I quit a well known ecomm tech company a few months ago ahead of (another) one of their layoff rounds because upper mgmt was turning into ultra-wall street corpo bullshit. With 30% of staff gone, and yet our userbase almost doubling over the same period, they wanted everyone to continue increasing output and quality. We were barely keeping up with our existing workload at that point, burnout was (and still is) rampant.
Over the two weeks after I gave my notice I discovered that in the third-party app ecosystem many thousands of apps that had (approved) access to the Billing API weren’t even operating anymore. Some had quit operating years ago, but they were still billing end-users on a monthly basis. Many end-users install dozens of apps (just like people do with mobile phones) and then forget they ever did so. The monthly rates for these apps are anywhere from 3 to 20 dollars per month, many people never checked their bank statements or invoices (when they eventually did, they’d contact support to complain about paying for an app that doesn’t even load and may not have for months or years at this point).
I gathered evidence on at least three dozen of these zombie apps. Many of them had hundreds of active installs, and were billing users for in some cases the past three years. I extrapolated that there were probably in the high-hundreds or low-thousands of these zombie apps billing users on the platform, amounting to high-thousands to low-tens-of thousands of installs… amounting to likely millions per year in faulty and sketchy invoicing happening over our Billing API.
Mgmt actually did put together a triage team to address my findings, but I can absolutely assure you the only reason they acted so quickly is because I was on the way out of the company. I’d spotted things like this in the wild previously and nothing had ever been done about it. The pat answer has always been well people are responsible for their own accounts and invoicing. I believe they acted on this one because I was being very vocal about how it would be ‘a shame’ if this situation ever became public, and all those end-users came after the company for those false invoices at one time. It would be a PR and Support nightmare.
You have definitely interacted with this ecommerce platform if you shop online.
I recently discovered that somehow I set up billing for a VPN directly from the company and also through Google Play. I probably got a renewal email and just followed the instructions. I went back through my bank statements and I’ve been double charged for probably at least 2 years and just never noticed it. It was only about $10 a month. I just feel really stupid for not noticing it until now and it’s entirely my fault. I cancelled the one through Google Play. You live and you learn!
I guessing it’s Amazon’s old android app store? I remember lots of users having a lot of hope for that app store bringing competition and higher quality app and app store quality. Oh how naive we were.
I’m unfortunately dependent upon said company, as a “partner”, which just means a hack indie developer who herds customers to the slaughter for the corp.
The last round of layoffs was a brutal experience for the “Plus” customers. They lost crucial advisers and support, and now the guidance available is a bored and untrained chat support thrall on the other side of the world, or a stochastic parrot.
You can smell the enshittification from here. The vendor lock-in is so intense it seemed inevitable.
You’re absolutely right on all counts. And that’s why I quit (without waiting around to be laid off which frankly the severance package would’ve been nice). I got hired into the first (private) company I applied to, I’m thriving, and I don’t miss that stink of wall street/silicon valley money at all.
I quit a well known ecomm tech company a few months ago ahead of (another) one of their layoff rounds because upper mgmt was turning into ultra-wall street corpo bullshit. With 30% of staff gone, and yet our userbase almost doubling over the same period, they wanted everyone to continue increasing output and quality. We were barely keeping up with our existing workload at that point, burnout was (and still is) rampant.
Over the two weeks after I gave my notice I discovered that in the third-party app ecosystem many thousands of apps that had (approved) access to the Billing API weren’t even operating anymore. Some had quit operating years ago, but they were still billing end-users on a monthly basis. Many end-users install dozens of apps (just like people do with mobile phones) and then forget they ever did so. The monthly rates for these apps are anywhere from 3 to 20 dollars per month, many people never checked their bank statements or invoices (when they eventually did, they’d contact support to complain about paying for an app that doesn’t even load and may not have for months or years at this point).
I gathered evidence on at least three dozen of these zombie apps. Many of them had hundreds of active installs, and were billing users for in some cases the past three years. I extrapolated that there were probably in the high-hundreds or low-thousands of these zombie apps billing users on the platform, amounting to high-thousands to low-tens-of thousands of installs… amounting to likely millions per year in faulty and sketchy invoicing happening over our Billing API.
Mgmt actually did put together a triage team to address my findings, but I can absolutely assure you the only reason they acted so quickly is because I was on the way out of the company. I’d spotted things like this in the wild previously and nothing had ever been done about it. The pat answer has always been well people are responsible for their own accounts and invoicing. I believe they acted on this one because I was being very vocal about how it would be ‘a shame’ if this situation ever became public, and all those end-users came after the company for those false invoices at one time. It would be a PR and Support nightmare.
You have definitely interacted with this ecommerce platform if you shop online.
deleted by creator
Name and shame!
just guessing here but sounds like the rain forest company.
I’m guessing that if you have the right kind of Pal, you could figure out a way to Pay them to help you figure it out…
This has GOT to be Shopify
✅️ is a shopping platform
✅️ has an app ecosystem with a billing api
✅️ high probability that someone who shops online has interacted with a store on the platform
✅️ multiple rounds of layoffs w/ staff stretched thin
✅️ unclear ambitions of being a megaplatform, beyond what it already is
I guess we’ll never know, lol
AOL was fined some small amount for this exact thing.
I recently discovered that somehow I set up billing for a VPN directly from the company and also through Google Play. I probably got a renewal email and just followed the instructions. I went back through my bank statements and I’ve been double charged for probably at least 2 years and just never noticed it. It was only about $10 a month. I just feel really stupid for not noticing it until now and it’s entirely my fault. I cancelled the one through Google Play. You live and you learn!
lmfao. Does the VPN company’s name start with a W by any chance? If so, I am very aware of that issue as well. 😂
I guessing it’s Amazon’s old android app store? I remember lots of users having a lot of hope for that app store bringing competition and higher quality app and app store quality. Oh how naive we were.
So glad I never got google play. Thanks for the confirmation that was the right choice.
I’m unfortunately dependent upon said company, as a “partner”, which just means a hack indie developer who herds customers to the slaughter for the corp.
The last round of layoffs was a brutal experience for the “Plus” customers. They lost crucial advisers and support, and now the guidance available is a bored and untrained chat support thrall on the other side of the world, or a stochastic parrot.
You can smell the enshittification from here. The vendor lock-in is so intense it seemed inevitable.
You’re absolutely right on all counts. And that’s why I quit (without waiting around to be laid off which frankly the severance package would’ve been nice). I got hired into the first (private) company I applied to, I’m thriving, and I don’t miss that stink of wall street/silicon valley money at all.