Google Fiber Cuts Kansas City Resident's Internet Access Over 12 Cent Dispute (kansascity.com) 191
New submitter twentysixV writes: Google Fiber offered a seven-year internet service if you pay upfront for connecting to your house, including taxes and fees. Victoria Tane signed this deal: $300 to connect, plus $25.08 for taxes and fees. Google Fiber internally accounts it as ongoing recurring payments. Kansas then raises taxes. Instead of absorbing the tax increase for customers who paid upfront, Google Fiber books it to the customers. To punish the customer for now being late on paying 12 cents she was not aware she now owed for additional taxes, Google then cut her internet access. According to Kansas City News, Tane tried to pay but Google wouldn't take checks for less than $10. Google reportedly tried contacting her via emails and voice messages, but Tane never saw them. When asked about the incident, Google Fiber issued a statement: "As with any customer who has a balance due, we made repeated attempts to reach Ms. Tane to resolve the matter. Google Fiber values our customers, and we have since worked with Ms. Tane to restore her Fiber service." Google forgave the total, restored Tane's service in less than an hour and credited her account for $30, reports Kansas City News.
1 hour. (Score:5, Insightful)
So less than an hour after the automatic disconnect, it was fixed. And they wiped the balance, thus eating the cost increase. Plus the time spent trying to reach her ahead of time.
Such a bullshit nonstory, such a bullshit headline. Fuck you, Beau.
Re:1 hour. (Score:4, Interesting)
So less than an hour after the automatic disconnect, it was fixed. And they wiped the balance, thus eating the cost increase. Plus the time spent trying to reach her ahead of time.
Such a bullshit nonstory, such a bullshit headline.
On the one hand, compared to the usual expected experience from the incumbent monopolists, yes.
On the other hand, nobody at google looks at this sort of thing and goes "waitaminute...", so that "trying to reach her" is also completely fully automated with no human in the loop anywhere, or the humans in the loop aren't actually thinking at all.
Somebody ought to've caught it before it cost them a bundle of bad press and a couple tenners in credit. As damage reduction it's cheap but it can only ever reduce, not wipe out the damage. For it's still cutting someone off over a ridiculously low amount that was essentially a bookkeeping fail, that they never ought to have charged due to their promises to the customer.
Fuck you, Beau.
Usually, yeah. For this, maybe not.
For sure, there are more spectacular failures to be found inflicted on other ISPs' customers every day, but this still is a sure fail that a well-regulated company ought not to have exhibited.
Re: 1 hour. (Score:2)
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It's pretty unusual for a company to "not" be set up to take yer money. Most companies have fantastic amounts of "take yer money" machinery, including billing systems, tracking systems, auditing system, bookkeeping systems, ledgers, graphs, and powerpoint-presentation-o-matic generators for the stockholder meetings. Companies usually have far less "give yer money back" hardware which usually goes at the rate of Joe writing checks in the basement, and please wait at least 6 months for them to clear.
In this c
Re:1 hour. (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, nobody at google looks at this sort of thing and goes "waitaminute...", so that "trying to reach her" is also completely fully automated with no human in the loop anywhere, or the humans in the loop aren't actually thinking at all.
This is standard. I changed internet providers about 3 years ago. To close my account, they required me to take my router in to their authorized retailer, and he calculated the final bill and gave me a refund for the unused portion of my last month on the spot. But since 1c coins were made obsolete here about a decade ago, he over-refunded me by 1 cent, following good retail practice of erring in favour of the customer. Every month since then, I've received a bill for 0.01. Obviously there is some human review or sanity check before sending accounts to the debt collectors, as they haven't tried to take it any further than sending me a bill every month in the last 3 years, but it is quite amusing that even with a fully automated email based system, it has to have cost them more than 0.01 to keep doing this for so long.
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This is standard. I changed internet providers about 3 years ago. To close my account, they required me to take my router in to their authorized retailer, and he calculated the final bill and gave me a refund for the unused portion of my last month on the spot. But since 1c coins were made obsolete here about a decade ago, he over-refunded me by 1 cent, following good retail practice of erring in favour of the customer. Every month since then, I've received a bill for 0.01. Obviously there is some human review or sanity check before sending accounts to the debt collectors, as they haven't tried to take it any further than sending me a bill every month in the last 3 years, but it is quite amusing that even with a fully automated email based system, it has to have cost them more than 0.01 to keep doing this for so long.
This is no longer becoming standard. I recently noticed my phone company contract has the cutoff at $10 which I actually thought was high. I've also on multiple occasions tried to pay a bill from the local hospital in the $5-$15 dollar range only to find out that the hospital already waived and closed it. They wouldn't even let me pay it. I do occasionally still get checks and bills for under $5 but I haven't seen one under $1 for quite a while. Most banks also have policies where they will close accou
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Your doctors and hospitals are sensible. We've gotten a bill mailed to us for $0.13 before. I know they paid more on the postage. They did waive it after we called and asked, but I don't know why they don't have that filter built in.
Right now we've got a bill for $1.16 from the pediatrician on our counter. That one isn't quite as absurd, and if we owe it we're happy to pay it, but it still seems silly.
Re:1 hour. (Score:4, Funny)
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The $10 minimum for checks is interesting though. Someone I know had a similar issue; they owed the DWP $0.80 but couldn't send a check for less than $1. They were getting past due notices, so they ended up sending a $5 check, and got a $4.20 refund.
Checks are retarded.
Re:1 hour. (Score:5, Insightful)
The $10 minimum for checks is interesting though.
Having a $10 minimum is reasonable if they also have a policy of rolling over any charge for less than $10.
Having a $10 minimum while cutting of customers that owe $0.12 is not reasonable.
Re: 1 hour. (Score:2)
And having a system that cuts people off after being $.12 short is fucking stupid.
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It's quaint that people in the US still use checks. :-)
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It's quaint that people in the US still use checks. :-)
One box of checks usually lasts me 4-5 years.
Checks are better than cash for paying small people not set up to accept credit cards like babysitters, lawn care, school fundraisers, school tshirts, friends, etc...
Checks are also better than credit cards for larger purchases like rent, daycare, and taxes where that 3% fee is significant.
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The answer isn't to keep using antiquated pieces of paper, or to use credit cards. The answer is to use bank transfers, which every developed country on the planet uses.
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The answer isn't to keep using antiquated pieces of paper, or to use credit cards. The answer is to use bank transfers, which every developed country on the planet uses.
None of the examples I gave would a bank transfer work better. To pay my local taxes, I do have the option of a bank transfer online but there is a fee for that too. There is no way to pay taxes in person without a check, a money order, or cash. A bank transfer for buying girl scout cookies or something similar is laughable. A bank transfer might work for paying your landlord if that person is set up for that but if the landlord only has a couple units, it's probably more expensive to set up than proces
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Seriously, if checks are obsolete in other countries, what do most countries use for small (in size or frequency) person to person transfers?
Bank transfers, just like I said.
Just because the US is a backwards country full of religious morons that can't figure out how to implement free and easy bank transfers doesn't mean it can't be done.
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Bitcoin wouldn't be as successful if banks were efficient. If I can send someone in Germany 100 Euros in Bitcoin cheaper than I can use a bank, the bank is doing something seriously wrong.
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Exactly. If you insist on a payment of $0.12, that is stupid, but it is probably you right. However, you should also offer the full range of initial payment options. Although to be honest, I do not know a payment method that would make sense .
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> Probably why first-world countries stopped using them a decade or more ago.
The fact that banks like to take a piece of every credit card transaction that ever gets processed has nothing to do with this.
This is the first time I've ever heard of a company comparable to a national ISP not take checks (even small checks) as payment. This entire mess is caused entirely by the same sort of "but we're better than that" attitude you're trying to perpetrate.
No, it's not the 24th century yet. It doesn't matter h
Article Blames; I Praise (Score:5, Insightful)
The tone of the headline and text is critical. But if there is a story here at all, it's how decent Google acted about it. We should read this, not as it was intended, but as an article of praise for Google.
Comcast, TWC, Spectrum, or whatever you are now, take notice. This is how to get people to like you: when you find your policies and automated systems have done something absurd, sacrifice the small change, fix the problem quickly, shell out a few courtesy bucks, and enjoy free publicity and good will.
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No, I don't think cutting off her internet for a 12 cent bill is decent at all, especially when she had already paid upfront in full.
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You misunderstand me. Organizations set up systems, whether by automation or by policies individuals within the organization are compelled to enact, in order to ensure consistent, efficient, and fair application of policy. A rule under such systems might include the requirement that a balance carried over X number of months will result in termination. Such a straightforward rule would be used by about any company, inasmuch as no company will want to be caught in an argument over defining precisely where in
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It's very interesting how you think companies don't want to argue about "where in the continuum from $0 to $100 owed one should have service cut off" but y
Re:1 hour. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have comcast, was down for 3 days before they got it restored, and my bill was current. And I pay more for my internet with comcast then I would would google fiber.
If this was comcast, I would have been on the phone for an hour only to be told I needed to call a different department that was now closed. If this is how google mistreats people, please SIGN ME UP!
Re:1 hour. (Score:5, Interesting)
Everything seemed fine at first. I got the bills, paid them, the service continued. Then about 3 months later I got a letter from Verizon which contained a refund check for the same amount of my monthly bill. I called Verizon, and the CSR had no idea what the refund check was about. He said my account was paid and current. I didn't quite believe him (TANSTAAFL). So I waited for the following month's statement, which indeed showed no balance due. I called Verizon again, and again the CSR was unable to explain the refund check. Since the check said it was only good for 6 months and I was at 5 months, I went ahead and cashed it.
Long story short, when they'd moved my service to the new account, they'd applied my last payment for the old account to the new account. So my new account had a credit for the monthly fee. After 3 months their computer system noticed the continuous credit, automatically generated a refund check, and sent it to me. This was why everything appeared fine on my new account.
My old account however had never been paid off - they'd applied that payment to my new account. It continued accruing late fees, until after several months they sent it to collections and dinged my credit. All of this without contacting me by cell phone or email (both of which were on file with the old account) or postal mail (I'd set up forwarding with the post office). Apparently their system had no notes saying that my new account was generated as the result of a move, and oh by the way here is the old account number. So the CSRs never checked nor even knew that I had an old account.
I confronted Verizon about this, with multiple phone calls and letters (with a year's worth of bills and copies of checks I'd sent them paying each bill in time), pointing out that it was their error which caused all this. They refused to remove the bad credit report. I had to send copies of my documentation to all three credit agencies contesting it. I was hounded by a collections agency (funny how they were able to get my cell phone number from my old account when Verizon couldn't) who thankfully gave up after I sent them a copy of all the documentation as well. Unfortunately, they apparently sold the "debt" to another collections agency, and I had to do it all again a few months later. And then it happened again with another collections agency almost a year later.
So yeah, fixing the problem even after a few hours on the phone is comparatively good customer service.
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So less than an hour after the automatic disconnect, it was fixed. And they wiped the balance, thus eating the cost increase. Plus the time spent trying to reach her ahead of time.
Such a bullshit nonstory..
I agree it isn't much of a story, but what moron design such a system? And is this the same people writing the software for autonomous cars? As an example of how it could've been done, my insurance company simply absorbs any transaction under $10. I'm sure they just add all of these up and spread them across everyone's premium next year, but it makes small fry shit like this a non-problem.
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Also, any large business that wont take a small check is nonsense. They have a very significant business relationship with a bank that handles both their extremely large payroll as well as check deposits from
Re:1 hour. (Score:5, Insightful)
Such a bullshit nonstory, such a bullshit headline. Fuck you, Beau.
Yes, I don't understand the editorial line that /. has taken - it is becoming more and more about inflating trivia to make it sound sensational, rather than real news with some thoughtful analysis behind. The thing is, this editorial line frustrates those of us who have been faithful readers for years, adding much of the comment that is actually driving the success of /. - when we submit comments, we do valuable work for the site in generating interest and starting cascades of comments etc, and we don't receive payment in any form. On that background, is it wise of the editors to constantly frustrate us with deceptive headlines? Every time I come across such a story and click on a link to an idiotic, vapid non-story, I get a little closer to simply abandoning /. as inconsequential. That is sad, I think - at on time this community gave name to the 'slashdot effect' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect), but when has that last happened? Bad editorship is what has eroded the core contributers away - those of us that are still left, stay mostly out of habit.
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Such a bullshit nonstory, such a bullshit headline. Fuck you, Beau.
Yes, I don't understand the editorial line that /. has taken - it is becoming more and more about inflating trivia to make it sound sensational, rather than real news with some thoughtful analysis behind. The thing is, this editorial line frustrates those of us who have been faithful readers for years, adding much of the comment that is actually driving the success of /. - when we submit comments, we do valuable work for the site in generating interest and starting cascades of comments etc, and we don't receive payment in any form. On that background, is it wise of the editors to constantly frustrate us with deceptive headlines? Every time I come across such a story and click on a link to an idiotic, vapid non-story, I get a little closer to simply abandoning /. as inconsequential. That is sad, I think - at on time this community gave name to the 'slashdot effect' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect), but when has that last happened? Bad editorship is what has eroded the core contributers away - those of us that are still left, stay mostly out of habit.
I still like the user based moderating system better than most discussion websites. At this point do stories automatically get promoted to the home page based on the firehouse submissions? If so I could understand how things like this get through. Otherwise this appears to be an attack ad by Google's competitors rather than real news story.
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No, the story is how much it costs for 12 cents. Most companies have policies that forgive certain amounts, as well as absorb certain amounts. For example, if you look closely, your taxes are probably marked as "paid" if they're +/- $20 or so, because the tax offic
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A collection agency buys a debt off a company, and then you owe the money to the agency. How would it be legal for them to jack it up arbitrarily? They don't have any agreement with you, you just owe them money.
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And I don't see where they tried to reach her ahead of time. It appears to me that all of the emails and voice messages were issued during the two days while her connection was down.
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Been switching to Brave and DuckDuckGo and zoho. However, this is not an example of Google being evil. This is an example of Google being a good corporate citizen.
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No, not exactly. This is an example of Google being totally incompetent in their billing (which will probably be fixed now, after this embarrassment), but once some humans finally got involved it was quickly fixed and rectified.
You're right, it's not an example of evil at all. But it is an example of some incompetence (because, as many others have pointed out here already, other companies have long had policies to not bother billing people for such trivial amounts; this isn't something new). So it proves
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There were probably a lot of automated systems in the chain and not a lot of humans, so of course nobody cared.
there should be an auto pay flag and an under $1 f (Score:2)
there should be an auto pay flag and an under $1 flag and if both then just drop it.
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No need to wipe it, you keep it there and only issue invoices for > $10
Invoices are what go "overdue", not balances.
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Well, that would make me try to game the system. Say my bill is $30 each month. I'll pay $29.01, every month, just to get the free $0.99.
Every system I know that works like this will add the outstanding balance on the next bill, so it'd be $30.99 the next month. Also that hanging dollar may prevent them from closing out your account until the balance is paid in full so it may not be a free dollar, just the free loan of a dollar. Yay.
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Well, that would make me try to game the system. Say my bill is $30 each month. I'll pay $29.01, every month, just to get the free $0.99.
That's very simple to fix. You put in a threshold, below which the company won't bother harassing the customer for the amount due (perhaps $5 or $10). But you never actually forgive the debt, you just hold it over. So if someone like you tries to game the system by underpaying every month, you won't get away with it: the past-due amount will show up on the next bill, an
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This works in reverse too. I knew a guy who had a postbox embedded in the front of his house (it was there when he bought it;
probably installed in Victorian times) and the Royal Mail used to pay him rent. It was really just a token amount and it was less than the threshold so they'd just accumulate it it and send him a payment when it got big enough.
Think about it. (Score:2, Insightful)
They cut her internet access. Than sent her an email about it.
These are the folks developing cars that drive themselves.
Re:Think about it. (Score:5, Informative)
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Google forgave the total, restored Tane's service in less than an hour and credited her account for $30
This is the headline! A telco forgiving debt? Unheard of! Credit to her account? Now you're just talking bullshit! This is a telecommunications company, after all. Restored service in less than an hour?! What in the hell are you smokin' son? No telco I know of can wrap their collective group think around the idea of less than an hour.
If this is how Google operates as a telco then my hats off to them. Yeah, sounds like their billing system has some issues, but customer service seems to be doing above average
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old joke, heard from the three stooges but probably pre-dates even them.
scene is a person reading a letter. last line of letter is:
"PS: if you didn't get this letter, let me know and I'll send it again"
lol
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That is similar also to the old gag of after taking roll call, finishing with, "If you are not here, raise your hand."
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Someone who still sends checks in the mail instead of making an electronic payment.
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We make payments for bills that are unlikely to change. We don't for variable bills (like credit cards). We're really not happy about the idea of giving someone else the ability to grab arbitrary amounts of money from our bank account.
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Perhaps they accidentally poached some developers from their incompetent neighbors over in San Jose (aka eBay).
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http://www.google.com/search?q... [google.com] :P
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They cut her internet access. Than sent her an email about it.
These are the folks developing cars that drive themselves.
I thought long and hard about this and still don't understand the problem. Are you suggesting there are people who have fibre to their houses but don't have at least 3 internet subscriptions for various devices in their houses from which they can read an email?
If this were some rural dial-up then sure, I'd sort of understand. But really this day and age your home internet going doing has no bearing on your ability to read your emails.
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After Google re-connects her account, she should retroactively check her e-mail and have the error corrected so as to not have been disconnected.
And how, praytell, could she have corrected the error?
The problem was caused by the taxes going up, which Google passed on to their customers instead of absorbing it themselves. That caused her to owe a whopping 12 cents, for which Google had no mechanism for her to pay, other than making a trip in person to Mountain View to hand over a dime and two pennies.
It was completely out of her hands.
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Whoosh
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Oops. I think my sarcometer was a bit off that day. Yeah, that's it. :D
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British Rail and National Rail are not even attempting the same role. BR was a vertically integrated organisation that got to maintain tracks and run trains. NR maintains the infrastructure for rail firms of various levels of competence who then proceed to cause reliability issues through feats like not managing to have enough drivers (hello Southern) and costing more in subsidies than BR did. So, well, you're slightly unfair to BR here.
Is it Even Legal (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it even legal to send out a revised bill asking for more tax money after a sale has been finalized and paid in full, because of some crazy internal accounting scheme that was probably not even public disclosed to the customers?
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That's a good question. I wonder about it because I have an Airbnb rental. Until August, I had to calculate and remit the sales and motel tax to the state. Okay, did that. But starting August, Airbnb stated that they were collecting the tax. Okay, fine. I called the state tax office, and they said I did not have to send in taxes August forward. But what about the guests who paid in full before August for stays after? Did they get another bill for the tax? Or did they just get forgotten? Dunno.
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In my amateur opinion, I don't think that what Google did was legal.
So I understand the Google was accruing the revenue over the period, but that should only affect P/L calculatio
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They did apply the tax up front. What happened was the tax changed during the seven years, going up very slightly.
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I don't think that you understand the meaning of "up front".
Google made a sale of $300. They should have applied the tax that was due on the day that the $300 payment was made. Tane did not pay in instalments.
In fact, I'll go further: I think that Google broke the law. Google collected sales tax at the time of the $300 payment and held onto it, instead of paying it to the state that quarter.
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Let's imagine that I buy a large appliance. Say, a refrigerator.
The store charges the taxes. I pay everything: the price of the appliance and the taxes.
12 months later, the sales tax rate increases. Do I now owe more sales taxes on my purchase of the appliance? Obviously, no. So how is this different from the situation in the article?
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You've proven my point by contradiction. This purchase is exactly NOT like buying a refrigerator.
From the state's perspective, this is an annual service, with annual taxes due. As I said before, the single-fee-up-front thing is between Google and the customer, and is a creation of Google, which the state has nothing to do with.
Google charged ALL the sales taxes for the seven year period up front as part of the $300. But during that interval, taxes went up slightly. So from the state's perspective, someb
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It sounds to me like Google made a sale of service, asking for a payment that included taxes. Since the customer didn't pay taxes, Google assumed that responsibility. Unless there was something in the sales agreement (which I have no way to see), variable costs (including taxes) are part of the risk Google runs while doing business.
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Totally agreed. I'm not saying Google was in the right. Just got caught up in a reading comprehension argument with an idiot.
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Did Google bill the consumer every year? When did the sale actually take place?
The sale took place once, right at the beginning of the contract. The fact that Google chooses not to recognize the revenue immediately is not relevant to the fact that the sales taxes were incurred right at the beginning of the contract.
You don't like my refrigerator analogy? OK, let's modify it a bit:
I buy a new refrigerator. It's a special model, wh
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Sigh. This isn't sales tax. The customer has telecom service each year for seven years. Every year that he has telecom service, a tax must be paid. Google collected the tax up front as part of the $300 and pays it every year. They're already doing what you said they should do.
Your "second mistake" is THE mistake. That's what the whole article is all about. That's my point.
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Sigh. Try RTFA!
See that? "sales tax"! What part of "sales tax" do you not understand?
The tax wasn't even due to the service: it was a one-time installation fee:
It wasn't an annu
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Ah, the Google is infallible argument. Google can do no wrong.
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The only thing I'm feeling here (Score:2)
At least it wasn't found on the credit report... (Score:2)
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Canadian-like typing detected.
The perils of total automation. (Score:3)
Google has become one of those cautionary tales about why automating absolutely everything is a bad idea. Automation is great when it works but when there is a bug in the system, it comes to a grinding halt.
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Same for Paypal. GoDaddy tried to bill me for something I hadn't ordered nor did I have the funds in my PayPal account, but PayPal decided I was no longer a worthy customer. Don't know how to resolve it.
Google feelgood story (Score:3)
I don't care one way or the other about Google, but they did one thing nice: My mobile phone is with Project Fi. The service is great and the price is right, but it's basically like any other mobile provider.
Anyway, after Hurricane Harvey, I got an email from Google noting that my billing address was in Houston and so they gave me a $20 credit and unlimited data for the month. I mean it's not a lot of money but it gave me a positive feeling about the company. Several other companies sent me special deals and other little goodies for having lived through a hurricane, but Google was the only one who actually dropped cash directly on me.
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I don't care one way or the other about Google, but they did one thing nice: My mobile phone is with Project Fi. The service is great and the price is right, but it's basically like any other mobile provider.
Anyway, after Hurricane Harvey, I got an email from Google noting that my billing address was in Houston and so they gave me a $20 credit and unlimited data for the month. I mean it's not a lot of money but it gave me a positive feeling about the company. Several other companies sent me special deals and other little goodies for having lived through a hurricane, but Google was the only one who actually dropped cash directly on me.
I agree, that was a very good response from Google. Above and beyond anything I'd heard about from other ISPs/telcos/cablecos.
I'm glad to hear you made it through the storm. I hope any damages to your property were minimal.
You and I may have very different ideological/political views, but we are people and fellow-countrymen before politics. We have far more in common than those things which separate us. Best wishes for the post-storm recovery.
Strat
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Thanks, Strat. We have since moved to the lovely Central Coast in the People's Republic of California. I liked Houston, but the weather there is not really fit for humans. If I were younger and looking to make a bunch of money quick, Houston might be more appealing. Fortunately, we got out safely and with most of our belongings intact. The people there are great and the food is out of this world. But for now, a cool, dry, beautiful place near the ocean with all the other snowflakes is just what the do
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Thanks, Strat. We have since moved to the lovely Central Coast in the People's Republic of California. I liked Houston, but the weather there is not really fit for humans. If I were younger and looking to make a bunch of money quick, Houston might be more appealing. Fortunately, we got out safely and with most of our belongings intact. The people there are great and the food is out of this world. But for now, a cool, dry, beautiful place near the ocean with all the other snowflakes is just what the doctor ordered. I may even learn to surf, get a medical marijuana card and join the senior auxiliary of Antifa.
Hah! Glad you've found a place to relocate to. Please don't take it personally if I still occasionally wish for CA to slide into the Pacific. :P
And we definitely have more in common than what separates us. I've even owned a blue strat at one point in my life, (though now, I have a tobacco burst '64 with a white pickguard).
Nice! My 'go-tos' I reach for first these days are a 2004 G&L Tribute Legacy strat and an original (though I did upgrade the stop-tailpiece/bridge saddle plate & kept the original) '05 Squier "'51" (funky-looking, but a real 'sleeper' tone machine!). Between those two instruments, a minimalist pedalboard, and a good tube amp I designed & built myself, th
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Not accepting the payment? (Score:2)
Tane tried to pay but Google wouldn't take checks for less than $10.
Most of the world doesn't take checks for more than $10 either. What kind of archaic payment methods do you use in the USA? Don't you have a bill payment system tied to the banking system that can simply take care of such thing with a simple key press?
If I need to send 1c to a company to pay a bill I just jump on my banking website, click pay bill, type in a biller code and 1c and done.
The only point where this fails is when they owe me money. Then they normally revert to standard methods like bank transfer
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Tane tried to pay but Google wouldn't take checks for less than $10.
Most of the world doesn't take checks for more than $10 either. What kind of archaic payment methods do you use in the USA? Don't you have a bill payment system tied to the banking system that can simply take care of such thing with a simple key press?
If I need to send 1c to a company to pay a bill I just jump on my banking website, click pay bill, type in a biller code and 1c and done.
The only point where this fails is when they owe me money. Then they normally revert to standard methods like bank transfer or credit card refunds.
When I last moved I switched from BT to virgin. BT sent me a check for £1.15 which I cashed because fuck 'em.
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When I last moved from my ISP they kept sending me a letter saying that my account was $1.50 in credit. They sent me that letter every month for over 2 years. That's how to fuck em. Let it cost them.
The Nobody's Home problem (Score:2)
A flaw in so much online commerce is that when something goes wrong, there is no way of reaching a human if your problem is not covered by the FAQ.
Who cares (Score:2)
of course (Score:2)
> Google forgave the total, restored Tane's service in less than an hour and credited her account for $30, reports Kansas City News.
Just kidding. Because someone at Google realized this was going to go viral and they needed to get in front of it.
not so newsworthy (Score:2)
Any big company is going to have people fall through the cracks. There isn't anything particularly evil or nerdy about this.
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the service will be restored sometimes between Friday, 11:30 and December
Of what year?
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Well, a google number of years from now, naturally!
Strat
Re: See the difference? (Score:3)
The thing is, googles accounting wasn't all that odd. Whats "odd" is the term of the service agreement colliding with the taxation change. The customer pays up front for a 7 year agreement. However, google is a publicly traded company, which means they have some strict requirements for how they account for and report receivables vs liabilities over the multiyear agreement. For accounting purposes they need to spread that lump some payment out over multiple year. A quick and simple solution is just to give t
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It's called revenue recognition, it's a standard thing. You don't normally do it through recurring payments like the article suggests, though; it's a purely internal transaction from deferred income to income.
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Google isn't "baaaad" because of this; there's no indication of evil here. But there is indication of incompetence, because other companies have solved this problem ages ago, and don't inconvenience their customers because of utterly trivial debts. Yeah, it's nice they weren't complete bastards, and quickly fixed the problem and gave the customer a small bonus for her inconvenience, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place.
This is news because this is Google, a giant company that's supposedly an
Re: (Score:2)
Or you require internet access to do your job.
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So sue Comcast for the maximum possible in small claims court. They will pay it because you can show harm by being denied a mortgage, and they can't drag lawyers in to obfuscate the issue.
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Ah, but is it retroactive? It depends on whether the tax point is the date of payment or the date of provision.