Tell HN: Google Pay suspended account and it affected Google Play dev account
We were using Azlo as our business bank account, but they got shutdown after being acquired. We switched to Mercury and got our account setup.
We had no issues getting Apple to add and verify our new bank account, and we are receiving payments as expected.
With Google, we were getting an "Unknown error" when trying to add our Mercury bank account. Their support initially said they had to escalate it, but it would take no longer than 7 days. We waited more than 7 days for a reply. The reply was for us to install the Google Pay app on our phone to add the bank account. The instructions were to try to send money to someone, and it would prompt to add a bank account.
I replied saying that it felt very weird to use a consumer facing app with our developer account, but did it. However, it still did not show up as a payout option in either Admob or Google Play developer console.
After more waiting, I asked for a status update, and was told this:
"While investigating this issue, our specialist team discovered unusual activity on your Google Pay profile. So they temporarily suspended it for your security and canceled any pending transactions."
Fine, we can do that, but what they didn't say is that when they suspended the account all existing subscriptions would expire due to payment being declined. We found out when an end user contacted Google Play Support and was told there is an issue with the app developer's account (us).
My co-founder is based in Japan, and I'm in the US. We have a single account for the company, and he logged into it from Japan, which I guess triggered the "unusual activity".
Our users are angry at us for not accepting their payments and allowing them to use our service. This feels horrible because I understand the users' frustration, but there is nothing I can do until Google looks at our verification documents.