[slig]

Had the same issue trying to open an IBM cloud account recently. After submitting my CC info the system told me to get in touch via email, and after contacting them they wanted two official documents (Driver’s License and Passport) to be submitted via email. Big nope from me.

[returnofzyx]

Hetzner will actually refuse your order after you submit your documents with no valid reasons whatsoever. At a point, you just give up and ask your EU co-workers to spin up dedicated servers for you.

[Hetzner_OL]

We do not publish the specific reasons why we reject orders. If we did this for every customer, it would be really easy to create a fake account. Potential abusers would quickly learn what to avoid. So we don't publish this information to anyone. We understand that that seems harsh. That's not what we intend. We just want to prevent abuse. --Katie

[emptysongglass]

It's not ethical to withhold this information. I'm sorry it makes it harder for your fraud departments but it's not ok to reject someone and not tell them why.

That's all there is to it. I've had this happen to me by banks before and it's shit because the customer has no recourse. They can't advocate for themselves.

This practice needs to change, industry-wide.

[Hetzner_OL]

We know it feels terrible to be rejected. We do. But every online store and service has customers who they reject. The internet can really test your trust in people, and for good reason. Our products are not flowers, or delivered food, or books or music, which are all pretty non-controversial. Even companies that sell these things online reject new customers. Our products, like a car and many other things, are mostly for good, but in the wrong hands, they can be destructive. There unfortunately aren't international licenses for trustworthy sysadmins or an international police agency that can enforce that. So we have to try to do our best using our own systems. People who abuse servers are not always easy to spot. There are, of course, customers who accidentally resemble a fake customer. In the past, we used to tell customers why we rejected their orders because of this. And we had much higher rates of abuse. So we changed our process, and we no longer publish this information. And this has been working better. It's harder for people to create fake accounts with us now. We don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings or cause frustration. --Katie