Tag: fraud

Google Play Fail - Suspicious ActivityGoogle doesn’t think my account has been hacked or that I have lost control. They seem to genuinely believe that i am not authorized to pay with this “instrument” and that my intentions is fraud. This all started with a neglected Google Play account. So neglected that i never replaced the credit card on file and the one there had been reported lost in 2013. I logged into the account to buy a $4 app for some android cameras i was playing with. I purchased the app without error or incident 2 days ago. . .

Google Play Fail - Purchase

I use the app with the cameras problem free for 2 days.  In the end, one camera was a little glitchy, so i decided to restore it to factory settings and set it up new.  This is when it all went very bad.  When i logged into the store i couldn’t find the purchased app in my account and it wouldn’t let me buy it again. It was giving me strange errors about lack of internet or an error code: OR-IEH-01.  It was at this point that i noticed the email about payment information being needed.  I never received any emails about the purchase being canceled (apparently it was).  This is when i decided to call customer service.  The support agent interrupted me repeatedly, imparted the same explanation over and over, all the while asking me to submit a credit card statement from 2013. The incompetence was staggering.  I did some reading about reports of a massive Google outage today.  The agent insisted that i had added the lost card to the account the day of the purchase, the same day that i received the request for additional documents. This claim is ridiculous at every point, but not as ridiculous as google expecting me to have the same credit card number forever. Did the outage contribute to the problem?  i don’t know, but across Google’s ecosystem there has been failure today.  I even tried to create a new google play account with all new info.  It did not work, something is broken.  I jumped though the first set of rings and submitted my current credit card and state ID card.  The rejection came swift.  23 hours under their 24 hour ETA came this email. . .

Google Play Fail - Rejected reinstatement

I feel at this point i need to provide some context.  Was this a new account?  was it active?  I have used my google account almost daily since 2009.  In fact, i used their own google pay service for years until they changed their policy to require delivery of digital content thought their platform only. I charged clients weekly, and google deposited that into my bank account.  For years without a single charge back.  I used many of their experimental products. I even used Google+ and i still don’t know how i am going to replace fusion tables.

What now?  now i gather the remaining documents and try again?  what are our options with gatekeepers like these?  I’m still locked out of the play store and my google login is behaving erratically.  (gmail delays on both incoming and outgoing)

Corporations, Culture, Soapbox

Apparently the bots have the only real authority at eBay!

| be3n

pee on ebay

I have been an eBay hater for years.  Mostly to do with the way eBay and it’s sidekick Paypal treat sellers- with contempt.  As an occasional seller, I have run into some glaring faults in eBay’s consumer protection.  One case where a buyer refused delivery on the package and falsely claimed it was never delivered.  Despite the tracking clearly stating that the package was refused, eBay sided with the buyer and refunded the money.  I was now out my item and I had to pay shipping to get it back.  Fought and won, but a pain in my ass.  Mostly, I was selling my old iPhones.  The last i sold an iPhone It only sold after it was listed for the fifth time.  When the buyer actually paid for the item, before that, the buyer just blew me off.  Of course eBay now wants 5x completed auction fee.  More fighting with eBay.  It’s just not worth it.

Despite all this, I come back to my abuser to sell some routers.  I want to quickly list some items late afternoon Friday.  I got them listed, which took me some doing.  Apparently policy changes lead me needing to reword some of my boiler plate auction templates.  Money orders no longer accepted, certain search terms no longer in auction title, etc.  Even my auction software needed to be reauthorized.  All these steps completed without incident.  Finally my sonicwalls were listed.  I’m done.  I’ll list the rest later.

20 minutes later, i get an email from eBay that fraud was detected on my account and my auctions were canceled and and my account suspended pending password reset.  I was able to reset the password, so that is not a problem.  However, after nearly an hour on the phone with them (there is no chat or email support that i could find) no one could tell me (1) what triggered the fraud alert.  More surprisingly, (2) no one could re-list the items.  I got transferred from department to department and finally hung up and started drinking.

At this time should say that I have actually have the same IP as when i regularly sold on eBay.  As a buyer, i have never stopped for long (including Lupin III DVDs just last month).  I was using a relatively deduct selling software platform, but it still works, and I have been using with eBay for about a decade.

What would I like to see from eBay?  An explanation. If there was an error, I would like to see an effort to correct the problem and prevent other users from experiencing this frustration.  In general, I would like to see a greater effort to engage with both buyers and sellers to resolve issues. For example, why can’t I send a support email?  Why can a bot do something that actual customer service people cannot undo?