When An App Is Removed From The App Store, Do They Keep Your Payment Info?

[rupr]

When a Third Party App leaves the app store, do they get to keep your payment info from Shopify? For example, if you pay a yearly subscription for a Third Party App using Shopify’s payment gateway and that App Is removed from the app store, when that developer leaves Shopify, do they get to keep your credit card info so they can charge you still on their own? Or is it that once they are gone they can’t charge your credit card anymore and if you still have their old app installed, it essentially becomes like having a free app?

[Shay]

Hi @rupr 

Welcome to the Shopify community forums! This is a great question to ask as well. Out of curiosity, are you a merchant running a business on Shopify or a partner looking to develop apps? I'm happy to share any additional information you might need on this depending on which side (or both sides) you are at. 

When a Third Party App leaves the app store, do they get to keep your payment info from Shopify?  ... and if you still have their old app installed, it essentially becomes like having a free app?

• TLDR: No, they do not get to keep your payment information and you are not able to continue using the app.  

All apps approved for listing in our app store are required to use our payment and billing APIs. This allows app developers to charge for their apps and services through the Shopify admin directly, helping to keep your merchant data secure. When an app is completely removed from the app store, access to that API is also removed. The app developer would no longer have access to any merchant billing information in this situation. 

You can learn more about this in our Developer Docs here: Protected customer data.

When an app is permanently removed from the app store access to it from within the merchant admin is also removed. This is to ensure the safety and integrity of apps that can access your store. 

If an app is delisted and uninstallable on the app store because the developer was unresponsive to merchants, the app would still be able to bill existing merchants. This is because they have the potential to be added back to the app store.

Let me know if you have any other questions on this topic. I am happy to help. 

[rupr]

Thanks so much for your reply, I’m a Merchant.

Does this work the same for apps that are considered sales channels?

I’m curious because I've come across a situation where we had a yearly subscription for a Third Party App/sales channel. The developers stopped answering our emails. We used to have a dedicated manager that came with our subscription to make changes for us and be our support for the app/sales channel, but they are nowhere to be found. We paid a pricy fee and now we can’t have them do anything we need, which is that we are paying for. When digging deeper, we saw the app was no longer listed in the app store. We still have their app/sales channel installed and use it, but unfortunately our subscription is up tomorrow so now we are in a rush to uninstall it and find a replacement App.

So I’m interested to know if we don’t uninstall it, are they still able to charge us, even though they are no longer visible in the app store anymore?

It would be terrible if they did charge, since they aren’t supporting their app and providing what’s in our subscription. When we were charged last year, it was through the Shopify admin, so I was assuming if they are not in the app store then they can’t charge us since they don’t have access to our payment info, but you mentioned delisted and uninstallable could still charge?

How do you know if an App is delisted and uninstallable vs permanently removed?

[Shay]

Hi @rupr 

Thank you for that additional information. In this situation I would continue trying to contact the app developers and if you haven't yet, I would also reach out to our live support to report this to our partner governance team. 

It sounds like at this time the app is unlisted, but not completely removed. If the app was completely removed you would also not be able to access it from within your admin. In this situation, you may still have a subscription charge processed. If that does happen and you are not able to work with the app developers for a refund, please also report that to our live support team to assist with. Generally, app developers need to process refunds themselves but in unique situations where the devs are no longer responding or supporting their paying merchants our escalated team can step in. 

Please feel free to share the link to our community thread here to help provide context to our live support team and reach out through our Help Center by following this link: Contact Support - Shopify Help Center. Sign into your merchant account, follow the prompts to choose a topic and then select your preferred live support option on the last page.

[rupr]

Thanks @Shay for your help and input.

Unfortunately, we have contacted the developers multiple times this month without response. We have also been in contact with Shopify support and they are aware of the situation. The sales channel is actually for our mobile app. The Shopify app in question was a Mobile App Builder. If we uninstall that sales channel, I would be afraid of how that will affect our sales. If I knew uninstalling it would not affect our sales I probably would go ahead and do that without question to save us the headache of dealing with a charge tomorrow. 

Do you happen to know, if we uninstalled that sales channel, would that affect customers purchasing through the app?

[Shay]

I can't say for sure but if the app you created for your store is hosted on the third party app's own servers then removing or delisting it from your store may affect your access to the app. 

I would review any available documentation from the app devs on what that would look like and if possible, also make a backup of any information stored within that app so that you don't lose it if the app is completely removed from the app store. Even, screenshots of your current design and layout could be beneficial in a worst case scenario. 

[rupr]

Hmm so really there's almost no good option. If we don't uninstall it today there's a possibility they charge us tomorrow and will have to get shopify support to step in at getting a refund or we uninstall it to keep from the charge but then could lose any sales we would of received in the next few days till we get a new app developer.

Actually, I think what I might do is leave them one last message to their email and through the Shopify admin since there’s a direct message box there, saying we want to cancel our subscription and do not want to be charged so that way it’s at least on paper. Then we can leave the sales channel installed, so our mobile app doesn’t stop working while we get a new app builder to take over. We just have hope they don’t have an auto charge set through shopify since they aren’t even supporting paying merchants anymore. This wouldn’t of been so much of a problem if we were notified they were going out of business, or at least answered us saying they are no longer in service to give us time to make a change, but now there’s no time left.

Thanks again for your help so far! @Shay