I can't change the domain without contacting their support or paying another $2400. When I open a support ticket, their portal shows 'Unable to find your account' and tells me to open another support request for it.
All support tickets are closed automatically by their "AI" which points to the same article that says open a ticket.
Is shaming them on Twitter my only option left?
Just because someone has a CS degree doesn't mean they actually know what they're doing.
Cloudflare's no longer the darling of HN, but they unquestionably have clever people who are excellent developers. Just maybe not excellent at web dev and cache invalidation by the sound of it.
I say this as someone who is autodidactic (self-taught) with regards to software engineering. I never stop learning, reading, experimenting and just gaining as much understanding over everything I touch as I can. My mind doesn't always work like most people. And my statements are not meant to be insulting, just my point of view from the outside...
In that, I feel that a lot of FAANG (whatever the correct/current conflation is) tend to rely on a lot of focus that tends to favor those with a formal education, and those closer to that education (less experienced outside school). In practice, my experience is that this will lead to an excess in "Enterprise Pattern" usage as well as unnecessary complexity which leads to an increased risk of error.
At one point I didn't have proper access to something, but instead of getting a message saying that, I got some generic 500 error.
Had a similar situation happen with another company. Went to take them to small claims but the judge threw it out because of the arbitration clause. We then spent months and many resources but were unable to continue because we couldn't successfully contact their arbitrator to proceed with the dispute. Long story short, we wrote it all off as it was becoming too expensive both with time and resources.
This is all by design, and admittedly, a clever way for companies to do what they do.
They can only enforce that contractual agreement IF THEY SHOW UP TO COURT. Which costs them money, which means they will pay OP's issue attention which is what OP wants anyway as a resolution. Win/win.
In your case you wanted a cash settlement. In OP's case they want a resolution. Apples Vs. Oranges.
edit: Looks like someone at Cloudflare responded to OP's issue below anyway.
Precisely this. It isn’t always about getting your whole day in court; sometimes it’s just about getting a human to intervene at all.
That said, arbitration would be just as acceptable as small claims court here. Either way, legal will see the petition and escalate internally. Arbitration costs a lot more than having someone open a support ticket, especially if your complaint says in plain language:
“This is solely to get a human to tech support my problem because I’m trapped in a phone tree loop that won’t let me file a support ticket. I plan to withdraw my complaint as soon as a human being engages with the technical issue preventing me from contacting support, so I can resume spending my money on Cloudflare.”
(Notice that this is careful not to demand a resolution to the issue. That’s really important.)
Shaming them on here works better, if you get to the frontpage then their CEO or CTO will probably show up to defuse the situation.
@jgrahamc (former CTO, now board member)
Maybe just have a script follow this infinite loop?
They might not care HN, which I dont know