By TheDutchman
A few days ago I created an account on digital ocean. This hoster was recommended by a friend because of good service(!?) and good price.
Immediately after payment my account got locked. Strange, because I did not do anything with the account yet.
Even worse was the follow up from support. As I did not get any information on why my account got locked I opened a ticked. With the simple question: why is my account locked? ([DigitalOcean] Ticket #02843432: My new account is locked and I don’t know why?: ref:_00Df218t5m._500f21RkZUs:ref). The answer I received:
"Hi there,
Thanks for considering DigitalOcean for your cloud hosting needs. Unfortunately, after thoroughly reviewing the account we have determined that activation will not be possible.
We went ahead and processed your PayPal refund, transaction ID for reference: […]
We apologize for any inconvenience and wish you luck finding a platform that better fits your needs.
Regards, Security Operations Center DigitalOcean"
It seems to me that he did not even read my question, all I wanted is a simple explanation on why I got locked. Also it was said that my account was ‘thorougly reviewed’, what did they do? - it is a new account…
I responded to this message, but I did not receive any follow up.
Moreover, it seems that more people are experiencing similar problems: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/account-locked-after-payment https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/account-locked-please-let-me-know-how-i-can-unlock-it
They also posted on this community page, strangely one got the answer: “Unfortunately, as a community, there isn’t anything we can do to help here as we have no control over accounts or billing-related issues.” and the other got a usefull answer: “I’ve taken a look at your account and the credit card you tried to use was denied by your bank.” Why does one of them receive help by the mods, and why is the other shipped off?
I hope that by making this post I get to be taken serious. And I ask once again: why did my account got locked?
If this does not work, I will put in effort to share my dissatisfaction with a broader audience.
Kind regards, My credentials should be attainable from the ticket number I pasted above.
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Accepted Answer
Hi TheDutchman - Thank you for raising this issue. Without disclosing anything overly personal about your account here, I’ll do my best to address this directly and follow up with you personally via email.
Your account was locked for what looked like payment fraud. Our ticket follow-up failed to identify a key piece of data which should have lead to your account being unlocked. I am following up internally for re-training and a second look at our procedures to make sure that we don’t repeat this mistake.
Thank you, Zach Director of Support, DigitalOcean
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