Leaving Google Fi

by daigoba66 • 7 years ago

813 276 7 years ago

petee• 7 years ago

Without going into specifics, and for what its worth, I've had some great experiences with their customer service and Its part of the reason I've stuck with them for so long. I doubt that'd be the case if I experience what this guy did though.

While dealing with a fairly technical sms issue, I was pleasantly surprised how far up the food chain I got when the first agents couldn't help me. The biggest speed bump is usually getting through the first round of questions that filter out the kruft and grandma-issues, but I understand the necessity

edit: I realized after I wrote this that most of my experiences were during the Project Fi phase, before it went full Google, so theres that...

colde• 7 years ago

Even companies that are great at building fantastic products and great technical solutions tends to struggle customer service organisations. It seems they always assume that everything fits in to neat little buckets, and require adherence to them. This is true for both Google and Valve (Steam).

Trusting your customer service teams to have a great degree of autonomy in solving issues can sometimes be really important.

It's a shame you never know whether a company has sucky customer service before you buy their services.

davidwparker• 7 years ago

Sucks, but almost expected from Google.

Good luck with T-Mobile though- I had the worst experience with them and am now a happy Fi customer...

kabwj• 7 years ago

And that’s why European consumer rights are cool.

luckylion4• 7 years ago

And what would those have changed? Do you believe that some EU consumer right agent would bust down the door at Google and get you your $70 and an apology for wasting your time?

Sure, you'll have a great time in court (as the OP would in the states, Google is clearly in the wrong here), but that doesn't help you in the slightest, because it's a lot of hassle, time and effort, you'll have to pay your lawyer up front etc pp.

emptyparadise• 7 years ago

The thing with Google is that things work well 99% of the time for 99% of the people, but if you hit that 1% of 1%, your life will become an absolute nightmare filled with support site loops, chatbots, automated email replies, and months of suffering. If you're lucky, your story will make it to the front page of HN and somehow get resolved immediately.

AaronFriel2• 7 years ago

Google Fi support went down the drain when they expanded. I had a recent experience with my mother's phone being stolen while she was at a hospital, here's the summary after it was confirmed missing and police contacted, with a lot of redundant messages removed.

    1st chat with agent

Me Hi, my mother's phone was stolen, I'm tracking it on find my phone.

Them: Sorry to hear that, we can black list the phone but you must message us from the member's account

(I am the sole payer on the group plan, paid for the phone, etc.)

Me: Okay, fine, I will contact you from chat on her google account

    2nd chat with agent:

Me: Hi, this is [mom]'s son, I am helping her report her phone stolen to blacklist it.

Them: Sorry, we cannot blacklist a phone on a group plan if you are not the primary account holder, please contact us on the primary account.

   3rd chat with agent:

Me: Hi, I'm trying to blacklist a stolen phone, please see [case numbers]

Them: The phone is registered under another Google account

Me: No, see these case numbers, I refuse to end this support until this is dealt with, I am the primary account holder. Let's blacklist this phone so that it cannot be used by another carrier.

Them: Our specialist says the phone must be active on Google Fi to blacklist it.

(The phone's battery has died at this point, 90 miles away from where it was last)

Me: Does that mean it has already been transferred to a different carrier, or is it offline?

Them: The specialist says that the phone must be active on Google Fi

Me: What does that mean? Can you ask the specialist if the battery is dead that means it's not active?

Them: I cannot say.

Me: What is even the point of blacklisting a phone if it doesn't work the moment someone pops the SIM card out or turns the phone off? Nevermind. I would like to escalate to a supervisor.

Them: Okay

    Escalation??

Still haven't gotten anywhere since this Thursday, no one has reached out to me.

ianai2• 7 years ago

They really seem like an awful company with each of their successive failures.

onlyrealcuzzo• 7 years ago

Had a similar experience with Google Fi. It's severely negatively impacted my view of Google as a company.

Still, I hate Verizon & AT&T so much, and I travel internationally to quite a few countries a year, so I'm sticking with them for service. But I'm far from a net promoter.

Bahamut• 7 years ago

Had a similar experience with Google Apps - Google's customer support process is inept by design, which is the primary reason Google doesn't get my money anymore.

rjf72• 7 years ago

I wonder who came up with the idea of calling their response flowchart a "specialist."

bryanrasmussen• 7 years ago

it sounds awful but do you actually have any examples of them being up the drain before expansion? I ask because I'm one of these cynical about google support folks.

AaronFriel2• 7 years ago

Yes, I've contacted support a few times prior to the expansion and had really fast, quality experiences each time.

baselined• 7 years ago

I have been with Fi for several years and have never had a problem with customer service. I always call and speak with a rep who is readily available to help. My Pixel 1 had bluetooth issues and I was sent a replacement within a week. The second time it went bad because the screen stopped turning on, it was an equally quick turn around.

Maybe voice is a better option than chat, at least in my experience.

KZeillmann• 7 years ago

It's weird -- I use Google Fi and loved it, and I got great customer service, up until the point I ordered a Pixel 3 through them back in November. I had to contact them so many times to find out why they hadn't shipped yet, and the regular customer support people had no idea what was going on, and when it got escalated to shipping, they also seemed to have no idea but were much less apologetic about it. After a few weeks of not having my phone shipped, I ordered it through the Google Store (with 0% interest financing instead of paying it off through my bill, oh well) and I got it within a week. It's ridiculous. I'd been a loyal customer of Fi for over two years, but that ordeal almost made me want to quit. If I had to go through what this author went through, I would have done the same.

willio58• 7 years ago

About to leave for Paris on google fi for the first time from the US and praying that it works well. Supposedly I don’t have to notify them and it should be the same price for data and just a little more for old-fashioned sms and phone calls.

bane2• 7 years ago

FWIW, I've used Fi overseas in about a dozen different countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia. Service is usually better than in the U.S.

Phone calls I believe get a per minute charge, SMSs are free and data is exactly the same rate you pay in the U.S.

It's been flawless. Literally as easy as driving between states.

brownbat• 7 years ago

I've enjoyed it, but none of my SMS messages ever seem to be delivered while I'm overseas. I just fell back on over the top services and didn't worry about it, thought it was happening to everyone on those networks.

Now I'm dreading a support call...

scarejunba• 7 years ago

It worked flawlessly for me everywhere, including Paris. This + 10 data SIMs is my primary reason to use Fi.

gecko2• 7 years ago

For all the issues with Google Fi (and I've had blissfully few, but I believe these stories and hear sadly too many of them), I have had zero issues going internationally with it. It just works, and it works better than T-Mobile's equivalent functionality (even though I was told at one point that they're "just" piggybacking on it). I've gone to Japan and all over Europe, and never had a single issue.

mrpippy• 7 years ago

My first thought is that by 4/22, I would have been issuing a chargeback with my CC company and getting them to handle it

saagarjha2• 7 years ago

This sounds like a great way to get your entire Google account suspended.

ClassyJacket• 7 years ago

Also the accounts of any business you work for or ever work for in the future!

XMPPwocky• 7 years ago

It's a Google service. Want to risk your entire Google account?

Jedi72• 7 years ago

This highlights the risk of going all in with 1 company, especially with one area of your life like comms.

tristor• 7 years ago

I’ve been on T-Mobile for years when many friends went with Google Fi. Service on T-Mobile is spottier in CONUS, but internationally my experience has been far superior to that of my friends. Good choice.

bane2• 7 years ago

Fi's "killer app" is their seamless international experience for U.S. travelers. I travel outside of the U.S. at least twice a year and firing up my phone on the plane and being greeted with a "welcome X country" like I had just traveled between U.S. states is amazing.

Down the list is their relatively cheap service for undemanding users (people who use less than a couple GB of data per month). I'm pretty sure I could just go get a better unlimited plan for slightly more (with more phone choices) tomorrow. But I wouldn't really use the extra service and so I'm happy to get the extra $100/yr or whatever I'm saving.

That being said, I've had extremely mixed support from Fi. The support is responsive, human and polite. But for issues almost exactly like this one, Fi's support staff is entirely unable to cope. In our case, Fedex had even taken a photo of the delivery (which was the wrong house). Fedex needed some kind of shipping code from google to release the photo so we could prove it's not the same house (or at least figure out who had our new phone).

Not a single person at Fi could provide the code to Fedex.

We escalated 3 times and it took about a month to resolve, but in the meanwhile we were charged for a phone we didn't receive, and the clue as to where it went was readily available.

Fi did eventually send us a new phone and everybody was terribly polite, but anybody else would have just noticed the phone hadn't been activated, and sent a new phone immediately (and if the phone were to be activated contact local PD).

It took dozens of chats, emails, calls and so on, and each time the support person on the other end would lose the script and try to resolve our issue with some non-sequitur that wasn't solving the problem.

It's not the worst customer service experience we ever had, but it was down there. The only reason we didn't pull the plug was we were about to travel outside of the U.S. and having service that just "works" was a big part of our planning.

alistairSH• 7 years ago

My iPhone on Verizon also greets me when I enter new service areas with a note about fees.

vladgur• 7 years ago

I’m writing this from Australia where I arrived today and my Sprint phone roams for free: I get free texts and slow 2g/3g data(enough for WhatsApp and FaceTime audio calls) as well as $0.25 phone calls. 2 years ago when I was also visiting Australia I was with T-Mobile which offered similar free/low cost roaming.

It’s not ideal, but its an alternative to Google Fi

rsstack2• 7 years ago

The difference is in quality. I am also right now in Sydney, on the last day of my week-long business trip, and I have had constant 4G connection with Google Fi. Back when I had T-Mo I needed to find WiFi whenever I needed to download a large attachment, and obviously whenever I wanted to stream videos. Now I don't even ask for the WiFi password. And yes, I'll be watching Game of Thrones this evening using my phone's hotspot which has a US IP, so I can really feel at home.

I'm disappointed to hear that Google's customer service is bad, but when I signed up I wasn't even sure if they had a customer service department. T-Mo's support was OK, but for the past few months I've been living without it just fine.

zawerf• 7 years ago

I had good experiences with it while traveling in china. Other people in my group bought local data sims which were 100 times cheaper than the $10/gb that google fi charges but everything they wanted to use (google search, google maps, facebook) were still blocked by the Great Firewall. Google Fi has built in vpn and didn't have that problem.

nicolas_t• 7 years ago

Any roaming sim card in China will not be blocked by the Great Firewall.

reaperhulk• 7 years ago

FWIW, the built-in VPN isn't actually what matters for why the internet is unblocked in China when on a foreign SIM. Instead, the way cellular data networks works is such that your traffic is tunneled back to the provider first.

rdl3• 7 years ago

HK China Mobile is cheap and also tunnels around GF.

peterwwillis• 7 years ago

I travel outside of the U.S. at least twice a year and firing up my phone on the plane and being greeted with a "welcome X country" like I had just traveled between U.S. states is amazing.

T-Mobile One accounts get this in 120+ countries, works like a charm. But I've done the math and renting a USB hotspot or buying a 1-month SIM works out to be cheaper for my needs, and I can avoid having to confirm my phone has the correct network support in some countries.

chrischen2• 7 years ago

T-Mobile offers this, albeit at 3G speeds.

harry8• 7 years ago

This is fraud. As soon as any rep sees the evidence of the fraud and stonewalls they are engaging in a conspiracy to commit fraud. At that point the law should take over. "The policy says I must break the law" is not a defence. "The fraud was opportunistic rather than pre-meditated" is not a defence. You can't break the law because of a company policy, you're a human you have responsibilities.

Prosecutions need to happen for this kind of thing. They really do. Start with the frontline and work your way up the chain, ordering a frontline employee to commit a crime with a policy document is a crime for all who wrote and approved the document.

If a google customer engaged in fraud of a similar against google there's no doubt google have the option of involving the police and getting a prosecution. A corporation is people who are all responsible for their actions.

londons_explore6• 7 years ago

There is a good chance that Google views the complainant as fraud too... And that's why they can't talk clearly about what's going on.

Their records show that first phone as delivered. They think their device has been stolen from them. Then the 'fraudster' tries to get another device sent to them - which is 'returned' under suspicious circumstances.

All the delays might be a police investigation they aren't allowed to talk about.

And finally now the 'fraudster' wants a refund of all moneys paid too! Who are they - they've stolen one phone, tampered with another, and want a full refund to boot!

Shakahs• 7 years ago

Refusing delivery means they never had possession of the second phone, FedEx kept possession of it the whole time.

zf00002• 7 years ago

But their records wouldn't show the first phone as delivered. And the second wouldn't show as delivered either if he refused delivery.

rgbrenner2• 7 years ago

The timeline is 2 months long... over 1 month between the phone being lost and the new one being returned.

Packages get lost for all kinds of reasons. If you ship things regularly, it happens occasionally. You open a case with Fedex, the driver gets a week to find the package. If he can't, the package is declared lost, and the insurance on the package is paid out.

You're ridiculous if you think Google is calling the police for every lost package. What would they even base a case on? Fedex tracking of a package delivered without a signature? Geez. The cops would just ignore their calls.

peteretep• 7 years ago

That was my first thought too. It sucks and they're completely in the wrong, but this stone-walling sounds like he has triggered their (completely insane) internal fraud procedure.

duncan-donuts• 7 years ago

My wife and I left fi for exactly the same reason as the blog post. My wife had a problem with her pixel 2, and she was pretty much without a phone for WEEKS. We absolutely adored fi for years before that. We were huge advocates. After we had such a horrible experience being gaslighted, promised, and let down we just fuck this and went to AT&T. It’s not like we love AT&T. In fact, we don’t. But you know what we can do? We can walk our asses in a store in pretty much any city in the country and leave with a phone.

nradov• 7 years ago

I don't love AT&T either, but when something goes wrong I can actually get them on the phone and hold them accountable.

RankingMember• 7 years ago

If customer support is important to you, I heartily recommend giving Ting[1] a try. They're a T-Mobile and Sprint MVNO. Every interaction we've had with their customer service has been excellent. Last I called, there was no phone tree, just a person immediately picking up (hopefully it's still like this).

[1]https://ting.com/

all_blue_chucks• 7 years ago

ordering a frontline employee to commit a crime with a policy document is a crime for all who wrote and approved the document

In reality they never order crimes in writing, though. They say your metrics need to be above a certain level to keep your job, and the only way to boost your metrics is to commit a crime. See: Wells Fargo fake account scandal.

My mom spent the last half-decade of her career (at a hospital) working large amounts of unpaid overtime because her boss made it clear that was the only way to keep her pension.

hi41• 7 years ago

I found your comment about higher metrics eye-opening. Your mom’s story is heartbreaking to hear. That was such a cruel thing for her boss to force it upon her like that.

dfrage5• 7 years ago

Too many people have too much of Google as part of their lives to do more than the OP did and eat the $70 instead of dropping out of Android development.

And that's got to be how Google can, intentionally or not, get away with such blatant fraud, the pool of people able to escalate is kept very small.

paxys3• 7 years ago

Sounds like a very standard Google experience. To anyone stuck in a similar hell in the future - once the company has demonstrated that they aren't willing to help, there is no point continuing down that road. Escalate it to your credit card provider (with documentation) and they will clear it up pretty quick.

toefraz• 7 years ago

They'll clear it up by banning your Google account and blacklisting you for all Google services. Just be prepared for that.

pard68• 7 years ago

That is called "doing you a favor".

londons_explore6• 7 years ago

I don't think they will actually...

A credit card chargeback bans you from Google Pay/Wallet/Android Pay/Google merchant services/google shopping basket/gBilling/whatever it's called now and all services requiring payment. I think you can still use gmail/youtube/whatever.

arkades• 7 years ago

This thread is what has finally pushed me into registering my name as a domain and begin transitioning off of gmail.

jseliger• 7 years ago

It seems that anything that has any sort of customer service component is not Google's forte.

pishpash4• 7 years ago

Google is shit in meatspace. It has been demonstrated too many times. They'd better hope the day that they'll only need to interface with bots arrives soon.

sockgrant2• 7 years ago

This has been known for awhile.

The exception is if you pay good money to advertise with them.

ArlenBales• 7 years ago

That's the quickest route to having your Google account permanently suspended. (YouTube, Gmail, etc. goodbye)

icxa2• 7 years ago

I wonder if this is a good thing.

Really random aside incoming:

I once was only able to quit my League of Legends video game addiction because I gave my account away that I had so much vested in (skins, all characters, rune pages) by basically messaging a random stranger, changing the account to their email, going to a random password generator site, changing the pw copy+pasting the password without me looking, and sending it off -- in effect "suspending myself".

I was unnerved for a couple of weeks, but eventually, the itch to play died off. I tried starting up a few times, but it wasn't worth it especially knowing how much time I sank into it previously.

I wonder if I got myself permanently suspended from Google, (I want to quit Google given how unethical they have become) would I rid myself from them for good?

paxys3• 7 years ago

Google has demonstrated enough times already that your account can be permanently suspended for any or no reason at all. While the services they offer are definitely useful, if people are relying on them in their personal or professional lives it's best to be ready in case they are taken away without notice.

droidist2• 7 years ago

So basically never get into a business relationship with Google because if they screw you over you have absolutely no recourse, unless you've managed to steer clear of using Gmail, etc.

Gibbon13• 7 years ago

And this is why we don't use gmail

chrischen2• 7 years ago

You would think that if they weren't connected that Google wouldn't ban you across accounts, but I know a person who had their name banned from Uber, so if Google wanted they probably could deny services to you.

zaarn• 7 years ago

There is nothing of value on my google account. Everything that is, has backups on my own servers or mirrored to other services. I consume youtube only via rss-bridge, so my youtube account being banned means I only loose nothing at all.

I'd chargeback Google in a heartbeat if I had even minimal reason to do so.

allthecybers2• 7 years ago

Google has too many hobby products for me to trust them with an actually mission critical part of my life that is my only phone line.

I really need to be able to walk into a store or physical location to talk to an actual person. Plus the accounts of Fi customers getting locked out or if you can’t use Google Payments, you can’t pay for Google Fi.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18886804

mellow-lake-day• 7 years ago

I'm pretty happy with Ting. Been with them for several years. Their data isn't cheap but their customer support more than makes up for it.

https://ting.com/

heartbreak2• 7 years ago

I live in a Ting fiber city, and having them as my home ISP has been the most amazing telecom experience ever. They’re the best.

cheerlessbog• 7 years ago

Looks like their international roaming is pretty expensive. I guess I just change SIMs

paultopia2• 7 years ago

How on earth is google not being sued every day? It seems like once a week there's a new HN post about some kind of massive screwing they deliver to a customer.

viiralvx• 7 years ago

As a friend once described to me, they probably have the legal resources of a small country/nation, so there's that.

paultopia2• 7 years ago

Truth.

ianai2• 7 years ago

This is the danger in the free economy. Without proper regulation, powers concentrate and people have the shirts on their backs sold from them.

heartbreak2• 7 years ago

They do get sued pretty much every day, though this sort of thing is not specifically the reason.

anarazel2• 7 years ago

I don't want to click far enough into the signup to get to an actual contract, but I'd be extremely surprised if it didn't have an arbitration clause as requirement.

For some things you can opt out of arbitration, but not for others.

The online fi related contract (which I obviously not the actual carrier contract) I found is: https://fi.google.com/about/device-protection-terms/ which indeed has a mandatory arbitration clause.

It's high time that the arbitration act gets dramatically scaled back. I don't have problems with reasonably sized companies agreeing to arbitration in contracts with each other, but it doesn't work for end users and employees.

user59944614• 7 years ago

Arbitration is void in Europe. That's 500 million people who can sue them.

However, given that it takes years for any case to settle, if you could even find how to start the process in the first place, that ain't happening.

dfrage5• 7 years ago

For lots of people, because that would cost them all their other Google accounts and services. The OP would have to give up on Android development.

I am former Fi user, started back when it was a "Project". My Nexus 5X's battery swelled but was still working and had a full charge, they wanted me to ship it back to them which I morally felt I couldn't do, and replace it with a generally low quality Lenovo Motorola phone that was reported to have serious WiFi problems, negating that major part of their business proposition where it uses any accessible WiFi for data and voice if possible. Felt stupid for having paid them $5/month for device replacement coverage.

The G+ real names debacle prompted me to remove as much exposure to Google as possible, now I'm down to Google Groups which can only be had from them. They're just too risky for individuals to depend on.

Causality1• 7 years ago

Google does not have the company culture or attention span to be an infrastructure provider. It never has and it never will. Google Fiber is dying on the vine as we speak. Google Fi will be dead long before they work out these problems.

StreamBright4• 7 years ago

This is exactly the reason why I do not trust Google with anything businesses critical. At this stage they trolling their most loyal user base.

dontbenebby2• 7 years ago

OP should not have attempted to negotiate with the hostage taker. They should have instead reached out to their CC issuer and explained the situation. If the goods were not delivered most competent credit card companies will issue a chargeback.

bsamuels• 7 years ago

have fun getting your google account permabanned when you dispute a google charge

dontbenebby2• 7 years ago

"We're banning you for demanding a refund for items not delivered" seems like a great way to attract regulatory scrutiny:

By law, a seller should ship your order within the time stated in its ads or over the phone. If the seller doesn’t promise a time, you can expect it to ship your order within 30 days... If the seller is unable to ship within the promised time, it must notify you, give a revised shipping date and give you the chance to cancel for a full refund or accept the new shipping date.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0221-billed-merchandis...

mullingitover• 7 years ago

"At every turn the <Google customer service> team was presented with a chance to make things better and every time they blew it."

I mean, this is the history of Google in a nutshell. They deserve to be systematically dismantled by Amazon for this alone.

Aeolun5• 7 years ago

Amazon support has never been anything less than stellar for me.

Edit: Someone downvotes my experience? Wut?

tomcam2• 7 years ago

Just contact HN support about the downvote.

I kid.

village-idiot• 7 years ago

Amazon’s customer support has begun to degrade. We’ve had some bad experiences recently.

vageli• 7 years ago

Amazon support has never been anything less than stellar for me.
Edit: Someone downvotes my experience? Wut?

This conversation is about Google. That's like saying, "Costco has great customer support though," in a conversation about travel agents.

jonnycomputer• 7 years ago

why act surprised? HN's voting system is broken, and anyone talking about it gets downvoted!

hmschreck• 7 years ago

I had one bad experience, and it was so bad I nearly stopped buying from Amazon.

Product did not arrive on time, spoke to support rep.

Rep said that it was delayed because it was coming from overseas, which the tracking information easily disproved - it was coming from Illinois. Illinois is not overseas. When told this, the rep accused me of making things up, despite having the link.

The rep then said that it had been delayed because of weather in my town. I live in this town. It was sunny the entire day in question, and the day before. When I pointed this out, he flat out called me a liar.

I then asked to speak to a supervisor, because I had been lied to twice at this point. The rep immediately began stonewalling me, and for the next 45 minutes, I became increasingly impatient with his behavior, and told him that if I did not have a supervisor in the next 5 minutes, I would be ending the chat and sending the transcripts to someone else at Amazon and following up.

At this point, he made a thinly veiled threat to ban me (I have thousands of dollars of digital content tied to my account), and I immediately ended the chat and sent the entire log to anyone and everyone associated with Amazon that I could think of.

nfriedly• 7 years ago

I didn't downvote you, but as a small-scale seller on Amazon, I received absolutely terrible support when they froze my account over a 12-cent fee that was added retroactively and therefore "past due" before I ever heard about it. They were going to pretty much keep my money and my merchandise and ignore me until I got an AWS rep to get involved.

As a customer, on the other hand, Amazon has among the best service I've ever received.

sockgrant2• 7 years ago

Google is a search and advertising company. Literally nothing else matters to them.

People should stop being surprised that Google’s side projects that don’t even make a blip on the earnings report are not to be used.

Don’t build on google APIs unless it’s Android and don’t make them your phone carrier.

maxaf• 7 years ago

I deal with such experiences by simply reversing the credit card charge. The issuer of my card has a solid process for handling such situations. They ask a series of questions: was the charge in exchange for goods or services? Did you receive what was promised? How was your experience different from what you expected? After about half an hour on the phone with an actual human, the charge is reversed, and all goes back to normal. I’m confident that not even google can fight bog standard chargebacks.

saagarjha2• 7 years ago

They can't, but they can sure make your life miserable if you depend on any Google service.

Aeolun5• 7 years ago

Except, as people already mentioned, by completely blocking your account.

Aeolun5• 7 years ago

It’s Google. I don’t know what was expected, but as soon as anything is Google, customer support is not one of them.

mabbo• 7 years ago

This is the difference between Google and Amazon.

People have lots of criticism of Amazon, some I even agree with, but working here[0] one of my favorite little cultural things is that customers can and do email Jeff when stupid things happen. And Jeff reads them. Every now and then he'll forward one of them to a senior VP with a simple "?" added to it.[1]

That question mark indicates two things: that you have 24 hours to explain how this terrible customer experience happened, and that not long afterwards you'd better have a plan for how it isn't possible for this kind of problem to happen again. A lot of incredible changes have been made based on those question marks.

Google does not have such a customer-obsessed culture. So bad things like this happen and then nothing seems to change. Next week, it will happen again. Because (in my view) Google is an ideas-first culture, not a customer-first culture. Those ideas have rocketed them to success but I wonder if it can sustain them indefinitely.

[0](All my views are obviously my own and don't reflect speaking on behalf of the company)

[1]https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/customer-service-jeff-bez...

ikeboy2• 7 years ago

Having been through several Jeff escalations on the seller side of things, the reality is very different from the romanticized version in the public mind.

Maybe it worked that way a decade ago when the volume was lower. Now sending a Jeff message just goes to a specialized team that's only slightly more competent than whoever would otherwise handle the issue. Have had several times where no resolution was given at all.

Aeolun5• 7 years ago

They kind of have to if everyone sends these messages.

rdl3• 7 years ago

Amazon generally has always treated sellers/vendors like shit, but has always been good with consumers once you escalate it appropriately. I’ve had a lot of weird cross border Amazon problems and mail to Jeff resolved.

hueving• 7 years ago

The seller is not the customer.

edoceo• 7 years ago

I emailed Jeff about two years ago about a repeated and annoying Kindle App (on Android) bug. Included the details I'd given to support a few attempts before this final straw. He didn't reply (of course) but a few days later a Kindle engineer helped me debug the issue (part Android setting, part Kindle app bug) via phone.

I've not tried emailing several times.

paxys3• 7 years ago

Google does not have such a customer-obsessed culture

Simply because Google has never considered its users "customers" in the first place

jaggederest• 7 years ago

There is only one customer at Google, and it is the people buying ads.

Astonishingly enough, even at moderate ad volumes there's still no customer service. You have to start spending truly astronomical amounts of money before an actual rep will attempt to help you with essentially any problem.

So to Google, "actual customer" means "someone spending six figures per month on advertising on our platform". As far as I am aware, even similar spending on other areas (GCP) doesn't warrant "actual customer" status.

x0x0• 7 years ago

Or they're just plain incompetent. That's always an option too.

My story: I bought the first google tablet. One of the incentives for ordering early was a credit in the google store. I used it to buy books. It turns out that when you depleted the credit enough and wanted to buy something that cost more than the remaining credit, you couldn't apply the credit and pay the rest with your card.

In my case, I had like $11 left on the credit, wanted a $14 book, and couldn't pay the final $3 with my card. For reals.

Some product manager looked at this complete fucking dumpster fire and said ship it. If you can't get the simple things right, like fully spending down a credit, you're not gonna get much right at all.

JohnJamesRambo• 7 years ago

Trying to talk to a real person at Google is an exercise in futility. It’s like trying to contact a single person in the Borg.

ehsankia• 7 years ago

That's most definitely is true if it's about one of their free services (gmail, youtube, etc), but I'm not sure why people expect free services to have the same quality of support as Amazon Prime where you're paying monthly fees + more for the products.

Become an actual paying Google customer[0] and you'll get a real person. Of course, the issue here is slightly different. The author clearly did get to talk to many real people (being a Fi customer), but they got stuck on some other problem.

[0] https://one.google.com

jfengel• 7 years ago

Perhaps true in general, but I had no trouble talking to a real person when I recently had a problem with Google Fi. They didn't even make me hold; they took my number and called me in a few minutes. I missed the call, and they automatically swapped to chat. The problem took a while to resolve, and while it wasn't exactly fun, I feel like they did as good a job as was possible. (Remote debugging is always a pain.)

josho• 7 years ago

Meanwhile I’ve worked at places with poor management that treats question marks like that as a one off problem. Teams scramble to fix that instance of the problem then return back to the way things were done before.

andrewprock• 7 years ago

I had a similar experience with them. When the phone started rebooting constantly, they offered to send me a used phone as a replacement. While I balked, I had little choice. As I was on a business trip, I asked if they could overnight it to me, at my own expense.

The could not.

Never buying another Google product again.

akhilcacharya• 7 years ago

This is true. There was a big change in my org that happened because a random person emailed Jeff!

c2h5oh• 7 years ago

As a seller at Amazon marketplace my wife goes through at least one situation similar this every month. 4 times of 5 Amazon "by mistake" is suddenly charging her for something (tiny amounts) only to refund it all later.

StreamBright4• 7 years ago

In the article the guys has not been refunded that easily and we are talking about 600 usd.

jkuria• 7 years ago

So true. Google isn't interested in dealing with individual live human customers. They want to aggregate all interactions and treat them as data.

yumraj• 7 years ago

Google is an ideas-first culture, not a customer-first culture

I don't think it's just that. I believe that Google is used to having captive faceless optionless voiceless customers, of it's search and ad platform from whom it derives most of us revenue, that most other kinds of customers don't matter.

amelius• 7 years ago

They are so used to the principle that their users are not their customers, that they even imagine that people who paid for a product are still not their customers. Perhaps because those products are mostly a vehicle to sell more ads to their real customers.

TheOtherHobbes• 7 years ago

Google is a monopoly-first culture.

Monopolies don't care about anything except maintaining monopoly momentum.

The occasional complaint by a paying customer is barely a paint scratch on a business surface the size of a small planet.

HillaryBriss4• 7 years ago

my takeaways from this story:

1. emailing "Jeff" amounts to emailing a central triage team, which doesn't necessarily sound better than emailing, say, a well-organized, decentralized support team where the customer knows more immediately who is capable of addressing their particular problem.

2. everyone who works at Amazon is deeply scared of Jeff. fear is a motivator, but maybe it's not the best motivator.

3. sending someone in an organization a "?" is not actually very helpful. there's very little information there.

4. it sounds like people within Amazon are fighting fires and the guy at the top is the one with the torch. and that seems to work ok. but, that would seem likely to create a haphazard organization and products that are not insanely great. strong, insanely great design is not prioritized.

acct17713• 7 years ago

Sending more than the "?", especially if it'd been done before, is a waste.

winningcontinue3• 7 years ago

This Amazon approach reminds me of how Apple used to do it in the final years of Jobs' executive-ship at the company. He'd send terse replies to people who e-mailed and and for large problems he'd float it to his top lieutenants concerning why the experience sucks so much.

johnsea• 7 years ago

This is the difference between Google and Amazon.

As an anecdote I had a good experience with Microsoft too.

Issue: standalone MS Office 2019 didn't show the update button, didn't find something online. Called support thinking, oh no, but it was pleasant:

  - after quick waiting period contact with representative
  - one or two min. standard talk then support concluded there was an issue indeed
  - on hold for one or two minutes
  - then problem was fixed via remote app, didn't take long

Left me with a very positive feeling for Microsoft.

foepys• 7 years ago

When I reported a bug in a backend component of Power BI I was called by Microsoft to collect data about the problem and got updates from support until it was fixed over the next 3 weeks. That was very satisfying because I knew something was being done about it and it wasn't sitting in a bug tracker indefinitely.

The only thing I disliked was that support tried to call my office at 3 am and then was confused I wasn't there even though I had to enter my timezone in the support form.

nonamechicken• 7 years ago

I once reported a bug in Visual Studio community edition. One or two weeks later, a developer (I think) remote logged in to my PC to troubleshoot what was happening. The next update had a fix for the issue.

jnosCo• 7 years ago

I'm currently dealing with a MS support case, and it's one of the most painful support cases I've ever opened. I'm going on (hour long) call #3 in a few minutes, and MS still won't even admit there's a problem.

arraisgabriel• 7 years ago

aws documentation is garbage.

b_tterc_p• 7 years ago

This is interesting to me because amazon has a ton of anti-consumer practices right now- most importantly the large amount of incorrectly labeled knock off goods. But by doing this on the odd occasion he virtue signals that he is taking time from his day to solve the common man’s problem, evidently fostering a culture of leader worship.

StreamBright4• 7 years ago

That is not an active effort from Amazon to screw over customers while the article describes a somewhat active effort (when the escalation guy automatically orders a new phone on behalf of the customer). I hope Amazon fixes the rip off fake items problem before they lose customer trust.

luckylion4• 7 years ago

This is the difference between Google and Amazon.

No it's not.

I've started to receive Spam & Phishing on the email alias I exclusively use for Amazon shopping. The emails include my full name as written in my Amazon account. I've informed Amazon support about this and asked them when, why and with whom they shared my account details. They replied, saying that they had their "specialists" look at the email I had forwarded, and that it was phishing (it wasn't, it was an "invitation" to join an amazon-review-for-free-product site) and that I should ignore it. I once again reached out to tell them that this wasn't what I asked, and that they apparently had/have a data leak. Guess what: no reply.

Amazon doesn't care either. Now, that might be different in the US, but Germany's Amazon support is terrible. I get that hiring people in Germany is expensive, but it's just annoying when you have to communicate with people that don't have a solid grasp of the language / use some low quality auto translate to handle your case.

flyingpineapple• 7 years ago

Just as another datapoint; I have a radically different perspective on Amazon and customer service, that they have no incentive to care.

Once not too long ago I came across this article: https://consumerist.com/2013/06/18/amazon-cancels-my-6000-or...

I thought it was interesting and amusing, but filed it away in my head and forgot about it.

Then, one day, I got an email something to the effect of "fax photocopies of your drivers license and credit card or we, Amazon, will shut down your Amazon account permanently. Do not send emails, only fax, to X number."

At first I naturally thought it was spam. However, I kept getting systematic emails of this sort, with a date attached to them. It seemed weird for spam to be so deliberate, and as phishing attempts go, also sort of weird. There also seemed something strange about the content of the emails that made me think it might be serious.

So I called Amazon customer support (totally independently of anything in the email), and they said "Yes, that's a real email. You need to respond to it or they will shut down your account." I was puzzled by this, because nothing unusual had happened from my end. So, after talking to someone who made it clear they knew nothing about it other than that it was real, I asked to speak to a supervisor.

This supervisor sort of chuckled and said that the email was from the security division, that customer support knows nothing about them, that they cannot access anything about why I was getting the email, and that this division only communicates via fax, including with customer support. So basically I was being threatened to have my Amazon account shut down for a reason Amazon couldn't explain, because they themselves can only communicate with the people who know via fax, and I can only communicate with them via fax.

So I figure, ok, fine. I search out an office supply store (because I can't use work fax for personal business, and don't have a fax machine). I send them photocopies of my drivers license and credit card. I make sure it's completely visible, and include information on the cards in the fax, in text.

A few days later I get an email saying "we received your fax, but the photocopy wasn't legible enough." I was like WTF??? because it could not have been more legible. Also, any info not legible (even though it strains credulity to be considered illegible) was in the fax. So I tried again.

Again I receive a similar email saying "we received another fax but again it's illegible." I called customer support again, and again they threw up their hands and said they can't communicate with that division either.

At this point I gave up because what was I going to do? Amazon's own customer service can't even communicate with this shadowy fax-only communicating security division, I know nothing about why my account is being shut down, there's no recourse or appeal, and when I try to comply, I capriciously am told it's not sufficient.

About a week later my account gets shut down.

About that time I remembered the article, which was eerily similar to my experience. So nothing had changed in those years.

I kept my materials (email printouts, including the faxes); I think I still have them, but am not sure as we moved in the interim.

The whole experience convinced me Amazon simply has zero incentive to care about customer service after an experience like that (which apparently is not the first time this has happened).

nske• 7 years ago

Wow! Relying on FAX sounds so ridiculous, especially coming from a company that was supposed to have designed API for every internal operation -even for some that didn't make sense, long before APIs where even a thing.

ocdtrekkie2• 7 years ago

I used to feel like, and talk about, Amazon as a great customer service-oriented company. There's a few reasons that ended, and I no longer believe it to be the case.

- Prime Exclusive Items was the big one. Amazon arbitrarily selects everyday items that people regularly order like diapers and razors and Blu-ray movies and marks them "Prime Exclusive", meaning you can't order them without a Prime subscription at any price from Amazon. This isn't just Prime exclusive pricing, and it's usually not even being sold cheaper than other retailers. It's literally Amazon just saying "f--- you for not having Prime, shop elsewhere!" And often, I've done just that. This has been going on for years, Amazon has not so much as commented on the practice despite massive forum threads about how arbitrary and punitive it is.

- Annoyingly complicated return mechanics. Around Christmas I bought a thing, and then bought a better version of it, both on Amazon. This was a Blu-ray set, so a small item, and it was shipped and sold by Amazon. I was confident I could return it because I'd seen all the ads about free returns at Kohl's. But it turns out, only select items can be returned at Kohl's, even if they're, you know, small items sold by Amazon like a Blu-ray. I had to pitch a fit to get a return label to drop it off at a UPS store, because the Amazon guy couldn't do a return at the Amazon return desk at Kohl's, when the only reason I was returning it was because I bought an even more expensive version on Amazon. Amazon has half a dozen return options, and it's a toss up which one will be available for the given product ID you want to return and how much it will cost to do so. If I buy from Walmart, I can just take it to a Walmart store and it's done.

ballenf• 7 years ago

I let Prime expire a few months ago and, wow, was it shocking just how bad non-Prime customers are treated. Like you said, random items unavailable, constant nags to buy Prime and dark patterns during checkout trying to trick me into opting back in.

My reason for leaving Prime was that I was buying more stuff from 3rd parties who had free shipping for all than from Amazon or Prime 3rd-party sellers.

Also it started costing me a lot to just click the default buy option and I was having to do CSI-level due diligence on every order if I didn't want to end up with a counterfeit and/or pure scam. Several items I ordered were just straight up fraud that required annoying customer service interactions.

Losing the 5% credit card discount seemed painful until I realized that I buy 30-50% less stuff I don't really need now. Or that buying elsewhere I save much more than 5%. I'm surprised to be saying it, but I've returned to eBay for a lot of purchases and been pleasantly surprised.

robbrit• 7 years ago

Forget Amazon. This story makes Comcast look good.

exabrial2• 7 years ago

I had a problem with messages app, not sending messages. 5 calls to support, and they couldn't fix it. They don't have a way to get a hold the messages team to fix it. Simply incredible.

londons_explore6• 7 years ago

The messages team doesn't want to talk to you. Their app is used by 1.5 Billion people.

If just 0.1% of them had some issue with their app, that would be 1.5 million phone calls.

There are ~3 people working on the messaging app usually. Thats half a million calls each. Thats 52 years to answer all those calls!

The TL;DR is that you will never make a bugfree app, and the remaining bugs will always leave some unhappy customers. At some point the team needs to decide that they need to move on to making new features rather than bugfixing, and that point is well before they start talking to random users on the phone about rare bugs. Sorry - the app isn't for you - go use another app or another phone.

falsedan3• 7 years ago

how did telcos manage to run a message product (SMS) for the 20 years before Google? The user-base is bigger than 1.5B too

aerovistae• 7 years ago

Here's what I did in a similar situation, for those who may be interested.

Basically I signed up for AT&T home internet, and it DID NOT WORK, period. It was unusably slow and cut out constantly. I couldn't use it. I told them so within a week, they sent someone to fix it, they failed to fix it, I told them I'm canceling. I proceeded to return their router and switch to a different provider and immediately got fine service.

But AT&T didn't cancel my service. They said I couldn't because I was locked in for a year or some arbitrary time period. It's been five years now so some details escape me-- but the key thing is that after some months they claimed I owned them $600, and I said I wasn't paying when I never got anything from them, end of story, goodbye.

My bank took their side on the part of the bill that had already been paid for that first month. I explained what had happened, and the bank "talked to AT&T" who no doubt showed them a sheet of paper with the words "He signed up for our internet and we installed it," and my bank said there was nothing to do. So that first month was a sunk cost.

But I never paid that $600. Simple as that. They forwarded it to a collections agency, I ignored it. I told them, "don't call me: I will never pay you."

It went on my credit report and my credit dropped about 40 points, making no appreciable difference to me. I ignored it. Over time the credit report recovered, and somehow after about four years AT&T withdrew the whole thing without any further action from me. It's no longer on my credit.

Moral of the story: if you can withstand a small dent in your credit, just tell MEGACORPXYZ to fuck off.

Sad that this is what you have to do these days, but it's better than no options at all.

londons_explore6• 7 years ago

You're lucky... Some collections agencies are far more rigorous... They'll come to your house every day at awkward times. They'll ring your grandma and try to tell all your friends you're in debt, etc.

If they finally get paid, it won't be $600 - it'll be $600 + $1500 of interest at 55% APR and $1200 of fees for letters, visits, phone calls etc.

ncallaway3• 7 years ago

Under the FDCPA you have the right to demand no contact with you, your workplace, or your family members.

If they willfully violate this non-contact demand, they can be on the hook for $1,000 in statutory damages. They can also be on the hook for disruption they caused at a work-place, or emotional of physical distress.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/damages-fdcpa-violat...

If a debt-collector is getting overly aggressive, send a certified letter to their headquarters explicitly invoking the FDCPA and demanding that they not contact you further. Document the letter, and save the certified letter receipt.

If they contact you further, or harass your family, document it thoroughly and then speak to a lawyer about filing a lawsuit.

emidln• 7 years ago

In my part of the USA, someone showing up to your door threatening you would likely result in the resident brandishing if not "defending" themselves. It's probably not a coincidence that I've never heard of this collection tactic in the Midwest.

gkanai• 7 years ago

I've wanted to pay for Google Fi because their offering is compelling, especially for people who travel internationally a lot but this is a great reminder of why I won't pay for a crappy customer service experience.

whack• 7 years ago

This reminds me of a similar experience with the Nexus tablet. I'm not sure whether the blame lies with Google or HTC, but it sounds all too familiar with what the author described.

TLDR: because the credit card billing address did not match the shipping address, the customer service representative refused to accept payment for a defective tablet which needed to be repaired. They insisted on mailing the tablet all the way back, and requiring that the tablet be mailed back again with a different shipping address.

https://outlookzen.com/2016/07/24/why-im-never-buying-htc-ag...

londons_explore6• 7 years ago

Sometimes it's less effort to change the billing address of the card...

Some of those 'app based' credit cards let you change the billing address with just a tap of a button. It's particularly useful when you're away from home and the company won't ship to anywhere except the billing address.

alamortsubite• 7 years ago

I live in the U.S. and frequently travel internationally. In this capacity, Fi is the best service I've used by far. When I'm in the U.S., my monthly bill is quite inexpensive, too, rarely exceeding $27 (including taxes). No B.S. hotspot fee (or having to jump through hoops to circumvent one). And I use an additional SIM card Google provided free-of-charge with an LTE modem to reverse-tunnel to a low-bandwidth automation server in a remote location. All great stuff.

Unfortunately, my experience with Fi customer service has been no better than Atwood's. Basically, if you can't solve a problem on your own, you're out of luck. To be fair, I've had terrible service with other providers, too (I haven't tried Apple but for technical reasons the iPhone would not work for me).

cletus3• 7 years ago

Two stories spring to mind.

The first is I worked at Google when the whole "real names" saga of Google Plus was going on. The worst part about that was if some algorithm decided your name wasn't real, it could block your entire Google account. You'd lose access to GMail, Drive, everything. I don't know what bright spark PMs, lawyers and executives signed off on that one but it was insanity. As a result I would strongly recommend against any family or friends use any G+ features in case the Real Names bot zapped their accounts. This was ultimately fixed but it should never have shipped that way. Ever.

The fact that disputing a charge with you credit card provider like this could result in you losing your GMail, Drive, Android developer account, etc means you should absolutely under no circumstances use that service, ever, period, no exceptions.

Don't get me wrong: I like GMail and Drive. I use them all the time. Thing is, I want to keep using them so they get firewalled from every other service that I use.

The second is something Eric Schmidt said a lot. He didn't say it first but he's well known for saying it, and that is that more revenue is the solution to every problem.

That's both true and not true. It's true in a high margin business (like search). If you look at Google financials 10+ years ago there was a point where the profit per employee was nearly $1m. It's less now but it's still pretty significant. Low margin businesses are not in its DNA.

Let me repeat that and make it clear: Google simply cannot compete in a low margin business.

Personally I learned this the hard way as I worked on Google Fiber until that was quietly shelved (by "advancing our amazing bet" no less). Fiber services are capital intensive. They require strict financial discipline and planning. There are far more moving parts to this kind of business than many people realize. Comcast, Verizon and AT&T have gotten very good at this sort of business. Google didn't (and IMHO never will).

I put Google Fi firmly in this camp. I also put making hardware at scale in this camp (compared to, say, Apple who is second to none when it comes to logistics, procurement, financing and supply chain management).

Google's DNA is hard technical problems at scale with no UI like an almost blank page with a text box and a search button. The infrastructure behind that is unbelievably good.

But telecommunications? Tied to my Google account? Sorry but that's a hard pass for me.

Gibbon13• 7 years ago

Let me repeat that and make it clear: Google simply cannot compete in a low margin business.

That reminds me of Intel. The addiction to high margin microprocessors and a captive customer base had two effects. a) Intel doesn't know how to play with customers that have a choice. b) Customers with a choice avoid designing in Intel solutions like the plague. Over the long haul Intel is a much smaller company than they would be otherwise.

Here is a good one. In the late 80's Intel fucked over Panasonic badly enough that Panasonic put Intel in their prohibited vendors list. I worked for a group that managed to get Panasonic in as a customer. And then Intel fucked them again. And back on the list they went.

Google has the same mindset that Intel does. They can't process the ramifications of their business practices on future business opportunities.

cletus3• 7 years ago

They can't process the ramifications of their business practices on future business opportunities.

Here's where that really hurts them (IMHO). Google, as a whole, has a very short attention span. A lot of things at Google began as bottom-up engineering-led projects, the poster child for which is probably GMail. This seems to work really well for things that are engineering problems. I think it works incredibly badly for a bunch of other things though.

We, as engineers, tend to get bored. There are all sorts of quotes for this in software development like after you finish the first 90% you need to finish the second 90% (I forget who said this).

I see project after project come out of Google that might be promising but it gets abandoned as the talent moves on to the next hot thing until finally it's killed. The cost of this, as you say, is paid by future projects.

The classic counterexample to me is Apple Pay (vs Google Checkout/Google Wallet/Google Pay/Android Pay/Whatever it's called now). Every few weeks Apple announces some new bank or merchant or country is launched. Over years now they've slowly been building out this ecosystem. Google just doesn't have the commitment, focus and attention for this schlep [1], which is why they'll lose. Apple does.

Apple has their failures too (Ping anyone?) but it's fair to say Apple really does put more wood behind fewer arrows [2].

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

[2] https://www.techradar.com/news/internet/page-more-wood-behin...

guajiro_natural• 7 years ago

I had similar issues too. Awful customer service, more than a month shipping delay for the Pixel 3, "Google Fi VPN" does not work in China, only the mobile data, is better to buy a SIM over there, Wifi calling didn't work either. Now here in the US, the signal is pretty bad too, sometimes while talking to someone the call just goes silent and the other person can't hear you. My pixel 3 makes a weird noise ( like an insect trapped inside your phone) from time to time. and more... I switched to Verizon a month ago.

sriram_sun2• 7 years ago

The author's experience mirrors my experience with Google Fi so much! Started with Project Fi, upgraded to a Pixel 3 recently. Putting up with poor service for a year and a half. They pretend to provide service and I pay the $35 every month. I receive all my calls at home using my computer.

I called up customer service to complain about poor service twice. Nothing happened. I just don't have the patience or time to follow up. Kudos to Jason for bringing up this issue. Also, here is a conversation between me and a friend in Mountain View who works for a large company there :D.

Me: I have Project Fi. Let me call you back using WhatsApp. Him: Oh I have Project Fi too and was going to tell you the same thing!

The call quality is absolutely terrible when both ends are using Project Fi!

sriram_sun2• 7 years ago

Since this comment gathered steam at some point, I'll also leave this here. I really want to stick with Project Fi. Whoever is in charge, please please pretty please fix the coverage issues. Work with T-Mo to just send me a booster or something. I'm ready to pay for it. Your international rates are great.

rdl3• 7 years ago

Google Fi on iPhone is pretty meh (if you travel a lot internationally), but there is one reasonable advantage of google fi over a lot of other operators: reasonably secure against malicious number porting. There are better options to protect a number, but nothing as accessible.

neilv• 7 years ago

The writer has more patience than I would, today. Halfway through, I would've switched to talking with communications/utility and consumer regulatory authorities, state attorney general's office, credit card company, etc.

kgwxd3• 7 years ago

Would love to get that script to track which Mobile Network Code I’m connected to. As soon as the Librem 5 comes out, I'm leaving Fi. I'd like to use which ever network that script indicates, if it supports the phone.

keyle• 7 years ago

I admire this man's patience and I would have lost my shi* way earlier. I'd probably have them reported to VISA for charging my card.

tomlu• 7 years ago

As a counterpoint I have contacted Google Fi support four times and was very happy with the level of service. Though it's possible that all the issues I had was within the scope of the first line of defence, and if you outside of that you get OP's experience.

Disclosure: I work for Google, but honestly I don't think it has particularly biased me to say nice things about Google Fi.

jlmorton• 7 years ago

I had almost the exact same experience. Google Fi has the worst customer service of any online company I have ever interacted with. It's a strong statement, which I've reflected on here for a moment, but I believe it's accurate.

I ordered a new Pixel 3 as part of the Cyber Monday promotion, which was $600 for the phone with $200 in Fi credits. When ordering the phone, I accidentally used the pre-filled shipping address on Google's order form. This my mistake, but I noticed it quickly when I got the order confirmation email. The default shipping address went to my office address. My company had moved officers the month prior. The office was empty and unoccupied. I couldn't receive the phone there.

Before calling Google Fi, I called FedEx. FedEx quickly answered my call and pulled up my order. Typically, FedEx is able to re-route a package that is still in shipment. However, Google Fi has placed restrictions on the shipment which prevent recipients from changing the address. Only Google can update the address.

I called Google Fi and waited on hold for over two hours. This was around the holiday season, and Fi is a newish service, so I wasn't particularly annoyed by this. When I finally got ahold of someone and explained my mistake, they said they'd open a case with their shipping team, who would be in touch with me.

Two days later, no one had contacted me, so I used Google Fi's online chat feature. After waiting in line for an hour and a half, I was connected to someone. I explained the problem again, asked if there was any ETA. They said the problem was already escalated, nothing to do but wait.

Another two days later, no contact was made. I contacted Google again. I got the same answer. The ticket has been escalated to their shipping specialists, they will be contacting me.

At this point, FedEx attempted delivery of the package, which was rejected, since no company exists at the address. I contacted Google again. They said the shipping specialists would be getting in touch with me.

One week after this, FedEx noted a delivery exception, and that the package would be returned the sender. I contacted Google again. Now that the package is being returned to Google, could they cross-ship me a replacement phone to the correct address? No - I would need to contact their shipping specialists, who would be contacting me.

Several days later, I finally received email contact from the shipping specialists. This team immediately cancelled my order, without ever talking to me. They noted that the shipper had been unable to deliver the package, so they would refund me the cost of the phone.

Unfortunately, at this point, the Cyber Monday promotion had ended. The phone now cost $200 more, and the Google Fi credits had been reduced to $100. I asked Google if they would honor their previous pricing, since I had been trying to change the shipping address for several weeks. My message:

Thanks for getting back to me. When I purchased the phone on Cyber Monday, there was a promotion, with the phone costing $599 and $200 in Google Fi Credits. Today, the price of the phone on the Fi shopping site is $799 with $100 in Fi Credits.
The package with the phone waited in XXXXXXXXXX at FedEx's facility for a week, and I contacted Fi support several times to try and get the shipping address updated. Each time, I was told that the issue had been escalated to the Shipping Specialist team, but a week later, the package was returned by FedEx. If the address had been updated when I first contacted Fi support, then FedEx would have simply delivered the package the next day.
Will Google Fi still honor the original price I paid for the phone?

Google's Response:

Thank you for the response. If you happen to process another order, please let me know. I can escalate your case to my higher level of Support for approval for the promotion. I cannot guarantee that the request will be approved, but I will explain the why you did not receive the initial order in full detail. Please let me know if you have further questions.

So I did that. Ten days later, and fully one month after I ordered the phone, I finally heard back from Google:

My name is Lee and I'm a higher level Specialist here with Google Fi. I'm working directly with our Promotions Team to determine your eligibility for our "Pixel 3 / 3 XL $400 Back" promotion that was ongoing from November 22nd @ 11:00 PM PT - November 27th @ 11:59 PM PT.
After thoroughly reviewing your account, we have determined you are ineligible for an exception to this promotion.
Per the promotion terms: "Limited time offer available from 11/22/18 11:00 PM PT through 11/27/18 11:59 PM PT, or while supplies last"
Since your original order GS.XXXX-XXXX-XXXX was returned to shipper due to an incorrect shipping address, we are unable to provide an exception.
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Every interaction with Google Fi took hours of time. None of them ever resulted in a positive experience. Google Fi was never able to do anything to help the situation. They could not update the address. They couldn't cancel the order and ship a new phone. They couldn't honor the original pricing. There was literally nothing there were ever able to do to help me recover from my mistake using an incorrect shipping address defaulted on the order phone.

NamTaf• 7 years ago

At this point, I straight-up refuse to ever entertain giving Google a cent of actual money. It's very obvious from the multitude of stories like this that no one can rely on them to provide a reasonable customer service experience unless you're a big business with a large spend.

At least with data-funded services, I can choose to stop any time. I'm never on the hook via some form of contract.

shereadsthenews• 7 years ago

It’s very likely that the rep you were communicating with was some flunky from Ingram Micro, who handle fulfillment for Fi. Not that it makes you any happier but this is just something Google can’t do in-house.

the_pwner224• 7 years ago

If Google can't:

A) do this well in house

B) outsource it to someone who can get the job done

then they have no business selling expensive phones tied to critical services which people rely on.

gecko2• 7 years ago

I've used Google Fi for years, and I've heard stories like these for years. Despite comments in this thread, I don't think these experiences are new; they're just more common now because more people are on Fi.

I think there are two major issues: first, Google doesn't really care all that much about Google Fi. It's just them keeping their foot in the water for later, not a major focus right now, so it doesn't get the attention and care it really needs. Second, Google Fi is honestly great, right up until the point it isn't: if you ask around the community, there's a strong split between people like me, who have had nothing but good experiences, and people like Jason, who have an amazingly awful experience. It's basically that Google Fi is thoroughly buggy: you're fine as long as you stay in the happy path, but the moment you get to something untested (stolen phone, FedEx loses shipment, the discount fiasco a couple weeks ago), everything goes to hell.

I've stuck with Fi so far because the pain I've hit has been negligible for me [1], but I currently assume that it's just a matter of time before I get burned in some capacity. It's a trade-off that makes sense, given how I use my phone, but it's annoying having that in the back of my mind.

[1]: The one thing they did flub was the Pixel 3 discount a couple weeks ago, wherein they accidentally charged and then refunded the entire value of a Pixel 3. Because I pay my bill by credit card, and because that card is nowhere near its credit limit, this was just two lines on a bill for me that I never really have to think about. But for those who pay their bill by debit, or who were near a limit, or whose bill rolled over between the charge and the refund, that was also a horrible experience that angered them about Fi. Those kinds of stories have been par for the course.

neogodless• 7 years ago

That sounds like automation in a nutshell. On rails, everything is excellent. Veer off course and there's no recovery!

Usually humans fix those outliers, but if things are just too stuck on rails, there may be no fixing derailment.

It's like even if a CSR individually has excellent intentions and believes there will be a follow-up, it's not actually on any scripted recovery plan, so it just won't happen.

killjoywashere• 7 years ago

So, I'm a Fi customer and have a Pixel 2. I'm planning to upgrade on the next release but the rumblings from folks since the Project Fi to Google Fi transition have me concerned. Is there a rate-my-professor for phone plans?

busymom0• 7 years ago

This isn't just the case at Google Fi. Google's support sucks for their developers too. The /r/androiddev sub has countless stories of developers getting account banned and apps removed for vague reasons and then unable to talk to a real human being on Google's support side. They get canned responses from their bots.

I can't wait and hope that one day Amazon takes over Google somehow. SO far, my experiences with Amazon support has been outstanding. If an item doesn't arrive in the "prime" 1 day shipping window, they immediately ship a new item right away and gets delivered the next day and simply ask you to return the item if the first one shows up eventually. They have done this for a knife set which was over $300 in value and the first item never showed up, so they sent me another one the next day. Other times when I have contacted Amazon support, they have been amazing too. If a delivery is late by even a day, they offer me a month of free prime shipping. And this is simply via chat, not even phone support.

Google should take a few lessons from Amazon and at least offer decent support for their paying customers and developers who help flourish their play store considering they take 30% cut of the developer earnings.

wetpaws• 7 years ago

My app was removed without warning because I forgot to update privacy policy field when google decided to make it mandatory.

tacon• 7 years ago

I was limping along on a fading Nexus 5X (goes to sleep for a night, then revives) and refusing to pay the outrageous prices for the Pixels. Huawei has a phone I was eyeing, and I would have dumped Google Fi. But the Pixel 3a came out at exactly the right time, so I am still in the Google fold for this product cycle. But this story cured me of ever buying a phone directly from Google. Just like one shouldn't buy web hosting and domain registration from the same entity, the lesson here is never buy a device directly from Google. The risk is just too great.

honkycat• 7 years ago

I've worked with google support before on multiple occasions. For their retail store, fi, and their cloud offering at the $400/mo cloud support contract.

Their support is bad. I would not recommend using any of their products. I would not choose to work there because I cannot imagine it is any better internally.

programmarchy• 7 years ago

I then realized that I couldn’t cancel my account because I’d be on the hook for the whole $600 for the phone.

Should have just done a credit card charge back at this point.

kamfc• 7 years ago

"... leaving Google Fi [for Tesla's modern, re-imagined Wardenclyffe Tower global Internet service]."

seandoe• 7 years ago

Interesting. I've been a project fi user for a few years now and have had nothing but great customer service everytime. I loved leaving the Verizon bullshit and appreciate the straightforward pricing and customer website.

cyrix100• 7 years ago

Seems like a good solution would be to file against them in small claims for the $70 plus time investment.

cmurf• 7 years ago

How can a remittance period begin if the customer never has possession of the goods? As far as I'm aware, the FOB is destination in all such consumer transactions. Only in commercial shipping is there such a thing as FOB shipping point where the buy takes legal possession of the goods the moment the goods leave shipper's dock.

I think the remittance expiration is b.s. because the remittance period never began because the buyer never took possession of the goods.

smeggysmeg• 7 years ago

I'm a long-time Google Fi customer and moderate another community about Google Fi. Some of the criticism about Google not being as customer focused is valid, but the two biggest problems with Google Fi are:

* The dependence on rigid processes. Customer support reps are cogs in a machine with no ability to override automated actions or to circumvent when processes go awry.

* Google does absolutely zero of the inventory or shipping. It's contracted out to Ingram Micro. Anyone in the IT world who has dealt with them knows they screw up a lot. Not terribly, but unless you have a direct line to them, you're hosed.

Combine these two factors and then add some typical call center metrics focus and nobody is empowered or interested in going to bat for you when the process falls apart.

pishpash4• 7 years ago

Not an excuse at all. It is Google that chooses their own logistics partners and support team. Why do they choose shitty ones?

falsedan3• 7 years ago

I remember when Amazon fucked up and signed a contract with the worst local courier company in the UK; they were locked in and couldn't back out. So the advised people who'd previously had poor service from those couriers to put "please deliver with royal mail" in the delivery notes and would ship it out-of-contract & ate the fees.

Sebguer• 7 years ago

I've come very close to canceling Fi due to awful customer support experiences, but each time they've just narrowly, barely salvaged things before I hit the point and wanted to deal with the headache of transitioning to another phone provider.

uptownfunk• 7 years ago

What a world it will be where one-by-one the things that make Google Google are slowly picked off, not by startups, but by other hungrier and ever-expanding firms.

There are no sacred cows.

I repeat, there are no sacred cows.

I am waiting for the day when we will have Amzn Mail, Amzn Phones (I think they already tried this), some type of social media shopping clone hybrid thing that takes on Insta. And for the final nail in the coffin, Amzn Search.

What's shocking is that these companies are the ones with the capital to hire the best and the brightest (alongside say GS and other IBs as well as MBB etc., say what you will, but the folks that work there are actually smart even though they're not engineers). What does this say about future prospects for growth and share prices?

In any case, it's becoming more and more apparent, that no matter how big and bad you are, there's someone as big or as threatening that can come and eat your pie.

sexyflanders• 7 years ago

I feel like this is a case of fool me once same on you, fool me twice shame on me.

xs83• 7 years ago

I got angry just reading that - Personally I would have started a claim back process from my card provider - you can guarantee that it would have caused something on Google's End once they started getting chargeback notices.

blago• 7 years ago

Some people point out that Google's usual response to chargebacks is to retaliate and ban the account from using their services. However, I think that if enough people fought, and the chargeback rate reached some critical level, they would have to answer to Visa and Mastercard and be forced to make a change.

dfrage5• 7 years ago

The OP is an Android developer, eating the $70 dollars was part of the cost of continuing to do that business.

But it's not going to help their brand or encourage others who are too tied to Google to sign on to services like Fi, and if not with this guy, in general it'll encourage people to find other lines of work.

I suspect so many people are sufficiently tied more or less to Google that the pool able to do chargebacks is small enough it won't prompt Visa/Mastercard on down to take action.

everydaypanos• 7 years ago

I can't understand why would somebody order something from Google and then use the chat "support" app to ask where their package is. All packages have tracking numbers and as soon as they are "on their way" you just contact the Courier or use their site to track it precisely. Why escalate it to the seller who has no idea where the package actually is?

ledbettj• 7 years ago

Because when the courier is Fedex, contacting them would be even more futile than Google.

I also use Project Fi; I also ordered a Pixel3 when it went on sale last month. Fedex attempted delivery when I wasn't home; I had important meetings the next day and couldn't stay home again, so I used Fedex's "hold for pickup at Fedex Store" feature to re-route the package. This was a crucial mistake.

Fedex then refused to deliver the package to either my house or the store; they sat on the package for TWO WEEKS, all while their "Customer Support" lied to me about what the status was (It will be delivered EOD today; it's already been delivered; it's going to be held for pickup...etc).

In the end the only way to get them to deliver my package was to contact the shipper, Google. It was delivered two days later.

luckylion4• 7 years ago

Why escalate it to the seller who has no idea where the package actually is?

Because shipping is the seller's responsibility. If the courier loses the package, you can't do anything, it's the seller's problem. Only after the package was delivered to you does it become your problem.

rfkashani• 7 years ago

Sadly, the only worthwhile way to get help for Google Fi nightmares is through Ziggy. https://www.reddit.com/r/ProjectFi/comments/72dcgh/reddit_re...

I had to pester him a couple of times, file a BBB complaint and finally ask Google for the registered officer of the company since I was literally going to sue. That's when they filed a "remorse exception" that actually helped.

Also - ask for a "Specialist" - they're the only ones who can help. Every other guy is a "supervisor" at Google Fi support and they can't do anything. Had to call in more than 30 times and exchanged upwards of 60 emails. It's a shame.

dwg• 7 years ago

I've had a similar problem with Google Fi customer support when my phone suddenly stopped charging while traveling abroad. Sparing the details, the lesson I learned is not to buy a phone from Google. As a customer you are at a severe disadvantage to Google, because Fi is not their bread & butter and they don't seem to mind if you cancel. Furthermore, in the event of a dispute, Google will turn off related services on your account, for example your associated Gmail account. After learning this lesson the hard way I wanted to stop my Fi service, but unfortunately I still found the Fi plan to be the best choice for my present situation: I am outside the U.S. for most of the year. I hope other carriers will improve their international plans.

gaia• 7 years ago

International roaming at no extra cost is great, but if you leave Google Fi you can pay for that when you needed it.

The real reason to stick with Google Fi is: it's the only carrier (ok, MNVO) that requires 2FA for a SIM swap.

warp_factor2• 7 years ago

Google Fi is a huge joke.

I had the same type of shenanigans with their customer service. Eventually after calling every day for about two weeks I managed to find a competent supervisor that managed to follow up on what he said.

Since then I moved my main number back to ATT and I keep a Google Fi account open for my international travels. I only ever use Fi outside the US and I pause the account whenever I'm in the US.

GoogleFi is a good deal financially but if there is something I learned after years dealing with shady companies is that you don't want any of those shady companies have any leverage by keeping something essential such as your phone number under control as a leverage.

Sadly I saw exactly the same type of issue with their Google Cloud customer service. I really think that Google employee still think they work for the best company in the world and that people cannot wait to do business with them. They need to get out of their little bubble.

innocentoldguy• 7 years ago

Google doesn't have customer service. They have instead built mechanisms to help them avoid any kind of meaningful interactions with their customers at all. If they've indeed built anything at all, it is customer neglect.

benjaminwootton• 7 years ago

I had the same delivery and customer experience farce with Google many years ago on one of the early Nexus tablets.

The author is right that it damages their entire brand. I’m now involved in advising large enterprises on their cloud strategy, and I still feel a tinge of bitterness saying anything nice about GCP!

pointcloud• 7 years ago

Recently I switched from Google Fi to AT&T for similar reasons. After I transferred my number out of Google Fi, there was a questionnaire from Google asking why I switched, and interestingly, among all the selections (coverage, price, etc.), there was not an option mentioning customer service.

Havoc• 7 years ago

Google as best as I can tell just doesn't do customer support. At least not the human interaction kind

StreamBright4• 7 years ago

This story reminds me the time when I bought a Google Chromecast. It lasted 2 weeks and the device went completely dead. Chat with support:

- which light is on?

- none, device does not power on

- do you understand that is dead and wont power on?

- yeah but which led is blinking?

At this stage i hung up and went over to Amazon, luckily i have ordered the device through them, and after few clicks the replacement device was on its way.

msh317• 7 years ago

Sorry to see your unhappy with Google Fi - I switched from previously having Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T - and what a difference.

Now that said, the one major observation I see about Google, Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, etc. is that Google does not have a lead Architect for Google products and services. The company is certainly leading the charge with technology - yet there is no one taking the charge of bringing everything together.

This reminds me of the early days of Apple - remember the Newton? Wow a computer you could hold in your hand - and the tech community were all wowed - yet the consumer didn't understand what to do with it - they were not coders and until it did something it was just another piece of tech. Then 3Com came along and created the Palm Pilot - and the handheld computer took off.

That said - I believe this is why Google like Microsoft and Apple have such a customer service problem - they have simply become tech company - customers are just a part of their products and don't receive the attention of an advocate within the company's product development team.

ta1234567890• 7 years ago

This sounds very familiar to me. About two years ago I wanted to switch to google fi. Ordered a phone online, which I paid on full for, then waited. The phone never arrived, when talking to google it was very similar to the article's situation. The only "solution" they offered was to (after a month!) refund me (which it would take 2 weeks to go through) when they could confirm with FedEx the package was not delivered (which I had already done, but it would take them days to do), and then I could buy a phone again. But they just wouldn't send me another phone. So I would be forced to wait almost 2 months to get the product and service they had initially promised to deliver in 3 days.

I ended up having to call my bank to get a refund. It was a very frustrating experience and I really wanted to like Google fi.

throw7• 7 years ago

Google's 'shipping & receiving" seems to have a logistics problem. Fi support shifted to s & r, but they did nothing. The depts sound to be butting heads. Would love to know what's going on internally there. The CEO should step in.

mkane848• 7 years ago

I literally just left Fi last week and got an iPhone XS Max and god do I feel justified. Been a Fi user for about as long, if not longer, than the author and I can affirm the fears of having to deal with customer service and the shakiness of the trade-ins, getting account credits, and poor communication overall.

What happened to the Google that made things that Just Work™?

arrozconcosas• 7 years ago

Potential moral of the story: use an iPhone and major cellular provider or else you'll pay for the savings by having terrible customer support and experience

sixty4bit• 7 years ago

One of his topics really hit home for me:

Customers don’t differentiate branches of a company when thinking about brand identity.

Google Fi was running a special, buy the phone from Google Fi and you get $800 off of your bill. I bought the phone from Google. Not Google Fi. It took 3 months for them to figure out that I was never going to get that $800. Every rep that I spoke with except for the last one said, "it looks like you should get this money, we don't know why you aren't."

The benefits of Fi out weigh the shittiness of their customer support, or lack thereof. And none of the other carriers are any better. That's the only reason I am still a subscriber.

DubiousPusher• 7 years ago

Wow! Good times. Almost tops my own worst experience which was with Avis car rentals. The author indicates that this kind of experience is probably due to systemic problems within Google's customer support program and I'd guess that's right.

I've noticed a pattern that many companies have adopted. First they silo the customer service division usually culminating in remotely locating the customer service frontline. They then cut ties between any part of the company and rank and file customer service workers, linking them only to their supervisors. In the final step the supervisors are prohibited from forwarding customers anywhere. Then customer service becomes like a separate company within the company. I've seen this structure over and over and the companies with the worst service always have this shape.

You call. You get a call center. They can't transfer you anywhere. You ask for a supervisor. They try to tell why you don't need one. You insist. You get one. The supervisor takes your call. You discover they can't fix your problem. You ask who can. They can't say. You ask if there's anyone else you can talk to. They say no. You ask for their manager. They say you can't talk to them. You ask for corporate level customer relations. They don't have that number. On and on and on...

My theory is that structuring customer service into such a separate silo actually breeds a combative relationship between customer service and company leadership. Without more contact between the people building and servicing the products and frontline customer support people, customer service just looks like a big fat cost center. No useful information makes it out (by design) and year after year it's just a big red line item for everyone else. Of course this leads to a perpetual push to decrease costs in customer service which leads to really regressive behavior. Too many customers are need free replacements tighten the grip on all comps. Too many high level customer support people are still giving things away. Get rid of any high level customer support personnel. Could we save money with less supervisors? Yes but the one's we've got are already overworked. Well, track the number of times an employee allows customers to escalate and create disincentives.

In this way customer service actual becomes the opposite of what it's meant to be. Instead of enabling customers or helping them it becomes a hindrance. It becomes a wall that protects the rest of the company especially the leadership from having to have any contact with the unwashed masses.

peter_d_sherman• 7 years ago

Great article!

Excerpt:

"Document everything. Write down dates, times, conversation points, who will do what and when. Get peoples’ names. Then if support drags on you can maintain some sanity and hold people accountable."

That's a gem of advice for anyone who needs to deal with an unresponsive customer service department in any nameless, faceless, and/or bureaucratic organization.

But, that being said, I wouldn't hold the lower-level people to be ultimately accountable... That's because they are usually not empowered to act by corporate policy, the proper infrastructure for action, internal politics, or any number of other company-imposed barriers...

Ultimately, what holds these companies to account, over time, is dwindling sales, the loss of profitability, and the migration of their customer bases to other companies...

Customers are always voting with their feet...

Friedduck• 7 years ago

This nicely illustrates my experience with Google fiber. Even though I happily use some of their nest products I’d hesitate purchasing anything from Google I couldn’t just walk away from.

They don’t even attempt to be competent at customer service.

Keverw• 7 years ago

Seen another story on HN a while back where someone also had trouble with Google Fi... Stories like this make me feel like Google doesn't have the customer service part down, and I'm not sure if I'd want to rely on them with anything that deals with money. However I'm sure people at Google read HN, so probably an issue they are working to improve internally I hope. I know technical wise they are ahead of their game though, but feel like the human touch side needs to be worked on especially for paying services or earning money from Google products as a partner. For example, I'm not sure if Youtube Partners who have any issues can talk to an actual person.

Also, he mentioned he kept having to re-explain his situation to several representatives when calling them. I don't get why companies can't transfer the call and leave a note for the next agent...

Sometimes I feel like at some companies agents in general that just don't know, press a button to transfer you to a random agent in the queue (with some priority to skip over everyone else) instead of transferring to someone more specific or higher level. One reason that gives me this feel for sure is when they ask your name and details even though you already told someone else before being transferred.

I think a key thing that would make me happy with support is when transferring over to someone else they already have a description of your problem, account information so you don't have to explain over and over.

I had an issue with another provider (not Google) where you could text but couldn't make calls and got transferred to like 6 different agents then decided to give up and porting away as I felt like just a number to them. As a tech geek, I feel like something probably screwed up porting in the first place but I doubt a support rep on a phone would even have the tools to investigate a problem with like. I hate talking on the phone unless I have to. I rather try to figure it out myself or use online chat first.

Leaving Google Fi

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