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Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

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Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#41

Post by mikeocool »

echoangle wrote: post #13
OptionOfT wrote: post #4

I got the same email, and I don't have a credit card on file with them. I wonder what they're going to do?

Is this really the normal way to do this in the US? Does no billing info mean you’re immune? If they have your real name in Germany, they would just send it to collections and get their money if you really owe them something, even if they don’t have a way to charge it directly themselves.

I'm sure they could technically do that if they have the right wording in their terms. But most consumer services are not actually going to give you a paid service without billing info, because it'd create such a headache for them to collect.

Even if they sell the debt to collections, the collections service is probably only going to pay them fractions of pennies on the dollar, since "bill for random service someone signed up for the internet" is not likely to have a high recovery rate.

Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#43

Post by carogalvin »

Hi, I'm the PM who sent out this email! This email only went out to enterprise admins where there's an org somewhere that has Code Quality enabled on some repository. It's very possible that, due to what you mentioned about adjusting roles and organization membership recently, that it no longer applies to you and we didn't update our filter in time.

To be super sure that you turn it off everywhere if you don't want to pay for it, go to any organizations you're the admin for, and go to Settings > Code Quality (it'll be in the left side bar), say "No repos" for the "Repo Access" dropdown, and turn on enforcement - it'll then turn it off everywhere in the org and stop it from being turned back on (in very large orgs, this can take a few minutes to propagate).

Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#44

Post by carogalvin »

OptionOfT wrote: post #4

I got the same email, and I don't have a credit card on file with them. I wonder what they're going to do?

Hi, I'm the PM at GitHub in charge of this feature - this feature only charges to organizations/enterprises, not to individuals. If you don't have payment set up the feature will just stop working, I'm not going to come track you down or anything.

Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#45

Post by OptionOfT »

carogalvin wrote: post #44
OptionOfT wrote: post #4

I got the same email, and I don't have a credit card on file with them. I wonder what they're going to do?

Hi, I'm the PM at GitHub in charge of this feature - this feature only charges to organizations/enterprises, not to individuals. If you don't have payment set up the feature will just stop working, I'm not going to come track you down or anything.

Thanks for clearing that up!

Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#46

Post by OptionOfT »

Aurornis wrote: post #25
OptionOfT wrote: post #4

I got the same email, and I don't have a credit card on file with them. I wonder what they're going to do?

The e-mail is pretty clear that it's about an organization. You can't even enable this feature on free personal accounts. It must be some organization you're a member of.

I am the organization owner, so I still got confused.

Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#47

Post by kirb »

pocksuppet wrote: post #30
thenewnewguy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Just to make sure I wasn't missing something, I checked and my GitHub account has only a TOTP app and hardware security key configured, no SMS/phone number. As a matter of fact GH even has a red "Less secure" badge on the SMS 2FA in the settings discouraging its use, as well as the following text in the description: "We strongly advise against using SMS because it is susceptible to interception, does not provide…

This option must have been added later.

I’ve been using GitHub with TOTP since they added it in 2013, and other non-SMS methods since then. No phone number on my account.

Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#48

Post by pocksuppet »

drnick1 wrote: post #31
Aurornis wrote: post #16

I'm a GitHub admin. Did not receive this e-mail. We don't have the GitHub Code Quality feature enabled anywhere, though. The e-mail seems clear: Someone enabled the feature in the organization. The feature was in free preview, but the free preview is ending. If they leave it enabled, it will be billed at the new rate. It's pretty clear that "organization" is being used throughout the e-mail, so they're not referring…

How can you possibly bill someone without billing information?

If you owe someone money and they have any identifying information at all, they can chase the debt in court. Maybe get a lien on your bank account or garnish your wages.

Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#49

Post by asdfsa32 »

pocksuppet wrote: post #48
drnick1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you possibly bill someone without billing information?

If you owe someone money and they have any identifying information at all, they can chase the debt in court. Maybe get a lien on your bank account or garnish your wages.

It is as true as sky is blue, not always, it is a bit complicated, and so on.

Re: Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

#50

Post by bobmcnamara »

dewey wrote: post #28
bobmcnamara wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christ it's the airport bellhop scam: Someone appears, gives you a service unprompted(carries your bag of spams some AI code reviews), them later demands payment.

Did you even read the email? It's an extremely boring standard billing notification that explains exactly why that person received it "You're receiving this because your organization is using the GitHub Code Quality public preview." and when it would be come into affect. It's not a small print somewhere, or one of these weekly app store subscriptions that run up high bills because someone clicked "Yes" in a game. It'…

You're making my point here - this sort of corporatist, bait-and-switch-if-you-dont-opt-out behaviour is illegal in many countries, Netflix got spanked for it this spring.
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