It likely doesn’t come as a big surprise that when you operate an open cloud deployment platform, you’re inevitably going to encounter malicious actors who habitually violate your company Terms of Service (TOS).
Unfortunately, when we kick these actors off the platform, they inevitably leave scathing 1-star reviews claiming they are just an innocent bystander to the heavy-handedness of the bad people that operate the Gigalixir service.
In the end, we know it’s just another cost of doing business…it takes a lot of time and effort to discover and root out these types of abusive users. Then it takes even more time to deal with their public lash-outs where they claim that their malicious apps were unfairly targeted and all the problems in the world are somehow all Gigalixir’s fault.
Problem Users – We All Know Them & Their Drag on Productivity
I believe any engineer – that’s been around the block even one time – has encountered these annoying people that are always trying to cheat, exploit, and otherwise screw up the Internet community.
I also believe that any engineer that’s met these people understands the annoyance of removing them. And, the waste of time from their temper tantrums when they spend time to “get those people back for being so mean to innocent me!”
That’s where we see 1-star reviews, threats against customer service teammates, and multiple new accounts matching the signature of the one we just booted from the system.
That’s why our team is pretty up front when we encounter these abusive situations.
If some person or team is doing something wrong, we’re going to take action to suppress and remove that account.
If a person or team has an issue with that action and tries to hurt our brand, we’re happy to shed some light on the situation so both sides of the story are known and public.
I Love Being Very Blunt and Upfront When Issues Arise
Since I’m pretty passionate about acquiring and operating sub-$5M software companies, I learned early on—starting with QuotaGuard—that the best way to handle these situations is quickly and very openly.
Recently, I jotted down a few things I’ve learned from running mission-critical services and the importance of acknowledging problems in real-time as they arise. Hopefully, that same approach applies in these cases as well. Addressing these situations head-on seems to build trust and reassure our customers that we try to solve problems openly and quickly.
This approach not only protects our real customers, but also reinforces how Gigalixir, QuotaGuard, WP Folio, etc, attempt to attract and maintain a high-quality customer community.
I personally won’t tolerate bad customers, not one little bit. If someone tries to steal from my team – either from not paying or manipulating accounts to overuse free services – I happily remove them from our services.
I want a win-win relationship with my customer community—one built on mutual respect, not one-sided gaslighting and exploitation.
Just as any customer can leave my services with one click, I also believe I have the right to do the same for problem or abusive users. If a person or company isn’t a good fit for Gigalixir’s future goals, then we have no interest in continuing the relationship, no matter how much they pay for our services.
What TOS Sections Do We See The Most Issues With?
A lot of times, it’s the same types of users, doing the same times of schemes, breaking the same TOS rules. Fortunately, this makes them easier to identify, investigate, and remove.
I’ll highlight a few, just in case someone comes across this note and wonders if they can run their questionable service on Gigalixir and not violate Gigalixir’s terms of service.
Maintaining Platform Integrity
As stated, enforcing our TOS is crucial for maintaining the integrity and reliability of the Gigalixir platform. We try to set really clear guidelines on acceptable use, so we can prevent activities that may harm the platform or disrupt services for other customers.
Malicious users know their apps are intended to harm, defraud, or violate other users’ trust and hurt Gigalixir’s systems.
These risks are exactly why we prohibit malicious actions, unauthorized access attempts, or any behavior that could compromise Gigalixir’s stability and security.
Ensuring Legal Compliance
Our TOS are designed to ensure that both Gigalixir and our customers deploy applications within the bounds of applicable laws and regulations.
We can’t be perfect, we’re not the global Internet police. But, by trying to enforce our terms, we mitigate legal risks and protect ourselves and our customers from potential legal disputes.
Dealing with ⭐️ 1-Star Reviews and Closing Accounts
There’s almost always a 1-to-1 relationship between closing out an account and finding some corresponding scathing review online.
Counterintuitively, that usually indicates that we did the right thing, as the person knows why they were booted and tries to position themselves as the wronged party.
Personal story…This reminds me of a time where I had a check issued by the Federal Government that actually bounced when I tried to cash it at Chase bank. I was shocked, how could a US Government check bounce?
When I called the issuing bank, the representative made an interesting comment while I was trying to prove this was a real check. She said “I know it’s a real check because people that are trying to cash fake checks never call”.
That’s always stuck with me as a good life lesson in how honest people react to problems and how dishonest people react differently. In cases like we see at Gigalixir, reputable people act a certain way when there are questions about their account, and disreputable people act in a completely different way.
In a way, it makes our job of policing the platform a whole lot easier.
Sure it’s some level of confirmation bias, but it’s hard not to notice how every bad actor follows the same script every time.
Why is this Important for Gigalixir to talk about?
In the end, it’s not just about enforcing rules like some overlords of the platform service; it’s about making sure we’re creating a customer community where expectations are clear, the integrity of the platform is solid, and the customer-company feedback loop contributes to ensure our platform’s long-term success.
Part of that is kicking out bad actors trying to exploit us and someone else with their malicious applications.
Whatever else we do, continuing that activity should make both Gigalixir and the general Internet just a tad bit less dangerous for everyone in the long term.
Hopefully this inspires other entrepreneurs to remove bad actors – even if they’re paying a lot of money – from their platforms so they have less drag weighing them down towards their long-term business goals.