned off internal power because we were waiting so long. And then the airspace was closed for the night and every Ryanair plane did what we did and taxied back to the airport and deplaned all of us, creating a queue at the help desk that didn't clear until 8am the next morning, or at least that was when I got to the front having stood up all night. I was supposed to be back in the office and working by this point. They told us to check online for rebookings: couldn't do that, their website was overloaded, though I could sometimes get as far as the schedule before it failed on me, and the next official opening was about 5 days later at the start of the queue and 7 days later when I reached the end. Other airlines were now charging £1000 for next-day flights. Got a standby ticket for a few hours later. Went through security again. It was also cancelled. At this point I went to my brother's place near Portsmouth, slept enough to recover, took the ferry to France, and took the train from Caen to Berlin, and this was still both cheaper than any replacement flight and faster than waiting for Ryanair to offer another flight that would also be subject to the same general climate. If the plane had landed on time before it got to us, it would've taken off before the weather got so bad. Had a very understanding boss at the time. I miss working with him.

nellophonic 18d ago

Funny you should say that. I'm not a big Instagram user, but have had an account for years. The company I work for has just started an Instagram campaign, and asked anyone who wanted to, to check out their campaign and give it a like. I did so, and a minute later received this email: "Your Instagram account has been suspended. This is because your account, or activity on it, doesn't follow our Community Standards on account integrity. If you think that we made a mistake, you have until 8 March 2027 to appeal." I've now uploaded my drivers licence, a photo of my passport and still apparently that's not good enough for them. My latest rejection says I have only one more chance. No idea what the transgression was, but apparently there is no recourse. I guess it's a good thing I don't really give a crap about Instagram in the first place, isn't it.

x______________ 18d ago
> I've now uploaded my drivers licence, a photo of my passport and still apparently that's not good enough for them. That's not a good practice to begin with. Your insta account doesn't matter but your privacy and government-issued documents do matter.
kevin_thibedeau 18d ago
> uploaded my drivers licence, a photo of my passport Sounds like its working as designed. This is why you never cross streams between work and personal life.
WarmWash 18d ago
Meta knows you work for them, and sees it as boosting or gaming the algo. There are a gazillion accounts that do this constantly, and all of them appeal.
deleted 18d ago
[deleted]
deltoidmaximus 18d ago
> I guess it's a good thing I don't really give a crap about Instagram in the first place, isn't it. If you were willing to upload your driver's license and passport for a mere chance at getting back an account you don't give a crap about I'd hate to see what you'd do for one you do care about! Facebook demanded my driver's license at one point out of the blue. I simply abandoned the account, I was already pretty over them at that point anyway. About a year later it let me log in just fine and had forgotten all about how badly it had needed a scan of my license for security. In fact I didn't even remember the password, it just auto logged in from an email link. You kind of confirm what I suspected though, that they'll just keep asking for more stuff leaving you more exposed and they're under no obligation to actually give you the account back no matter what you do. I don't use discord but IIRC I read that if your account was banned they were asking for a mobile number to get it back. Instead of getting it back if you complied they just added the mobile number to their ban list so you couldn't make a new account with it.

Cthulhu_ 18d ago

> At some point it may be necessary to add the requirement for large companies to have a both human contact point and perhaps a requirement for specifics on account terminations and the like, or at least a way to request them, to the letter of the law. This is already implemented, under the EU's Digital Services Act, you can appeal and get specifics about account terminations - see https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-out-court-dispute-settlement https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-out-co...

pjc50 18d ago
Per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49625933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49625933 - is it actually enforced?

tryauuum 18d ago

[flagged]

tomhow 17d ago
WTF? Please don't fantasize about building concentration camps or use vile terms of derision on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here, and we have to ban accounts that do this repeatedly. No matter how upset you are at GitHub, you owe this community better if you want to participate here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

trashb 18d ago

Making the decision is easy, dealing with the consequences is not.

an0malous 17d ago

I opened a Google Workspace account for my solo business to have an email address at my domain, got suspended a month later, had no way of contacting support since they require login and I was the only user, filed an appeal, got no response after a month, eventually contacted their Twitter support account and had access restored, but through this all they charged me for the subscription three times while I was locked out and before I could cancel. I contacted their support after I was restored and they said they wouldn’t refund me because the Workspace account wasn’t suspended just my individual user (even though they acknowledged I was the only user). I had receipts and screenshots of everything including confirmation from Google’s own UI that I was suspended for that entire period, but I just have to let Google steal $100 from me now because what else am I going to do? Also their explanation for the lockout was that I failed the verification step too many times, which I don’t recall failing even once.

franklymail 17d ago
[dead]