Absolutely absurd. I haven't touched it for 13 years, and just received an email that they will be billing me $31.25 with 6 hours warning. This, of course, is a few hours after an email saying that my "free subscription" will be expiring in a month, not within hours.<p>The kicker is that the billing FAQ 404s, the "account URL" 500s, and there is no apparent way to log in to the account that they are billing me for.<p>At this point the best I can do is hope they don't have any real PII to try to collect their bullshit bill.
Great way to ruin the FogBugz brand and reputation: move everyone from free to paid tier without consent, and send out emails with a short notice telling them they will be charged $30/month - when most of these users haven't heard from/of them in over a decade. The flood of complaints is hilarious.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=fogbugz&src=typed_query" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/search?q=fogbugz&src=typed_query</a>
I got that e-mail too, on a decade-old test account: first an e-mail that reads like my account simply "expires" if I don't update. Then an invoice.<p>Here's what I don't get: After a stunt like this, any reputation/brand value that you might have had is gone. So, the obvious conclusion is they bought the company purely to pull this trick. Any other value the company might have had is deleted. Can that have been worth it? Very few people will pay voluntarily, I can't imagine them successfully collecting the money, and the acquisition price probably wasn't 0 either. I can't imagine that the math checks out, or does it?
Their answer:<p><pre><code> Dear <user>,
Thank you for contacting FogBugz Support. I understand that you have received a billing notice and do not want to be charged. You may be wondering why you have received this communication and wish to have your account deleted.
In the first place, please be rest assured that you will not be charged unless you have added a valid payment method to your account. The notification you have received is due to the recent changes to the FogBugz Base Subscription Model. Please accept our apologies for any misunderstanding this may have caused.
Additionally, be aware that your subscription will be automatically canceled and scheduled for deletion 30 days after the current billing period unless you add a valid payment method.
Finally, please be aware that trial accounts that were not active for a period of 9 months are automatically disabled, and will result in an Error 500 if you try to access the URL. These customers may have still received a notification despite not having an active account or a configured payment method.
Since there is no further action required from our end at this time, we will be marking this ticket as solved. That said, if still you have any other questions or concerns with which we may assist, please let us know, and we will be happy to help as required.
Thank you.
Best regards,
<NAME>
FogBugz Support Team
</code></pre>
I had a hard time logging in to get in contact with them.
My fogbugz link (for which I should pay) returned 500 Internal Server Error, logging in Firefox didn't work, in Chrome it said that the password in invalid, and I didn't get a reset e-mail (tried twice), I've logged with Google credentials but I got a "This page doesn't exist" on a central-supportdesk.zendesk.com page.
Here’s more on IgniteTech/ESW Capital: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2021/04/27/inside-a-remote-work-billionaires-new-plan-to-turn-his-white-collar-workers-into-algorithms/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2021/04/27/inside-a...</a><p>ESW Capital was discussed in “Software Sweatshop – Inside Billionaire Joe Liemandt's Empire” (2021): <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28852956" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28852956</a>
I used to enjoy reading the "Joel on Software" blog in e.g. 2004, and that was around the time he/they were working on this product. I guess it's been sold on, perhaps many times, since, and I guess if the new owners are trying this then they don't have many/any actual real paying customers.<p>It seems such a shame. The blog (and presumably the product, although I never used it) was brimming with such optimism and confidence, "this is how you run a good business!" etc.<p>I bet Joel didn't envisage that product ending like this when he wrote all those articles. :(
An email to the CEO (eric.vaughan@ignitetech.com)<p>Subject: FogBugz debacle. You fucked up!<p>… and it’s on you to fix it.
No idea what I’m talking about? Search Twitter for FogBugz - you’ll get it quick enough.<p>At some point in the past I had a trial for some product made by Fogcreek - we are talking 10 years back or so. The trial is long expired and forgotten about. Until today, that is, when I received an email purporting to charge $31 to my “prepaid account”.<p>I’ll remind you of a quote on your website:
> Our current customers are our only focus, and each should expect excellence from every aspect of IgniteTech. If at any time you believe we are falling short, the buck stops on my desk.<p>It’s on you to fix this, for everyone that got this, there are thousands of developers and business owners who got similar emails today. Perhaps your business model is intentionally to go invoice trolling, in which case my next email will be to the state AG. But I’m going to assume incompetence or inadvertence before malice and suggest that you address this quickly - perhaps on Twitter or a blog post.
I registered and have not logged in since 2012. This is what I got 12 hrs ago.
To me, It does not seem like they are charging me, seemingly because I never entered any billing data?<p>```
Dear cheesedudles,<p>Your current free subscription for FogBugz is expiring on October 16, 2022. To continue using FogBugz, please add payment details to your account today.<p>Because you're already a valued FogBugz user, we've automatically upgraded your account to include up to five individual users with your new paid subscription. Plus if you renew now, you qualify for 50% off any subscription tier, including the five-user license tier. Follow this link to upgrade your subscription plan now.<p>Trouble upgrading? Please create a ticket on our support portal support.fogbugz.com.<p>Enjoy your upgrade,<p>Team FogBugz
````
> IgniteTech - Where software goes to live[0]<p>Thats from the new owners website. What a dystopian tagline for your company. Then there's just a whole catalog of their dead software in a list too.<p>[0]: <a href="https://ignitetech.com/" rel="nofollow">https://ignitetech.com/</a>
This should be illegal. I can understand raising the rates on existing paid plans automatically, if nothing else it's eventually reasonable for inflation purposes, but auto-converting from free to paid? No.
So I checked my email and I had two trial accounts in the past. Once in 2010, and once again in 2014 with a different email where I'd apparently forgotten I'd tried it out in 2010. Both said they were for on-demand trial accounts and would expire. I got a confirmation of the expiriation for the 2014 account and that email did not get this auto-upgrade email, but the 2010 one I got no confirmation of expiry and did get this auto-upgrade email. To be generous, maybe older trials weren't properly marked ended but this is still a pretty shit way to handle it.<p>(of course, the 2010 account gives a 500 error trying to open the management page and they asked me to provide billing details so it's probably not much more than a stub at this point).
Got one of these emails too. I haven't used the account in almost 10 years, they must have many thousands of these accounts that have been dormant forever and are now getting hit with "invoices" for services rendered. Looks like a real dick move, no thanks.
This is overt fraud, but borderline with subscriptions.<p>FIRST they requested users update payment information as if to continue their FREE accounts. THEN they billed users for a month's service.<p>It's called a "negative option" when the user has to do something to prevent additional charges. Normally that is illegal per US FTC (but legal in some countries). However, negative option contract terms ARE legal. That's when you agree initially e.g., with NYTimes that when your subscription is up, it automatically rolls over to paid tier X, putting the burden on you to cancel.<p>If, or since, most of these account agreements are 10+ years old, it's possible they ginned up some evidence of a negative option <i>contract</i>. It's almost certain no user has any information on the original terms of service. So then it's a question of who has the burden of proof, which leads me to wonder if there have been changes to that of late.<p>I hate to say it, but another option is that this company has been getting pushback or eviction from credit card issuers. This might be their way of imposing costs on them, to have to go through thousands of chargeback cycles, to spite the issuers pending their exit from the platform. It also might be a good way to get some cash from the issuers before declaring bankruptcy. Or, someone inside did this, on a Friday/Saturday, and they'll be gone before Monday with everyone's credit card information. Who knows?<p>To reiterate what others have reported:<p>9/17 title "Your Manuscript Account"<p>- $31.25 for:<p>- $12.50 9/17-10/17 5 users 50% off fogbugz<p>- $6.25 9/17-10/17 5 users 50% off time tracking<p>- $6.25 9/17-10/17 5 users 50% off wiki<p>- $6.25 9/17-10/17 5 users 50% off agile<p>9/16 title "Your fogbugz free subscription is expiring" (from a different sender)<p>"To continue using FogBugz, please add payment details to your account today"<p>(and if you didn't notice)<p>"Because you're already a valued FogBugz user, we've automatically upgraded your account to include up to five individual users with your new paid subscription"
Tried the same thing with Jumpcloud. Used it for a while. Disabled all users and moved on. 3 years (!!) later some debt collection lawyer contacts me about my $8000 bill. Wtf. Good luck collecting that.
This has got to be a bug no? Otherwise this is the most insane monetization attempt I've ever seen... there's no way any of these old accounts even have a valid payment method. Why even attempt this? So many questions...
I wonder if through some miscommunication (intentional or not) in the sale that these free accounts were thought to be active users. Reading the twitter and HN replies it's sounds like most of the free account users are people who tried it a decade ago and haven't touched it since. May be a big wake up call when 80% of their invoices bounce and 99.99% of the free accounts "dry up".
My first reaction on receiving this email was that is was a scam / phishing thing, then after checking that the URLs were genuine, I thought perhaps they'd been hacked somehow.<p>Good luck to them trying to charge me for a free account that I used for 1 week more than 10 years ago, I'm fascinated to see how this 'revenue hacking' strategy works for them.
FogBugz just sent out a retraction. Their intention was to retire the free service and offer the opportunity to upgrade to paid accounts at a 50% discount. If anyone was charged and didn't already receive a refund, the email to request a refund is fogbugzbilling@ignitetech.com.<p>Here's the beginning of their retraction email, in which they explain how this happened.<p>===<p>Dear FogBugz User,<p>Mea culpa — sincerely.<p>We’ve become well aware of the maelstrom of concern and comments caused by a series of emails that some of you received, but to explain, we were just as surprised as you when multiple emails were sent. Our original and only intended email, which was controlled by humans, was to inform you that the “free,” non-expiring version of FogBugz is being phased out on October 17, 2022. Additionally, we wanted to offer you the option to continue using FogBugz by updating your account to a paid subscription. This was the entire, planned effort.<p>However, once we updated the accounts that had been identified as free and non-expiring in the internal FogBugz accounting system, the software automatically generated a form email, notifying you that we had summarily converted you to a paid account, and worse, actually triggering collection/dunning notices to some. This was unintended and is not accurate. Yes, we’ve owned the software for some time and should know all of the nooks and crannies by now. We don’t know if this was a nook or a cranny, but it decided to act on its own. Truth. It’s embarrassing, and we’d react the same way as many of you have. So this email is to set the record straight.<p>We do not automatically charge any customer for usage of the software unless a subscription has been expressly elected, despite what the erroneous auto-email stated.
Seems like they (A) are killing the free tier and forcing active users to upgrade to paid plans; and (B) screwed up and also sent out emails to users who have been inactive and had their accounts deactivated (thus accounting for the flood of angry people who have gotten demand letters for a site that's throwing 500 errors for them).<p>So, total fuckup on their part. While it's not out of bounds for them to phase out the free tier, doing so with basically no notice to those active users, and then also accidentally spamming the (at a guess) 95+% of users who once signed up for FogBugz and then never touched it again ... not great, Bob. Not great. Hope their acquisition price didn't assume the ability to convert those free tier users to paid, because I doubt many are willing to stick around given the way this was handled.
I'm certain I had a FogBugz account at one time, but it must have been on an email address I no longer use; I searched mail, spam, and trash to see if I got one of these invoices.<p>We need to get even a few dozen people who got the invoice to report to the state's AG for sending fake invoices. This is the type of issue that state AGs love. (For example here's Kansas AG on it: <a href="https://ag.ks.gov/media-center/news-releases-test/2015/01/30/consumer-alert-be-wary-of-fake-invoice-scams" rel="nofollow">https://ag.ks.gov/media-center/news-releases-test/2015/01/30...</a> ). If all of a sudden they started getting multiple complaints, they will have to answer for it.
<p><pre><code> USE FogShop
DELETE
FROM tblCreditCard
WHERE ixCreditCard IN (
SELECT ixCreditCard
FROM tblSubscriber
WHERE fStudentAndStartup = 1
)
</code></pre>
ok you won’t be charged now
Hail GDPR. I have a lot of trust and faith in the European corporate and business culture as far as these things go, but I'm happy I can make companies here delete my payment details, so tricks like these can't be pulled.
got hit with this as well<p>has anyone their DPO contact? legal page goes into nowhere, but I'm going to leverage the full extent of my gdpr given rights against them because of this dick move<p>e found: privacy@ignitetech.com
Bugs, source control, project management, diagramming, documentation etc. etc. I never sign for such services in a first place. It is either perpetual license or take a hike.
who would pay for such shitty software in 2022?<p>It was shit 10+ years ago and it has not improved one bit since then.<p>Oh look a UI from 2005, let me get my credit card…
To play devils advocate, is this not just an exercise to remove stale accounts? It looks like everyone who received the email does not have a payment method on their account so it seems more like "If you don't add a payment method to your account we'll be closing it?"<p>No?