Google Fiber Cuts Kansas City Resident's Internet Access Over 12 Cent Dispute (kansascity.com)

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.

Comments

1 hour.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

[Monster_user]

Obligatory: "I for one welcomeour AI overlords!"

Re:1 hour.

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

[KingMotley]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

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 case the company was running so far on autopilot that they didn't realize it had gone into exterminating the human race and was in the middle of roasting babies on a pitchfork before they decided "this ain't right". Running too fast in the wrong direction - it's the new disease in tech. The alarming thing is that it takes a PR nightmare to shut these things down. For every one story we hear about you're guaranteed there's at least a hundred more we don't get to hear about. Someone, somewhere, is fighting a lawsuit against Google because their phone is just the right Google shade of green and it's infringing on copyright. Somewhere.

Re:1 hour.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

 

Re:1 hour.

[jandersen]

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.

Re:1 hour.

[tlhIngan]

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.

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 office knows pursuing people, as well as cutting a cheque, would cost more than that. Either the amount is rolled over internally or it's simply forgiven. Or if it's refund, it's usually just held - the cost of issuing the cheque would cost more.

For 12 cents, they disconnect an account. User calls in, and over the course of time, it costs Google way more money to handle the support call and reconnect the user than 12 cents. Sorry, even the cheapest of call centers charges more in labour. Hell, even the phone call itself would be a good chunk of that money owed.

The business practice of assuming down to every last penny needs to stop - it's just a genuine waste of time and money to pursue such trivial amounts.

Heck, I remember a credit card was sending past due notices on around... $2 or so. The cost of the letters themselves were exceeding the amount, and even the collect call costed more in the end. In the pursuit of $2, the company probably spent close to $20 in mailing and phone calls and labour. Hell, it would be amusing if they decided to engage their lawyer too, waste even more money.

Hell, some companies send such small amounts to collections. I'm surprised the collections people even bother buying up such small amounts because it's going to cost them more money to try to collect it than write it off.

Heck, Google should's just asked for a credit card. Yes, I've seen companies do that - they'd charge you the 12 cents despite it costing them probably 30 cents in total in fees.

Trust me, for most companies, collecting down to the last $20 or so is negative returns - the cost of labour and notifications and all that will generally be way more money

Re:1 hour.

[Interfacer]

It's quaint that people in the US still use checks. :-)

Re:1 hour.

[xanclic]

According to the article, she was without internet access for two days. Then she called customer service, and access was then restored in less than an hour.

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.

Re:1 hour.

[rholtzjr]

That sounds similar to a situation my folks have with county taxes. They had purchased a parcel of land that is in two different counties. A majority of the land was on one county, but a VERY small portion was in another. You guessed it. The total annual taxes for the smaller portion came to $0.01 (probably $0.25 today) which they dutifully payed every year in person to the tax collectors office all the while of occupying as much time as possible from the county collector (way more cost than their payment's worth of taxes) to point out the stupidity. And this continues to this day.

Re:1 hour.

[houghi]

I have been on the other side. I worked at a company then would send out bills that would not be paid. Talking about things under 5EUR or so. I explained first to the CFO and then to the CEO that it is not economically wise to do so.
Made a mini-business case.
It took 4 meetings to explain that taking the "loss" was cheaper than sending the letters.

The solution was that we send three letters. The first as that is required by law. The second, because sometimes do not see the first. The third for people who would get afraid and pay up. After that we just deducted it as a loss.
Save the company around 10.000 per year.

But that took 4 meetings with the CEO (and CFO) before they accepted it. Before I could speak with the CEO I had to defend it before my N+1 and N+2 and I think the CEO just gave in to get rid of me.

Many things like this exist, not because it is logical, but it is too hard to change and most people just give up. When it was put in place, they did not think about it, because incoming profit and outgoing cost for stamps and paper are two different departments.

Re:1 hour.

[Solandri]

I had Verizon DSL at my business address. When I moved my business, I had the service moved as well. Verizon apparently doesn't have a way to transfer a dry loop (no corresponding phone service) DSL service, so they created a new account at my new address, then transferred the remainder of my service contract to the new account.

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.

Think about it.

[mcmonkey]

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.

[aktw]

Looks more like they sent emails and attempted phone contact before ultimately cutting her service. I know you're just looking to insult Google here, but at least don't be a complete fucking moron with your misleading post.

Re:Think about it.

[Dutch Gun]

Someone who still sends checks in the mail instead of making an electronic payment.

Is it Even Legal

[wisnoskij]

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?

Re:Is it Even Legal

[glitch!]

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.

Re:Is it Even Legal

[whoever57]

They did apply the tax up front.

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.

Article Blames; I Praise

[cervesaebraciator]

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.

The perils of total automation.

[Gravis Zero]

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.

Google feelgood story

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re: See the difference?

[LordKronos]

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 the account a credit balance and continue to debit the account for the course of the contract. It makes perfectly reasonable sense if you don't consider the implications if a tax change somewhere down the road.

Re:This one's not so bad

[Scarletdown]

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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