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DigitalOcean locked my account immediately after paying
Sorry if there's supposed to be a support megathread for DO somewhere, but I'm not sure where else to turn to besides Twitter and the like. I got a refund, but that's not my issue.
Long story short: I signed up about a week and a half ago. The site apparently wouldn't take my prepaid CC, so I paid $5 with PayPal, whereupon I immediately had my account locked.
Today I finally got a support ticket response in the matter telling me that
Your account was found to match patterns associated with fraudulent behavior, which is a violation of our Terms of Service. After review, we have determined that restoring access to your account is not possible.
I don't know what patterns I matched and how I violated their Terms of Service for reasons out of my control. I understand flagging an account and needing to verify customers to prevent fraud, but this seems pretty heavy-handed.
It's my first account. I didn't use any coupon codes or anything else that I've read about people getting flagged for. The only thing I can think of is my trying to enter some of the CC details (like the city) in English and then in the native language afterwards, since I wasn't sure why DO failed to process the card. An earlier ticket response later told me that it's not possible to register prepaid cards. Not sure what makes PayPal so different to be honest. Good to know now but a little late. 
Comments
How did you match? There are many different checks they could be using / doing:
I am sure there are many other possible reasons, these are just the few that come to mind.
They won't tell you which caused you to be flagged because then you could find some way / or help others to abuse their system possibly.
my 2 cents.
Cheers!
Given their volume of clients and orders, such fraud detection systems is in house built. Just continue to find another provider.
75% of time if well known provider thinks that you are a fraud - it is true.
Go to vultr or linode.
We can't help you.
If you feel wronged, sue.
What country are you in?
Disappointing that there's no manual/human review.
As @LTniger said, Vultr or Linode are very comparable alternatives.
you should contact there support directly. they manually accept your order.
Typical big company tactics, I hope you didn't lose money over it. If you did, unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it, a (big) company can get away with daylight robbery because it is not worth for any individual customer to sue nor do most customers have access to the process. Though if you as an individual try to pull the same scam rest assured they will get every cent they are owed and more. It's just the world we live in...
Poland. Sometimes it gets a bad rap, but I'm pretty sure they have no problem doing business with other people here. But it's also no problem so far with a Linode account (fingers crossed). It seemed like there was a user from DO checking the forums here, so a bit of a last ditch post.
Not using a VPN, residential IP, not providing any fake info etc. Like I said, the only thing I can think of is having tried entering the CC details a few times (changing the city name from English to Polish just in case), which may have been a mistake. Or the fact that it was a prepaid card, since I generally prefer to use that instead of my main one. Maybe I'm a bit naive there, but I'm still not sure why a merchant would even prefer PayPal (chargeback handling maybe?). Even if it's about potential overage charges.
Poland should be good to go. We don't have a representative here anymore who could help you out.
Oh well, that's a pity then. Thanks.
On the bright side, I got to learn about the policy now rather than later.
Because allowing virtual/prepaid cards = more abuse.
I don't use PP anymore, but I believe they make it hard to create multiple accounts or fake accounts, so I'm going to assume DO is counting on that.
I tried to create a DO account a while ago but they refused my prepaid card too.
As others said, not an issue, many providers offer the same services DO offers.
In my years at DO I ran into less than 5 people who didn't know very well why this happened. They'd always play dumb too, because they didn't want to offer any information that might not help their cause.
Most commonly was that they had other accounts that had been terminated for abuse, and thought they were doing a better job of hiding it than they actually were. The best story I'd hear after that was "Oh I just paid for a friend's account one time, could that be it?" but I'd still know better because I'd have a wealth of supporting data, none of which I would share so that they might better know how to get around the system. They'd continue to play dumb and berate me/us in public (sometimes building a following of legit customers opening tickets like "How can I know you won't do this to me?" just to be extra troublesome) and I'd just have to sit there and take it because that's how you protect your real customers from bad neighbors. Even if you have to endure a social engineering attack against your reputation, you have to protect the legit customers from problems that they can't influence.
I assure you they have their reasons, and even if you've genuinely forgotten what that might be by now, you should just pick a different provider. You won't be given the details, they're probably within your ability to know already, and you can consider the matter closed. There is honestly no way for anyone here to tell the difference between someone who doesn't know the reasons and won't admit to knowing the reasons, the latter is far too often able to act like the former.
You got a refund, it shows DigitalOcean is a legitimate company. Some companies will illegally steal your money if THEY close your account for "fraud" (even just appearing in a db like fraudrecord.com), it is crazy.
Well, they may have their reasons, but I'd respectfully disagree otherwise. Like other people have said, other hosting providers exist as well. I just didn't like leaving it hanging at that.
I've been truthful and complete in everything I posted here. What else can I say? For me it's the other way around: DO is playing coy with whatever reason they decided to lock me out for.
"Patterns associated with fraudulent behavior". That's a bit of a hefty accusation, and what am I supposed to make of that? I know they're not going to disclose their exact detection methods, but from where I'm sitting, it seems like it should be easy enough to straighten out. But it doesn't seem like they have any interest in even doing so. It's their right to accept as customers whoever they want, but (real
) customers might also want to know what kind of support they're dealing with then.
Real customers should be thrilled that they don't invite back people who perform outbound DDOS attacks, send spam, and things of that nature just because they throw a fit in public.
I'm genuinely sorry if you've done nothing deserving of it, but my time in that seat has made me exceptionally skeptical of someone who signs up for a forum just to post about it. I was the one mediating these complaints for years.
Linode is great. Use them for testing stuff all the time. I love the “Account StackScripts” feature to run setup scripts automatically.
Ridiculous that when a big company like DigitalOcean does this, when they refund the payment in full, people say things like "disappointing" and "daylight robbery", but when a small LET company does this, and even (unlike DigitalOcean) illegally steals the customer's payment by keeping the payment without refund (or only refund after subtracting transaction processing fee), people blame the customer for simply appearing in some db like FraudRecord.
Fair enough and I can understand your skepticism. I just think the worse thing in this day and age is that people have to resort to such things to get their voice heard against "Our automatic detection said so. Case closed". If not here, then Twitter or if you get momentum on HackerNews.
Yeah, I agree with @JarLard.
My own experience with people on the internet has made me not to trust those who claim innocent on the internet.
Most of the time, they are hiding essential details. Not aimed at OP but, in general, it is what it is.
Well, the part that gets me is that I wasn't even accused of committing any particular offense, but rather matching "[...] patterns associated with fraudulent behavior". Again, it's their right to prevent all future crime as they see fit, but they may want to tweak their heuristics a little, or introduce a more human approach.
Or let me ask the other way around: is it reasonable to have an account perma-locked for trying to pay the way I did? Maybe they thought I was trying to brute force some account holder details, fair enough. It should be easy enough to clear up. But maybe they could also say they don't accept prepaid credit cards somewhere on that form - unless I'm blind and didn't notice it.
Anyway, I don't want to drag this out more than it needs to. At least I learned why they may prefer a PayPal account, and why a prepaid card might get me into hot water.
I will be frank. I don't care what you say.
The host in question is a legitimate company who have to deal with shit load of shady people.
If they reject you, I will believe that there is a valid reason for that.
Like @JarLard says, the matter is closed in his eyes as well as mine.
I'll be equally frank. That's fine and you're entitled to believe what you like. I know they're a company that needs to protect their (real) customers and bottom line, but it doesn't make them infallible.
If it's fine to base decisions on "patterns" like that without any real recourse, then it's pretty dystopian. I know they're a US-based company, but even the GDPR recognizes this kind of decision making as an issue.
At least all I can imagine without information to the contrary is that somebody answering the ticket went "Yep, patterns" and that was that for human intervention.
just move on, there're many others with similiar features : upcloud, linode, vultr
Yep, I'm done. Thanks everybody for the info and suggestions.
Yeah, just move on.
Like father always says, there is more than one girl on Earth. Fuck other girls.
Is that @jar's fatter twin?
No kidding. But it seems to be the way big tech is going...I mean, if you have a problem with a Google service, is there even a number you can call? When you have an issue on Facebook, how do you get ahold of their customer service - can you even do it? And who ever calls Microsoft about a Windows problem...
Well, the whole world is dystopian. Does anyone listen nowadays?
Governments sure as hell don't listen to its people.
Does your wife listen to you? Most likely not.
Not even your kids.
When even your dog farts at ya when talking to them, you know that -
The end is nigh.
You're talking to the wrong company. Try https://sift.com/data-request
The best anti-fraud system I've ever used.
I am also from Poland and my registration, as well as my friends, went without any problems. Are you sure you didn't use some kind of referral code or code with virtual currency?
DO has the same method as many other 'big' and 'small' providers, if Linode or Vultr doesn't like the look of you, expect to receive as vague a reply as you get from DO.
All that happens is a time-consuming back and forth about who is right or wrong with the end result being that you still don't get the service so that is why providers don't enter into the discussion and accept the loss of a customer.
You signed up to create an issue, simple as that. Your 'long story short' is your version of what you want us to know, not the full story. Anyone signing up just to make this thread is hiding something 99.999% of the time.