121–126 of 126 posts
If I had created such a company and I couldn't work on it any more, I would prefer to close it completely than to sell it to crooks like that.
And in that way, it does reflect poorly on Joel and the Fog Creek folks.
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. 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. At…
It’s a terrible move, and everyone should ignore the email. (Obviously, not legal advice, just my personal opinion.) I don’t recommend anyone do business with them, whether as a customer or anything else; I was CEO of Fog Creek when we decided to sell FogBugz, and if I knew the difference between what we were told ahead of the deal and what happened after, I never would have approved it. I didn’t see that they’d done…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a terrible move, and everyone should ignore the email. (Obviously, not legal advice, just my personal opinion.) I don’t recommend anyone do business with them, whether as a customer or anything else; I was CEO of Fog Creek when we decided to sell FogBugz, and if I knew the difference between what we were told ahead of the deal and what happened after, I never would have approved it. I didn’t see that they’d done…
This is nonsense. You knew exactly what would happen.
An email to the CEO (eric.vaughan@ignitetech.com) Subject: FogBugz debacle. You fucked up! … 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. 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 purpo…
Here's the beginning of their retraction email, in which they explain how this happened.
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Dear FogBugz User,
Mea culpa — sincerely.
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.
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.
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.