[throwawaygamma6]

Yes. I once got my account permanently locked at a well known service provider when I simply tried to make a payment for the first time. Support wasn't useful and all they could do was tell me that I somehow violated their Terms of Service for committing "fraudulent patterns" over and over again.

I could have and maybe should have just let it go, but it really got under my skin. I first tried out of band approaches to contacting somebody there. I didn't reach anybody, and you quickly realize how everybody else on the Internet just assumes you must either be lying or not telling the full story. Maybe it's just acceptable losses while doing business at scale.

So I finally just emailed them a polite GDPR request containing some spiel about Article 15(h), how I have the right to request my personal data, and also have the right to correct any inaccuracies in it, which must be the case since I committed no such fraudulent actions. I also requested a full list of all their data subprocessors, which I couldn't actually find listed anywhere on their site.

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know if my request hit all the right notes or not. But literally one hour later, I got my account unlocked with a personal apology.

For what it's worth I also let them know that I'm not really looking to circumvent their systems, and I'm sure they have to deal with a lot of bad actors. But there really needs to be a better way to reach somebody to fix things when automated systems go wrong.

I also have the feeling that this approach would fall on deaf ears for big FAANGs, and there really needs to be some high profile ruling to put the fear in them.

[foxfluff]

> I didn't reach anybody, and you quickly realize how everybody else on the Internet just assumes you must either be lying or not telling the full story.

I have observed the same. When I evaluate service providers, I'm curious to know how they handle dispute with customers.. it's quite depressing to see that on most online forums, it usually goes straight into victim blaming. You must have violated the TOS, you must be doing something sketchy, you're not telling the whole story, you're just holding a grudge so get over it, you're just entitled, etcetra. There's very little sympathy, and no giving benefit of the doubt.

> But literally one hour later, I got my account unlocked with a personal apology.

Congrats! This is a lovely anecdote, thank you so much for sharing.

[mst]

Having done a bunch of moderation work in various open source spaces, it's intensely aggravating that while the vast majority of complaints are from people who are lying about what happened there are also plenty of mistakes so stupid that they -sound- unbelievable and yet are in fact true.

And I'd note that I am very very certain that I've made mistakes that stupid over the years.

[exikyut]

This makes me think of two things, but I can't quite put my finger on how they intersect, although they do feel extremely related somehow.

1) Hanlon's razor (do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity)

2) It was discovered (unfortunately missing citation atm :< ) that people who fall for spam scams that exploit gullibility do so "completely" - most see the scam for what it is, but the ones that do fall for it will kind of double down, defend their actions and see through their part of the "deal" because in their mind it Will Work. So it's almost like there's a super-thin line somewhere where everyone rubberbands to one or the other extreme ("are you serious, that's a scam" vs "are you serious, of course this is real") depending on whether That Last Single Piece Of Straw is on the haystack or not. (I just realize you could substitute "a scam" for "fake" and potentially explain a substantial percentage of conspiracy theorists... hmm)