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by mtgx 1570 days ago
There needs to be some kind of law that mandates that a company MUST reply to customers and/or users within a given time and offer a proper redress process.

I remember years ago FB would block your site and they would give you NO OPTION to contact them - like AT ALL (they used to hide the support chat button, and I think they still do from some people).

I also knew a company that got its own IG account indefinitely suspended because malicious competitors accused it of cloning their names, even though they were the ones doing that. There are even some articles on Google about being able to pay people to do this for you for like $50.

And they could never get that account back after months of trying to talk to FB about it or send documentation to the recommended appeal links (all apparently useless).

This is unacceptable from any company where you are a customer/user, let alone multi-billion dollar companies that definitely have all the money they need for proper support.

If your support is this poor/non-existent, you shouldn't get to talk about your "record-breaking multi-billion dollar profits" quarter after quarter.

This is something we as a society can decide upon, whether or not these companies like that (of course they wouldn't).

5 comments

“If your support is this poor/non-existent, you shouldn't get to talk about your "record-breaking multi-billion dollar profits" quarter after quarter.”

I am wondering more and more whether these companies are so profitable because they are more efficient or if a lot of their profits come from cutting customer support most companies used to do.

It is possible no one at Google knows the actual reason behind an ad or site being suspended by Adwords. The programmers might spit out a generic reason while the actual reason is on code line 3,098,089. No one knows and they all hope for the best.
> There needs to be some kind of law that mandates that a company MUST reply to customers and/or users within a given time and offer a proper redress process.

It wouldn't do any good. The legally-mandated reply would just be another auto-generated form letter.

I hear you, but it isn't going to happen. Somebody needs to create a viable competitor to Google. A lot of people have tried, but it is extremely difficult.
Friends who use DuckDuckGo tell me that the quality of their search results has become quite good in the last year. I’m a new user so it’s hard for me to say. Does it seem like a viable competitor to you?
No new law needed!

All you need to do is serve Google in court and they'll respond, trust me :)

A lot of the stories you hear and see online of this flavor are planted by Google and others to dissuade you from filing simple legal actions!

Legal action sounds like a massive waste of time and money. Google can afford that slow burn, normal people and smaller businesses cannot.