

Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent - alvarosm
https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-topic/checkout-merchant/selling-with-google-checkout/AM5NpAx6wpw

======
veeti
A few months ago Finland's banks switched to SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area)
and IBAN bank numbers permanently. This meant that old bank account numbers
would no longer work. This is obviously a change that has been in the works
for years and it's something that every company should have been prepared for.

Well, apparently Google failed to realize this and update their systems.
October's payout failed and I received a generic automated e-mail message
about it. I realized what the problem was instantly and tried to figure out
how to contact Google about it.

Google Checkout doesn't have a direct contact form nor a phone number:
instead, their "contacting support" page [1] presents a list of options about
"the topic of your question". Only after I chose something vaguely related,
filled out a contact form that didn't have a freeform text field and received
an automated form reply I could tell them my real issue by replying.

After they fixed it and re-entering my bank account details, I had to _wait
until December (the next payout date) to receive the failed payout_.

(I've received this month's payout successfully without any issue.)

[1] <http://support.google.com/checkout/sell/bin/request.py>

~~~
alvarosm
Many people have tried contacting them through multiple support forms about
this march payment issue and they're not managing to get any humans to answer
them.

~~~
jrockway
Attention has been gotten.

(Notice that the one Google employee who has replied in the thread is being
derided for not doing enough quickly enough. It was 9 AM in California when he
replied. This is why nobody speaks up until the issue is resolved.)

~~~
alvarosm
The point is not that it's 9am in California, the point is that it's the 13th
March already, and the first human answer we get, just minutes ago, is a
developer of the new 3-man team being assembled to take over that derelict
product -that processes millions, by the way. Is this a joke? no, it's just
the Google way, it seems. Developers have to give Google 30% of revenue and
this is the kind of support they get. Not customer relations, not support, a
lone developer of a meager, newly assembled team who used his good sense.

------
nthitz
jiazou a developer has commented:

Hi all, I'm really sorry to see there are so many problems with the checkout
merchant center. Unfortunately the checkout merchant center team is going
through a major transition. Many of the past owners of the code base have
left, which leaves many of you without proper support :( I'm part of a three
person team that's getting transitioned to take ownership of the code base, in
fact we have a meeting in 15min to get an overview of the basic architecture
and start looking into some of these bugs. I assure you we will work very hard
to address your issues as quickly as possible, but please remain patient with
us as our team makes this transition.

Thanks and Sincerely,

Jia

~~~
chernevik
If accurate, I really hope this guy doesn't get hammered for stepping outside
corporate comms protocol.

~~~
alvarosm
I hope so too, because it's pretty obvious to me that's what he's doing
(stepping out), out of sheer common sense, and I'm grateful for that.

~~~
jsaxton86
At the same time, it is also common sense that you don't need to explain how
poorly mismanaged your employer is when communicating with external customers.

With that said, had Google said something earlier, Jia wouldn't have had to
say anything and this would be a non-issue.

------
brador
It's an aside, but I no longer do business with anyone that doesn't offer
appropriate contact methods for the products/services they provide. It's now
the second thing I check after price and the primary reason I refuse to use
Google products but "go large" on Amazon products.

Thinking is: "If I have a problem, can I get help?". If I can find a solution
to that question in a few clicks, kaching, you get my CC details and we're
good to go, else, x.

Customer service is not a cost center, if done well, it's the best
marketing/PR channel you can get and it pays off massively in the longer term.

~~~
doctorosdeck
The one place lacking with customer support for Amazon is Amazon FPS. I
actually had to completly abandon my integration because the support wasn't
there. The only way to get support was via an outsourced forumn and responses
would take days if one was ever recieved at all. Response times like that make
it way to risky to use for payments.

------
freehunter
> _I receive emails from customers that they get Google Licensing Errors and I
> get one star reviews for my app due to this. They don't understand that this
> is Google's fault, not mine._

This is a danger in the market, and I see it in reviews all the time. Every
limitation of the system is the fault of the developer of the app, and the
reason the app is slow is because the developer is bad (not because the
customer picked a phone with a 700mhz CPU).

The app markets really need a way to protect developers from abusive
customers. Amazon lets other customers respond to a review, and Newegg lets
the maker of the product respond. Maybe the Android Market needs this, too.

~~~
cryptoz
Google Play definitely needs this. However,

> Every limitation of the system is the fault of the developer of the app, and
> the reason the app is slow is because the developer is bad (not because the
> customer picked a phone with a 700mhz CPU).

I think it is the responsibility of the developer to ensure their apps work on
the devices they are selling to. If a user is able to install the app from
Play, it _should work_. Google Play shouldn't be a wild-west scenario, where
some apps work and some apps don't. If the app doesn't work on the phone, I
would definitely suggest the developer has some of the blame.

Testing apps and ensuring they work on all phones is clearly impossible, but
by limiting the availability of your app to high-end phones and detecting
hardware in code and acting appropriately is our responsibility as developers
in a diverse ecosystem.

~~~
freehunter
> _Google Play shouldn't be a wild-west scenario_

Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has to
be. I don't have apps on the Google Play market, so I don't know if you can
restrict your app to only be visible or purchased by phones known to run it,
but there are some apps that slower phones just can't run.

Take Grand Theft Auto III for example (or any other high-end game). You can't
expect it to run on an HTC Aria with a 600Mhz processor. Should we stop making
these high end apps, or should we expect that there would be some kind of
control system to help prevent people from making uninformed decisions?

~~~
cryptoz
> Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has
> to be.

I don't think so, really. Android is the wild west because it's open source
and unrestricted. But the Market is Google's own, proprietary and closed
system. They have total control over it. App developers can restrict on a
device-by-device basis, but it's a pain and I don't really expect anyone to do
that (there are maybe 1,000 devices or so out there). However, you can also
restrict based on phone feature set like screen size, hardware capability,
etc.

I think we should hold both Google and the developers to a high standard when
it comes to marketplace apps.

> Should we stop making these high end apps

Of course not. Developers should stop selling them to people who they _know_
can't run them.

~~~
mirsadm
Unfortunately most of us aren't able to buy the million devices out there to
test with. More annoyingly we usually only find out about a device not working
when someone writes a 1 star review such as "dont work HTC <xyz> cm7".

I've had people email me and get nasty because my app didn't work on their
Touchpad with ICS. Or even better when people write low reviews from Tegra 2
devices such as "Textures missing" but they are using a kernel which reduces
allocated video RAM from 128mb to 64mb.

I love Android from a user point of view but I hate it as a developer.

~~~
megablast
If you are lucky they will write that review. More likely they will just say
"does not even run, the biggest disgrace since wwii".

------
JackC
Google's lack of support can be really scary. I've had situations in at least
three different areas where something went wrong with their automated tools
and I lost access to a service[1], and every time it was completely impossible
to get a person to look at the problem. I still use their stuff for small
projects because a lot of the tools are hard to replace for free. But that
icicle feeling when you realize that something you're relying on is broken,
you can't easily switch away and people want to know what's wrong and the
answer is there's nothing you can do to fix it ... it's stuck with me.

[1] Google Group disappeared entirely for a couple of days; AdSense upgrade
failed partway through; attempt to switch primary and secondary domains on
Google Apps resulted in a month of downtime ...

------
stuartmemo
From the Payment FAQ quoted in one of the comments:

 _Note that in the event of a technical issue, your payout may be delayed and
is expected to be initiated by the 15th of the month._

Maybe wait until after the 15th to start worrying about it?

~~~
alvarosm
Some people need the money because it's their only source of income or because
they need the cash flow for their business, or whatever. Tell them to start
worrying 15 days later. About the payments, on Google's side they show up as
having been initiated on the 2nd and Google has been deaf and mute about the
issue.

------
dangravell
Outside of the Android market, Google Checkout generally seems dead. I created
an account months ago to integrate with E-Junkie. Despite numerous requests
for support the account has never been blessed with an "integration" tab, as
indicated in their documentation, so the relevant information cannot be passed
into E-J.

I'm guessing they're letting it die and are working on something else.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Google Checkout is indeed dead, they want you to use Google Wallet now.

~~~
alvarosm
AFAIK, they're not different products, they just rebranded checkout. I guess
it's still checkout for the Android market because they haven't migrated that
yet.

------
baconner
Forget fragmentation, lower app spend per user, etc complaints about Google
play and android this is the big one.

This is the only issue that has seriously given me pause about selling apps on
Google Play. If something goes wrong you're stuck in forums, unhelpful issue
submission forms, and you can be left out in the cold for weeks.

The lack of support for end user market issues compounds the problem. There's
no easy help from google so customers contact the app developers who can't do
anything to help but direct them back to the Google support labyrinth.

------
trustfundbaby
It blows my mind that a company like google would be oblivious to such a
glaring problem ... I really can't process it. Does that mean nobody monitors
this kind of thing at all over there?

------
nyellin
On a related note, AppEngine has horrible, horrible, support for paying users.
I learned the hard way not to use products without phone support.

~~~
hucker
I've been successful in getting to talk to an actual _human_ in no other way
than through the #appengine channel on freenode. Quite a few of the devs on
the appengine team hang there, might be worth a shot.

------
harshreality
With all the automation Google tries to implement, couldn't they set up each
service with a support email address that has its incoming mail analyzed, held
for a limited time, and then expunged? Then all they'd have to do is get
someone to look at the mailboxes when unusual patterns show up.

~~~
jchung
Dangerous to try to engineer your way out of customer support. How about this
instead: they should just hire support staff like everyone else who cares
about customers.

