Ask HN: Should I or any Google Ads user ever take legal action against Google?

2 pointsbordercontrol3y ago1 comments

Our Google payment profile got flagged by an automated system. We later tried to reinstate it and succeeded. The problem is that the whole process took nearly a whole month, and we lost a meaningful amount of revenue due to this (about 20 days without ads). It's one thing if it's only bad support (and the support was unbelievably bad), but in our case, Google had introduced some technical problems to our account when we were migrating from a normal @gmail.com-account to a business account with a custom domain. If we did everything Google Support, Google Help Sites and all the Suspension-UI-Elements were telling us, then we wouldn't ever get our account back if no one would intervene.

In detail: (see comment)

This whole nightmare was caused, because: - Googles account transformation process leads to broken access rights - Google allowed us to use a payment profile which we somehow can't access / probably shouldn't be even using according to their TOS, because we can't keep the address up to date, etc., but they still reinstated admin access to the ads profile and let us happily spend money over years - Google didn't invest enough resources in a robust and correct UI regarding support forms / tickets / suspension UI elements / etc. The presented information was false and misleading. Just check out the account recovery form, it's not even clear that it is about unblocking payment profiles, and it's not clear if you unblock all of them or only some - Google support ignored a bunch of our support requests, like "Is it possible to get access to the payment profile of our ads account?" and even the account verification form tickets ended up just disappearing - Google support was basically completely clueless what to do, what's going on, not capable of explaining why it takes so long or what the problem is, and the next steps were always the same, we made 3-4 full circles with over 10 tickets, and they were constantly making false promises

The other stuff: - They have a monopoly - We must use them. We are significantly less competitive in our industry if we don't. - Google support admitted to us that they can't prevent the same thing from happening again, because their automated flagging process could kick in anytime

This was the most dystopian thing I ever experienced, we heavily rely on Google Ads to be able to pay salaries and rent on time (although this is very soon changing). So we tried to communicate as professional, calm and clear as possible, but it didn't help much. How much sense does it make to take legal action against Google? How will they react? Could they block our accounts immediately? What do you think would happen if our lawyer takes action?

1 comments

bordercontrolOP3y ago

First things first:

- a Google account can have multiple Google Payment profiles and multiple Google Ads profiles

- every Google Ads profile has a Google Payments profile tied to it (if you finished setup and started displaying ads)

- once you started using a Google Ads profile, the link to the payment profile can't be changed anymore

In detail:

- we "transformed" a normal Google account to a Google Business account

- the business account got access to the Google Ads profile and payment profile of the normal account

- the old account stopped existing, you can't log in anymore or recover access somehow. It looks like the old account became the new one.

- the new account has no admin access to the Ads profile, and it doesn't have access to the payments profile linked to the ads profile

- the only admin is the old account, which should be the same as the new one, but it isn't somehow. So the old account is somewhat gone, but not completely, but enough gone, that you can't access it anyhow

- we used it likes this for some time, probably 2–3 years without realising that we have no admin access

- we contacted Google support about 2 years ago due to this, and they gave us admin rights over the ads account

- the payments profile linked to the ads account still can't be accessed, but we never used anything related to this, so we didn't notice

- then some or all (unclear) of our payment profiles got suspended. Google Ads continues to work for another 10 days.

- we immediately take action and fill out the form accordingly to the UI. Open Google Ads -> Your payments profile is suspended [...]. To solve this, click "Fix it". -> click Fix it -> a form opens -> fill out the form -> they say "Open this link and copy the payments ID you see" -> click the link -> copy the ID -> paste it -> send the form

- then the Google support staff starts going crazy, often no responses at all, nearly 2 weeks pending, then the ticket just disappears without further notice, false promises over and over (absolute hell, not the usual stuff, 10+ tickets)

- we learn that usually all payments profiles get blocked if one payment profile gets flagged, but also that usually all get unblocked if we successfully fill out the form. That's why they don't bother to tell you which ID to fill in, just copy any ID from the link, which leads to an ID of any payment profile

- then our payment profiles get unblocked, all, except the crucial one which is tied to the ads profile

- guess what, the payment profile tied to our ads account is somehow not really tied to us, but also isn't closed, it exists and works and Google lets you use it, but no original user can access it, so it doesn't get unblocked automatically with the other profiles, but somehow it got blocked because of the others (?), it looks like that it got blocked 10 days after the other payment profiles got blocked

- The UI at Google Payments tells us now, that all our payments profiles are ready to use, we test it, they work!

- The UI at Google Ads tells us that our payment profile is still suspended. Probably just a delay, right?

- Just in case, as the responsible business we are, we ask Google, they tell us, to fill out the form. We say we did, and it worked, so they say, again, fill out the form without further advice.

- Now, if you click the links send by the Google support or the "Fix it" link by Google Ads, you will end up at the same form which clearly says (with a hyperlink to the Google payments settings): "Enter the 12-digit payments profile ID shown in your Google payments settings." (https://support.google.com/payments/contact/account_verifica...)

- In the end, we filled out the form again with the ID from the Google Ads Settings and got unblocked. However, to realise that we need to do this took some time.

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