You had a bad experience with Oracle and I get that. They didn't treat you well. However, not everyone has a bad experience with them and a lot of companies make mistakes and treat customers poorly. The question is not did it happen, the question is how often does it happen and how does the organization handle it. If Oracle has millions of customers and you are the only one they harmed, they are probably doing great. If your experience is a rare occurrence (say it occurs to 1% or 0.5% of customers), then everyone should avoid Oracle because they don't know if or when they will be the next victim.
In the OP's case, I have several comments:
- Companies should always be able to explain why an account was closed. If the person violated a policy, the exact line or paragraph of the policy should be given to the customer along with a detailed explanation of how the customer violated the policy.
- Companies should always notify customers when they close an account or when a customer is violating the terms of service. These notices should clearly explain what the customer did and should explain how they violated a policy.
- Companies should expect their automated systems and employees to make mistakes. They should rectify mistakes when they are found.
I think Oracle treated dijit and the OP horribly. I think Oracle should do a root cause analysis to determine why they misbehaved, fix the problem, reinstate the account (assuming the OP is telling the truth), and publicly apologize. Internally, Oracle should learn from this and fix their processes and communications.
There are so many cases where Oracle have acted in bad faith that I don’t think defending them is the right move.
“Don’t anthropomorphise the lawnmower”.
Let us not forget that they bankrupted the second largest city in the UK, it’s hardly an isolated incident.
They are exactly as evil as people say, I know its hard to reason, there’s always shades of grey after all, but I know of know of no other consistently one-dimensional company.
We are still talking about Oracle, right? That company that just a few years ago decided to sue all of their customers, worldwide, for whatever terms from their one-sided policies they decided were violated? The one that actually lost almost every time somebody took them to court, but insisted on doing it anyway?
The one that got the manager responsible sacked, but is still managed by the same CEO (and owner) that appointed him?
Oracle has a very impressive and long-standing reputation truly unlike any other large company. The stories that people are sharing in the comments here are not all that different from the stuff I heard about them back in the 90s.
I appreciate your effort to provide a balanced retort. I'll be extremely blunt: all the bad things you've heard about Oracle are about 95% true. I've been in meetings where someone from compliance suggested all "uncertain" customers (accounting-wise) be subject to a rigorous audit... with the comment added "we can probably squeeze a few mil easily this quarter out of the base". Most of the company does not behave like a healthy business. The parts that do perform well are usually walled off from the ridiculous bullshit.
source: was a PM for a BU that was acquired by Oracle
But people have a hard time resisting free stuff.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33199750
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38075210
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29514359
[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34503883