Then why don't they just ask for ID if you want port 25 unblocked?
Doesn't add up.
My credit is great (and currently locked), and is probably enough to get a car with a "$0 down" offer, although those often do require some payments at time of purchase. If you can answer the credit application questions and present ID with my name that looks good, you've created a big mess for me.
Hetzner was the only provider where I was banned despite providing everything I was asked for. I've deployed services on plenty of providers (AWS, GCP, Digital Ocean, Vultr, etc) without issue.
Apparently, this has been an on-going struggle for them. A few weeks ago they were even called out on an episode of the syntaxFM podcast for this behavior after one of the hosts had his account banned [0].
It's still a bit of a mystery to me honestly. Is their fraud detection so poor where they're forced to ban new sign-ups in this manner? How can Hetzner's competition tell that these accounts are legitimate (without ridiculous requirements such as passport) and Hetzner can't (even when provided with full home address, passport, etc)? I'm assuming Hetzner can't because they've seemingly developed a reputation for banning legitimate developers and the only reason I can think of where they'd be fine with that is if they actually have a very difficult time telling whether an account is legitimate or not.
[0]: https://twitter.com/stolinski/status/1750226126499139665
None of those have anything to do with demanding that customers expose themselves to identity theft risk.