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YC: Help, I quit my job, now I cannot get Apple to pay me out for iPhone Apps
Hi HN,
(Text below is pretty long, forgive me)
I'm a long-time user, you may know me on this site, but I'll use this brand new account because I don't want this story to be public yet.
I registered an iPhone developer account about a year ago (a company account, with an English Ltd). I started with one small app, made $30 in the first month, then $90, then $700, $1000, $2500, $3000, then $3500.
Good income, right? Problem is, I have never seen a penny of it. When I signed up, I made a mistake. I had registered as a company, but I gave my personal bank account. There was a field to enter the account information, it went through a verification process of a few days, and came back alright.
At the point I made $2500, I quit my job. Things were looking good. A few days later, Apple wrote me an email saying that they tried to pay me and it did not go through.
After a series of emails, it turned out that even though Apple lets you specify the Account holder name, they do not send to that account name! They send to the company name. My bank of course rejected this transfer from Apple.
So I tried to make a bank account in England. I could not because I don't live in England! I decided to change the company to a company in my home country, and the bank as well.
This process took well over 3 months to do. Apple would take weeks to reply emails, and I had to send a letter to Steve Jobs and some other random high-ups at Apple before some head of department suddenly appeared on the scene, and got the issue resolved in a couple of weeks.
At this point, my savings had dried up (yes, I did not have a lot), and I had to borrow money to live. Apple would always say that they were shortly about to resolve the issue, I just had to sign this or that or fax to this number this document. It kept dragging on, till finally, last week on friday, it was over! Company name was changed, bank account was changed.
Apple issued me a payment file for $11.000, the amount they are owing me. I checked my bank account several times. Nothing.
Then I wrote an email, asking why I had not received the money. They wrote back saying that all income was still associated with the old bank account because it was earned by that account, and that they could not transfer the money to the new account. They had sent the money to the very same account I had started the process with!
Now, in spite of earning $450 on saturday, $400 on sunday with my iPhone apps, I am broke and don't even have enough on my bank account to pay my rent.
I feel like I'm an ant trying to break down the great wall of china - HN, What can I do? Who can I email to solve this problem for me? Before going public with this, what can I do? How do I make them reconfigure whatever Oracle payment system is preventing them from just transfering the money to the correct account?
What steps can I still take here?
- jacquesm 17y agoI hate to say this, but I think you should first call your old boss and see if you can get your job back. Apple owes you that money, but it could be a long time before you get it. Also, and this is of course something you already realize but it needs to be said: The money isn't in the bank until it is in the bank, never ever make a decision based on money that you haven't got yet.
- ErrantX 17y agoI second Jacques. Your biggest (and probably only real) mistake was quitting the job before payments definitely appeared! You might have earned that 2500 that made you quit your job but it wasnt in your pocket ;) Also it will be worth getting it back; because Im guessing that instead of writing new apps and improving your current ones you've been sorting this out. And so the next risk is you get this sorted and then the money starts to tail off..
- ed 17y agoThat is bad advice. You've proven the viability of your app, continue growing sales and take on some debt (friends & family, credit cards, etc).
- jacquesm 17y agoRight. The guy needs to eat, it could be months before this is solved, all his savings are gone. He is no longer in the position he was in when he quit his job (savings in the bank, alternative income stream). He needs a source of income, and he needs it yesterday. Will you tide him over if Apple does not pay in time ?
- sokoloff 17y agoFor a percentage of his future income stream, I absolutely would. (That means that he probably has a better option, but in the event he doesn't, he can feel free to contact me. I'll do some diligence and if it checks out, I may make an investment...)