Google Play support agent suggests waiting a year for problem to go away. (audio)

I have been struggling with a Google Play suspension.  For some reason, google policy is not to discuss suspensions. period.  Not even to resolve them.  I have been battling with email and phone support for days, but this last communique was just too good not to share.  In this recording, the Google Play support agent admits nothing can be done and suggests i wait a year for the problem to resolve itself. (edited to remove personal details and to shorten length)

Google Play Fail - Rejected reinstatement

 

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)

my Asterisk PBX is back!

Google Voice Killed Asterisk SupportAfter Google killed XMPP support for Google Voice, I no longer had a house phone. I was using my Google Voice number as a home phone and for the gate info our building.  This lead to the whole system being ignored and neglected. By the time the SD card gave up the ghost, even the backups were in poor shape. I rebuilt the whole system fresh from the latest RasPBX dist and it’s working better then ever. Bought a real DID so i could continue to use Google Voice on our handsets at home. It’s great to have my Asterisk back.

SSL problem, it wasn’t me!

broken keyI just assumed that the problem was related to my recent SSL renewal.  Turns out, Google security recently published Distrusting WoSign and StartCom Certificates and removed them from chrome.  How did I miss this?  It turns out that the SSL on my site has been broken on Chrome for some time.  It must be that I have been using Brave recently as my daily browser.  I moved this site to letsencrypt.org and it’s working fine for everyone now.  I don’t even know how much time I waisted on this one.  wow.

Geohot threw in the towel and rooted my Note!

20140620-171212-61932426.jpg Towelroot is a fast and easy tool to root your Android device. The first version didn’t work for very many devices, but now it seems he’s refined the process. More devices supported and no more reboot required. It is certainly nice to gain the extra privileges finally as I was just beginning to need it. My android experiments have until now been within the bounds of google’s sandbox. Very soon I will be using android as my primary mobile device so this was magnificent timing. Thanks George. I cannot wait to see what you break/fix next.

On a side note, this is one of my favorite features of Android’s security model. Let the user decide. See the screen shot bellow. Could you imagine something similar on iOS?
Android Warning you would never see on iOS

iPhone 5 and iOS 6, much ado about almost nothing

iPhone5 With the pre-sales of the new iPhone 5 in full swing, Apple released iOS 6 today. It can be installed on iPhones 3gs and newer, iPads 2 and up, and iPod touch 4th gen. (compatibility chart) I am going to start by discussing the software changes and by the end of this post will mention a thing or two about Apple’s latest revolutionary device.

First off, many users will notice that the YouTube app is gone. That’s right, with the Apple/Google breakup complete, Apple has removed it from their default installation and reduced it to an App Store install. Not a big deal and Google has taken the opportunity to add a few features and to revamp their user interface. Along with YouTube, the Maps app has also been deGoogled. Apple claims a whole world of new features in their new Maps app. Unfortunately, unless you have an iPhone 4s or better (or an iPad), you will not get to experience 3D topographical flyovers or turn by turn instruction. All you will notice is a conspicuous lack of Street View.

In addition to Google related changes to the home screen, Apple has introduced their new mobile ticketing platform, Passbook. This unsurprising new feature is the reason Apple has been denying alternative mobile ticketing and payment methods. A clear attempt by apple to expand it’s payment processing to event/flight tickets as well. I am sure I will expand on this as it develops. Apple introduced a panoramic photo feature built into the Camera app that only new devices and iPhone 4s can utilize. In fact, just about the only features that older devices get from iOS 6 are Full Screen Safari, Offline Safari, VIP email, and Do Not Disturb. Jailbreakers have had all these features for years. (not to mention FaceTime over cellular, even on the iPhone 4 gasp!) VIP email can easily be done with gmail or any provider that allows for filters/sorting. Do Not Disturb is just a switch, like airplane mode. Not a timer or a time period. No white or black lists.  Lame. The rest of the bunch are useful, but not really the big release material you find in a whole number iteration. This really should be iOS 5.2 at best.

What irks me most is the devices and features Apple choose to support (or not to). For example, Apple opted to support the iPhone 3gs (introduced June 2009), but not to support the original iPad released 6 months later (January 2010). Much like the iOS 4 blockade on the original iPhone, despite supporting the 3g (with exactly the same cpu/gpu/spec). FaceTime on cellular is only available on the iPhone 4s. This is interesting because the 4s and 4 have nearly identical cellular hardware. This begs the question, why? The answer is obvious and unfortunate: Planned Obsolescence. Apple decides what features will push users to new devices and those are conveniently left out of earlier models. This is most evident with Siri. Siri is almost entirely a web service. None of the actually processing of speech is handled by the mobile device. Originally an App Store app available on ANY device, now Apple only allows the iPhone 4s/5 and the latest iPad. With the frequency of Siri outages, I have mostly been unimpressed and primarily use it as a novelty.

Finally we’ve come to the new iPhone 5. I like the ideas of better power management and a bigger battery. I remember that the iPhone 4 was the first iPhone with the power to run my life all day without recharging. This was quickly undone with the 4s who’s power hungry A5 processor ate through the larger battery faster then ever. The specs we are seeing online look impressive and put the iPhone back on top of the smart phone benchmark.

We will not know if these claims are true until they arrive in fanboy (and girl) hands and we see how they do. What I can tell you is why I will not be getting one (at least not on launch day). Honestly, it has less to do with the features of the phone then that of the carriers. I have been using an unlimited data plan since I started iPhoning around in 2007. That ends with the iPhone 5. In the US, both AT$T and Verizon have ended their unlimited data packages. Any grandfathered users loose their unlimited as soon as they upgrade to an LTE device. Only Sprint remains as an unlimited data provider. Like I would ever go back to them. (if you think AT$T has bad coverage? try Sprint) I have learned that Tmobile will be adding LTE coverage as well as iPhone support for such a network. They also provide unlimited data. I may possibly switch to them in the future. I love LTE speed, but I am a data junkie and my habit is bad.

In conclusion, the iPhone 5 is alright, but iOS 6 is laughable. Apple better get on the ball with some real features or they won’t keep ahead of Android for long.

Update: I forgot to mention the new dock connector. I actually like the more durable and reversible dock connector. My only complaint has to do with the available adapter. It actually fails to adapt most audio equipment. The new connector has removed the analog audio line out. Now, the only analog from the new iPhone is from the pre-amped headphones port. This will cause problems with speaker sets, and car adapter kits from here to Singapore. See: Planned Obsolescence.