I’m actually fed up with Google Play Support. To my amazement, I’ve started a support request in 2021 and we’re in 2024 but still don’t have a resolution. What is that support request that is so difficult to solve? I want to change the country of Google Play from the United States to the one I’m in for the past 4 years. That’s right, for the past 4 years I’ve been in a different country than US, but still cannot switch it from the US to mine.

If you’ve ever needed help from Google Play customer support, you probably understand my frustration. I’ve read countless posts on Reddit about other users saying how Google’s customer support is awful for some products so chances are you’ve encountered the same frustrating pattern of generic responses that don’t really solve your problem as did I.

Generic troubleshooting steps – over and over again

One of the first things I asked customer support is this. Look, I’m not in the US anymore for a couple of years now and you can probably see my location based on my Google Play activity. Please change the country from your end to mine, that’s all I’m asking. Their response? No, instead you have to follow these generic steps, over and over again.

This is the most maddening part about dealing with Google Play support. I understand that some support requests can be solved by sending the user generic KB article references, but if you see I’m giving you an exact problem description, try to focus on that instead of sending me what I can already read easily online. I’m not a novice so I do know what I need. You’ve probably seen these responses before, usually they’re like:

“Clear your cache and restart your device.”
“Check if your app is up to date.”
“Uninstall and reinstall the app.”

These might be useful steps for someone unfamiliar with basic troubleshooting. But what about when I’ve already done all that? My issue is not very complex, it’s basically quite app-specific. Instead, Google Play support seems stuck on a script, unable to help when problems fall outside of their limited knowledge base.

They ignore exact details

What’s even more frustrating is that even when you provide detailed information about your issue, their response seems completely disconnected. Imagine this scenario: you explain exactly what the problem is, the steps you’ve already taken, and you ask a specific question. Instead of addressing your concern, they reply with the same list of generic suggestions or they just link you to a help page that’s completely irrelevant.

It really makes me wonder if anyone is actually reading these support requests or if Google Play support entirely automated, designed to give you just enough of a response to make you go away. I’ve seen replies from “Brad G” or “John B”, so the support agent never shows the full name.

For instance, let’s take my last 3 interactions. Last time they told me that my issue will be escalated and I’ll receive a reply from a higher support team, in their exact words:

Thank you for reaching out to Google Play support.

We regret that we were unable to resolve the problem regarding the Play Store country. We are now escalating this matter to our product team for further assessment. Unfortunately, we have no timeline for a resolution.

We appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

This reply was in April. I remembered about the fact that they were gonna’ contact me in 48 hours in September, so 5 months after those “48 hours”. Evidently I wrote back a message, and I got one back saying this:

Thank you for your response.

I understand your concerned for play country change, I will definitely help you in this regard.

Before we proceed further I request you to please verify the account.

To authenticate:
Click Web verification. You will automatically receive the prompt.
Navigate to g.co/verify with the on-screen instructions.
Click Yes they are contacting Google Support.
Click Verify.

I look forward to your response.

This is an exact copy-paste from the email. The “Web verification” thing they want me to click on is not a link. The only link is the g.co/verify. I’ve clicked on that and I replied to them that when I visit that page it says that there are no requests for me to verify.

Cool, I get another message back saying that I still need to verify the support request. I send them back a screenshot showing that there’s no requests for me to verify. I ask to escalate this issue to a higher team, and they say, guess what, that I still need to verify the request.

I’m stuck in a loop where I can’t even pass the initial chit chat.

Lack of personalized help

Customer support is increasingly moving towards personalization and solving problems quickly, however Google Play’s support feels like a step backward. It’s as though they’ve forgotten that users need real answers, not just generic responses. It doesn’t even seem AI generated, just scripts copied in the reply.

After a few rounds of back-and-forth with Google Play support, I actually feel like I’m stuck in a loop. The generic responses, the lack of real solutions, and the absence of personalized help all seem designed to make me give up. So it makes me wonder if this isn’t intentional, maybe you just get fed up and give up on the support request. More money for them. It shouldn’t be this hard. Google has like billions of dollars in profits each year, they could use that to provide stellar support if they wanted. But I guess when you have monopoly over so many things, it’s easy to oversee the most  basic things, like customer support.

I doubt anyone from Google would read this, but in the minuscule chance someone does, this is what could change to make customer support better:

  • More personalized support. When users provide specific information, the support team should respond accordingly. This isn’t rocket science, it’s basic customer service.
  • Better training for support agents. Agents (or their automated counterparts) need to be better equipped to handle issues beyond basic troubleshooting.
  • Faster escalation process. When an issue can’t be resolved through generic steps, there needs to be a quicker path to escalate the problem to someone who can actually help.

Anyway, I’ll get back to replying them that there’s no request for me to verify. Who knows, maybe in a few years my issue will be solved.