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 this point the best I can do is hope they don't have any real PII to try to collect their bullshit bill.

https://twitter.com/search?q=fogbugz&src=typed_query

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?

  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

ESW Capital was discussed in “Software Sweatshop – Inside Billionaire Joe Liemandt's Empire” (2021): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28852956

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.

I bet Joel didn't envisage that product ending like this when he wrote all those articles. :(

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 purporting to charge $31 to my “prepaid account”.

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.

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.

``` Dear cheesedudles,

Your current free subscription for FogBugz is expiring on October 16, 2022. To continue using FogBugz, please add payment details to your account today.

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.

Trouble upgrading? Please create a ticket on our support portal support.fogbugz.com.

Enjoy your upgrade,

Team FogBugz ````

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.

[0]: https://ignitetech.com/

(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).

FIRST they requested users update payment information as if to continue their FREE accounts. THEN they billed users for a month's service.

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.

If, or since, most of these account agreements are 10+ years old, it's possible they ginned up some evidence of a negative option contract. 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.

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?

To reiterate what others have reported:

9/17 title "Your Manuscript Account"

- $31.25 for:

- $12.50 9/17-10/17 5 users 50% off fogbugz

- $6.25 9/17-10/17 5 users 50% off time tracking

- $6.25 9/17-10/17 5 users 50% off wiki

- $6.25 9/17-10/17 5 users 50% off agile

9/16 title "Your fogbugz free subscription is expiring" (from a different sender)

"To continue using FogBugz, please add payment details to your account today"

(and if you didn't notice)

"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"

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.

Here's the beginning of their retraction email, in which they explain how this happened.

===

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.

With enough chargeback, they will have their account suspended.

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.