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This is a public service announcement to never ever use Oracle

A screenshot of an interaction with Oracle Cloud customer service where I ask: "I understand that. So for a reason that I cannot be told my account was terminated without any notice, all of my data deleted, and there is nothing Oracle can do to change this?" Oracle support responds "That is correct."
ALT

After realizing that my servers were offline since the 25th of January 2025, I've been in contact with Oracle support in a multitude of ways trying to figure out why this happened and how we can recover both the account and data.

I wasn't told that my account was disabled. I didn't receive an E-Mail or anything. When logging in, I was simply told that my username or password was incorrect. After (successfully) resetting my password twice, I realized it wasn't about the password. Oracle had just deleted my account without any notice.

Both through calls and text, always with the same service request (SR) number, I contacted support. Initially, support told me that my account was flagged “Inactive” and hence disabled. They also verified that they saw me login almost daily and that I never missed a payment or anything. Even if an account was inactive, that's never a reason to disable it, especially without any warning E-Mail or an E-Mail letting me know that my account was disabled in the first place.

This chat was the result of all of that, where the highest team I've yet been elevated to told me that there's nothing they can do about it, there's no reason they can tell me for why this happened, and there's no one else I could ask.

A screenshot of a text conversation between support and Erik Uden. Support wrote: I lament to inform you that your account has been terminated by the system. Unfortunately, we cannot provide more details or reactivate your account. Erik Uden wrote: That is a shame. Is there really nothing we can do? Why was I not warned of this Occurring? did not use the account outside of what was allowed, did I?
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A screenshot of a text conversation between a high level Oracle Cloud support team member and Erik Uden. Erik Uden writes “If there would've been any warning would have done whatever is necessary to change or paid money. I am just very confused as to why this happened.” The Oracle Cloud Team member responds with “There is no way to recover the account. understand this was a surprise to you, as it came without any notice, and am sorry for that.”
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A screenshot of a conversation between a high level Oracle Cloud support team member and Erik Uden. Erik Uden writes “Is there anything can do to avoid this happening in the future?” The Oracle Cloud Team member responds “We cannot provide details as to the reason for termination.” and “And I must also let you know that Customers are only eligible to sign-up once, you will likely be unable to register again.”
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A screenshot of a conversation between a high level Oracle Cloud support team member and Erik Uden. Erik Uden writes “I just don't know how to continue...” The Oracle Cloud employee responds “Thank you for your understanding, do think these could have been handled better.” Erik Uden writes again “This was years worth of work”
ALT

I also love how I ask “Is there anything I can do to avoid this happening in the future?” and they respond with “Oh, don't worry. You don't have a future at Oracle. This will not happen to you again, as we don't allow for you to make another account.”

The tech person at Oracle at least lets me know that they'd feel similarly betrayed and dislike this handling of user data too 🥲✊

A screenshot of a conversation between a high level Oracle Cloud support team member and Erik Uden. Tech support writes “Is there arnything else you require?” to which Erik Uden responds “Yes, my data.” to which the support team member responds “Do you mean the data on your Instance? We do not have access to it, nor can know if it still exists.”
ALT
A screenshot of a conversation between a high level Oracle Cloud support team member and Erik Uden. Tech support writes “The Chat team does not have access to the customers accounts or environments, we can only see the status of accounts.” and “And there is no team to which to escalate this.” I respond with “Are you sure? There needs to be someone with access. I cannot be the only person who has this happen to.”
ALT
A screenshot of a conversation between a high level Oracle Cloud support team member and Erik Uden. Tech support writes “The account termination is handled by a separate team, I do not know why they don't provide a warning.” I respond with “am sorry. I of course know that you are not at fault. do not want to lash out at you nor give you all of my anger. I think we can both understand why am aggravated by this situation, but it is not your fault.” Tech support responds with “Thank you, I would feel very similar.”
ALT

Don't worry: I have backups of all of this. It's just kafkaesque what is happening here.

Interestingly, two days before Oracle deleted my account and all servers associated with it, I publicly criticized Oracle's CEO in a viral post for promising dystopian AI surveillance technology to his investors.

mastodon.de/@ErikUden/11387936

What a weird coincidence.

Moving these servers, despite having no long term impact like data loss, will have some financial impact. Don't feel forced to, your vocal support about this issue was more than enough to turn my evening from a bad to a wonderful one, however if you have the financial resources I'd be happy about a little support:

mastodon.de/@ErikUden/11393140

Where will this money go to ;)? :Hetzner:

Erik Uden 🍑

This morning, on February 2nd 2025 at 06:58 (GMT+1) I've received an E-Mail by Oracle stating “Your Oracle Cloud account has been reactivated.”

I couldn't believe my eyes and didn't really understand how to respond. At the point in time where I received this E-mail, my post regarding Oracle's mistreatment has already gathered thousands of shares and was also discussed heavily on Hacker News among other platforms.

My many pleas and requests from the past week didn't do anything. My GDPR request didn't do anything so far. But within a few hours of public complaints and so many people telling me to take this to court... I guess this was simply the easiest way.

I still don't fully understand the E-Mail I've gotten. It talks about an order about universal credits that occurred at 5:20 AM, where I've been cold asleep. When I login to Oracle Cloud, no such credits exist. Additionally, they don't show up when I look into the “Cost and Usage Reports” under my account management. Even more interesting are the dozens of files showing an account and server activity, with the calculated cost of it all, for a time period where my account was supposedly irreversibly deleted.

I'll share more interesting findings soon. I am honestly just shocked about this development. I would've expected many things except for a 180.

A Thunderbird screenshot of an E-Mail by “no.reply@oracle.com” to an unreadable E-Mail (Erik Uden's old Gmail address) with the subject “Your Oracle Cloud account has been reactivated.” The E-Mail text reads “ORACLE Cloud... DEAR CUSTOMER, Your Oracle Cloud account (erik[redacted]) has been reactivated, and you can now use your account to access your cloud resources and services. Sign in to Oracle Cloud Subscription Details CLOUDCM (Oracle PaaS and IaaS Universal Credits) Cloud Account: [redacted] Order Details Order ID: [redacted] Order Date: Sunday, February 2, 2025 5:20 AM Coordinated Universal Time Chat with Sales Chat with Support Documentation FAQ Integrated Cloud Applications & Platform Services Copyright © 2024, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. About Oracle | Legal Notices and Terms of Use | Privacy Statement This is a system generated message. Don't reply to this message. You're receiving this e-mail as a result of your current relationship with Oracle Cloud. General marketing opt-out preferences have been overridden to ensure that you receive this e-mail.
ALT
Feb 02, 2025, 22:59 · · Megalodon · 80 · 142

How are there Cost and Usage Reports for a time period where my account didn't exist?

A screenshot of the Cost and Usage Reports from inside the Oracle Cloud Account Management System showing from the 2nd of February to the first of February.
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A screenshot of the Cost and Usage Reports from inside the Oracle Cloud Account Management System showing from the 1st of February to the 31st of January. .
ALT

I wish my main and inspiring takeaway here would be that we can fight them and win.

However, I was in no control here. The fact this resonated with a lot of people causing an internet wide uproar was nice, but Oracle's legal team could've decided to not care.

Are they taking the wind out of our sails by reinstating my account? Is this their way of admitting and undoing an honest mistake? Would this have happened if I never complained publicly about it, or was my private GDPR request what did the magic here?

I cannot tell you. All I can say is that your account and all your data still exists on Oracle's servers even over a week after your account has been “irreversibly” wiped. Keep that in mind the next time support tells you there's nothing they can do.

*

What I'm about to say is obviously just speculation, but if it was some terms of service I was violating, or their system goofing up and believing I was a free tier account and hence them stopping everything as they needed to make space for a paid service, wouldn't my server shut down first and my account be deleted second?

If there was some problematic material found to be stored on my server, or if I was illegally running a mail-server, TOR exit node, crypto miner, illegal streaming site, or something else that was violating the TOS, wouldn't the server be the first thing they irreversibly nuke?

The server was apparently constantly running, even when my account was terminated. Its IP address and any public access (ingress, egress rules) were removed or blocked.

The current uptime is 17 days. This makes everything all the more confusing...

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@ErikUden If you've got anything there can you just download it and take your custom elsewhere? That was very shabby treatment.

@davep I will of course do that.

@ErikUden Wirst du bei denen bleiben oder ziehst du nach dem Vorfall woanders hin um?

@geco_de Ich ziehe selbstverständlich ganz weit woanders hin.

@ErikUden I’d still move off them as quickly as possible

@mirabilos Yes. Of course. I never expected to see this data back.

@ErikUden wow what a turn of events! I wonder if, as an authorized account owner, support can now provide more information about what happened.

@eljojo I don't dare to talk to anyone. I'm currently hastily downloading everything there is just to be sure I got it. Afterwards I'll play around with it some more.

@ErikUden@mastodon.de I was in a simillar situation a few months back, fortunately I was just leeching off their free plan for a fast VPN so I didn't lose any data that was important

@ErikUden ...or your data is "deleted" when you quit using their services. 🤨

@grootinside @ErikUden

THIS. EVERYONE NEEDS TO THINK ABOUT THIS PART RIGHT HERE.

@violetmadder @grootinside @ErikUden in such cases, keeping data for a short time would be advised.

@gileri @grootinside @ErikUden

Sure. But then why did they keep saying the data was gone and unrecoverable?

@violetmadder @grootinside @ErikUden because at the time of writing they were banned, the cloud service has no obligation of service, or data export.

I agree that's really bad, but it make sense. About GDPR obligations I have no idea how that work with regard to soon-to-be-deleted data.

@gileri @grootinside @ErikUden

The main point here is that these companies are FULL OF SHIT.

There's a world of difference between "your account can't be recovered" and, "your account WON'T be recovered". They'll never say the 2nd one in a million years, because they're busy pretending crap like this is the act of some ineffable and unassailable god, which should be warning to everyone because that's how the company actually thinks of itself, which tells us what they think of their customers-- scuse me, their hapless subjects.

These dark patterns are red flags that should NOT be normalized. No company should be allowed to feel like they can get away with this behavior, and any that tries should not be allowed to stay in possession of wealth or power.

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@ErikUden hopefully you’re still going to look for a solution that’s not Oracle Erik?

@gpshewan @ErikUden "Due to an updated risk assessment taking into account newly available information, I am unable to continue using your service."

@ErikUden Welcome to the era of bullshit.

@noondlyt @ErikUden At least his account was not struck by a bullet in an officer involved event

@ErikUden @noondlyt in the era of bullshit and the arbitrary.

@ErikUden

Companies whose products I refuse to use:
🔸 Adobe
🔸 Cisco
🔸 Google
🔸 Microsoft
🔸 Oracle

@chessert @ErikUden me too and even Apple and Google are not more my choices for mobile working … I switch back to SaulfishOS and Linux … but Oracle messed up for me as they bought Sun Microsystems and started to bully the community behind MySQL and Libre Office … from that point on Oracle disqualified completely for me

@ErikUden

Fail on you if you buy your it services from a small, completely dubious company that has no idea what it's doing.

Oh, #Oracle is a company that has been on the market for almost 50 years and has a turnover of almost 53 billion?

And apparently has no idea what it does.

@wvs @ErikUden
Oracle knows what it does. It takes money from people who cant tell how crap they are. This is and always has been their business model.

@ErikUden I suffered exactly the same thing with Hetzner. They simply deleted Ursal.zone account. Thankfully we had backups. But they never said why, never sent a warning mail and never gave my data back.

@DanielaAbade I remember! Why is there just no good alternative...

@ErikUden the only alternative is to take down capitalism. :molotov:

@ErikUden
@DanielaAbade

I would say selfhosting in your own environment is the only true alternative preventing you from this 😎

@DanielaAbade @ErikUden damn, and I was thinking of getting an account with them...

@kudra @ErikUden We left, there was nothing to do. How could I sue the guys from Brazil? @cadusilva who is the sysadmin (I'm not a tech person) transfered to some other company called Host something. But we do back-ups every couple of hours, because we can't trust any company anymore.

@DanielaAbade @kudra @ErikUden yes, currently we're hosted at Hostinger in São Paulo.

But soon we'll be at some European country with Netcup due to cost savings.

@DanielaAbade @ErikUden where'd you end up, instead? if this is how Hetzner operates, I should look into switching providers

@eigen I manage the Ursal.zone server and currently we're at Hostinger, soon-to-be with Netcup.

I'd avoid Hetzner, specially if your content is at least somehow left-leaning.

After Hertzner SNAFU with Ursal, I deleted my personal account with them and started to suggest people to stay away.

@DanielaAbade @ErikUden

@cadusilva @DanielaAbade @ErikUden is Hostinger an acceptable alternative to hetzner? or are you specifically moving away from them as well, to Netcup? (I also have the additional complication of being US-Based [hetzner now has 1 or 2 datacenters Stateside {though who knows for how long, at this point, under this administration 😛}])

@eigen Hostinger works just fine but here and there they go offline without warning to perform "maintenance" during business hours.

Other than that, nothing to complain about. We're only leaving due to cost-cutting as our first year promo is about to end and will become very expensive in our local currency (BRL).

@DanielaAbade @ErikUden

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@ErikUden take a look at dmesg, VMs can be paused/resumed. if you couldn't ssh into it, it was presumably not running?

@eljojo I couldn't SSH into it, but because the connection failed. dmesg reports normal behavior for the past days.

@ErikUden hmm that’s interesting. best luck with data recovery and research!

@ErikUden so, if the server was still running with your data, while you had no access to it and they claimed your data was no longer there, does this mean you now may have a case against them for stealing your data and unauthorised use of it?
@eljojo

@ErikUden They just try, thinking, there will be no reaction. If the reaction is dangerous for them (reputation), they step back. But obviously, no one would reasonably go back to them – as next time you say something negative about the boss, that can/will happen again.

@ErikUden lawyer up. EFF should really look into this. and you’re in Germany. this trips more than a few EU laws.

If it was shut out due to some security trigger, everything you've described would match.
- the server would not be shut down but isolated for investigation
- your account would be shut off as compromised, since you don't have a named account manager (= you're not big enough to care about)
- customer support would not be able to tell you anything
@ErikUden

@osma Okay, thank you for these insights. Then my best explanation of what happened is this!

@ErikUden
You want to know what I think it might be? People were probably communicating around you with some details that someone wanted gone. You weren't considered valuable enough as a customer to keep over them, and they follow money. Companies often "feel" they owe nothing, but just not to upset their main customer base. But they'd never admit it.

@ErikUden
I don't know what the server's for, but I'd ask what the last person who used it posted or what it mainly contains as to a clue. But I won't ask that. It's rude, even if curious, and a security risk. Just some thoughts.

@ErikUden Probably they was attacked and don't want tell it, maybe all accounts was deleted and they put it back with backup ?

Such companies which don't tell the truth don't receive my money.

@ErikUden

Kannst du die DSGVO nicht irgendwie als Schwert verwenden?

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