I have no particular opinion about the facts of the specific case in question. But there is something weird about the way customer service is set up these days:
1) Company: Doesn't like dealing with problem users/clients.
2) Company institutes policy saying that they can do whatever they want with no explanation. This makes it more efficient to handle the problem users.
3) Sanctioned users are now more frustrated than before because they aren't even given any explanation of what happened.
4) Users who are tech savvy take to social media or use personal networks to get special dispensations (see: every time someone posts on HN about a problem with their Google account and gets special intervention).
5) Company: Is happy because there is still an informal workaround for dealing with sufficiently motivated users or weird cases.
6) Users: Are left more powerless and potentially frustrated than when they had more sane tech support channels, but the company doesn't have to care about this.
This seems really suboptimal and the OP's comments on power imbalances seem on target. [edit: formatting, wording.]
1) Company: Doesn't like dealing with problem users/clients.
2) Company institutes policy saying that they can do whatever they want with no explanation. This makes it more efficient to handle the problem users.
3) Sanctioned users are now more frustrated than before because they aren't even given any explanation of what happened.
4) Users who are tech savvy take to social media or use personal networks to get special dispensations (see: every time someone posts on HN about a problem with their Google account and gets special intervention).
5) Company: Is happy because there is still an informal workaround for dealing with sufficiently motivated users or weird cases.
6) Users: Are left more powerless and potentially frustrated than when they had more sane tech support channels, but the company doesn't have to care about this.
This seems really suboptimal and the OP's comments on power imbalances seem on target. [edit: formatting, wording.]