CRITICAL! Google Chrome Extensions Webstore is charging users TWICE!!!

[Trading Connector]

It has come to my attention, that for the past few days Google Chrome Webstore has been charging my customers... twice. It started October 30th and continues to happen all the time since then. I even did a test by paying for my own extension myself, and yes - I was charged twice. Just after transaction for in-app product fully goes through (so after normal 30-40 minutes), subscription re-charging is happening.

I have received 2 payment confirmation emails and my bank's credit card statement shows two transactions as well.

Attached are screenshots showing "Customers orders" panel and my "as-a-client" inbox.

I have reported here when I first spotted it a few days ago (https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/chromium-extensions/dBbEei-XfpE/9TjgW6w4AQAJ). Now I have realised this is a global issue so I'm rising a flag even higher.

@simeon @dotproto - I'm afraid "we're working, no ETA" is not enough this time. This is dead serious and will surely damage our reputation as a vendor. What will Google do then? Manually remove negative comments and ratings? Pay compensation to vendors?

Thanks,

Tom

[Kartik Watwani]

Same issue faced by the users of my extension and they are very annoyed with this twice charge issue. One of them has even posted on Google support website mentioning my extension. So whenever I do a google search by my extension's name the issue comes up in top three results stating double charges for my extension on web store in the title. This will have negative impact on users. One of the users replied to that post saying the extension should be posted on some other store. Please rectify it as soon as possible.

[Simeon Vincent]

Hey all,

Thanks for the report. I raised this with the webstore team about 7 ago and they've been investigating the bug and remediations. Following up now because a colleague just pinged me about this and I realized I hadn't said "we're looking into it" yet.

Simeon - @dotproto

Extensions Developer Advocate

[Simeon Vincent]

Whoops, posted with the wrong account. Still me though.

Simeon - @dotproto

Extensions Developer Advocate

[Trading Connector]

Any news?

[Chris Zalcman]

Trading Connector, what news you want from the following company? 

To get the Chrome Extensions on the following list: https://killedbygoogle.com/

At least G's trying to do everything to make it happen.

[Simeon Vincent]

Hey everyone,

Quick update: we are in the process of refunding duplicated charges and are actively working on a fix for the root issue.

Thank you for your patience,

Simeon - @dotproto

Extensions Developer Advocate

[Kartik Watwani]

Thanks for the update. Please also make sure that the users who were charged twice due to the issue are not charged twice next month because as I can see the subscription for both the orders is active currently. Should we cancel it on our end?

[Simeon Vincent]

I suspect that developers won't need to do anything. I'll try to get confirmation on this, though.

Simeon - @dotproto

Extensions Developer Advocate

[Trading Connector]

Thank you. I confirm I have noticed refunds. I look forward to hearing about the fix.

Tom

[Deliaz]

I also found a few refunds this morning. 

[tzatter tzatter]

I have refunded today.

The order ids are issued within an hour.

That's like below

CWS.XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXX

CWSSUB.XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXX.3

Could you inform the customers of this issue officially.

My customers are thinking of this issue is my extension's fault.

The one of my customers rated my extension as bad rate for this problem. 

Thank you Simeon for the hard work to fixing this issue.

2019年11月9日土曜日 12時04分14秒 UTC+9 Simeon Vincent:

[Trading Connector]

Today I have noticed 2 things:

1. not all new customers are getting charged twice.

2. but some still are. And they are automatically refunded.

Please, please tell me it is not the "fix for the root issue" yet...

Thanks,

Tom

[Deliaz]

I've received two twice-charged payments today, but only for new subscriptions. The duplicate happens within a ~30mins, but no refund in 24hours, so I had to cancel them manually. 

Few other subscription renewals went smooth. 

[Trading Connector]

This is still happening...

Any progress, news or ETA?

[Trading Connector]

Meanwhile this is still happening - users are charged twice.

And Google Webstore Team are refunding second payment manually when they notice it.

Disaster...

[DS Team]

It was stocking experience when I had same issues years back, and now surprise to see that those issues are still exist without any fixes in spite of reporting long back.

Can you please confirm us that your web store developers ever written these test cases?

1. Check existing subscription before making new transaction against that customer?

2. If not, and if new payment transaction is made, then do you mark that subscription against that customer as paid?

3. While making second payment transaction, do you check any existing subscription / transaction already exist against the same customer?

4. What is causing the extra delay while making second payment transaction?

4. Assume second payment transaction went fine, but do you trigger a validation process to check potential refunds?

5. If needs to be refunded, why it can't be done instantaneously instead of delaying at random times?

[My recent cases]

6. The payment went fine (flow) for a fixed price item, and user got charged, but the API on the same payment popup says "Transaction failed". Is this fixed?

7. The payment went fine and API on popup gave correct status as paid, but later, the same API in the background script giving "Transaction failed" status. Is this fixed?

Whether one agrees or not, your team of product managers, architects, designers, and coders are really not doing a decent job of handling these issues since years without stability, timelines, quality, and especially the unpredictable review process.

If you haven't realized yet, too many developers are migrating theirs extensions and apps to Edge, Firefox, and other platforms. 

Good luck to everyone, and definitely not a happy holidays for developers with these issues!!