Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice? | Hacker News Reader

Anyone else get a vague GitHub shakedown notice?

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48 pointsjjgreen47 comments

I'm a GitHub admin. Did not receive this e-mail. We don't have the GitHub Code Quality feature enabled anywhere, though.

The e-mail seems clear: Someone enabled the feature in the organization. The feature was in free preview, but the free preview is ending. If they leave it enabled, it will be billed at the new rate.

It's pretty clear that "organization" is being used throughout the e-mail, so they're not referring to this person's free personal GitHub account.

How can you possibly bill someone without billing information?

> GitHub Code Quality is available for organization-owned repositories on GitHub Team and GitHub Enterprise Cloud plans.

Both of those are paid plans, so the billing information available. As the message says, this email is not for individual user, but rather for github org admin. I guess someone made the poster an admin, they are receiving admin-only messages and are freaking out now?

> How can you possibly bill someone without billing information?

The person is confused. They're not getting billed.

The organization's responsible billing contact would get billed.

This feature can't even be enabled on free, personal accounts.

Its just a normal letter containing the details on what to expect, its more of a heads-up than a shake down to me. If the billing information is not there and account still continue to use the feature then the account would be disabled or something similar. Question is, should the email have all the if-else situations, probably not feasible.

If you owe someone money and they have any identifying information at all, they can chase the debt in court. Maybe get a lien on your bank account or garnish your wages.

It is as true as sky is blue, not always, it is a bit complicated, and so on.

Hi, I'm the PM who sent out this email! This email only went out to enterprise admins where there's an org somewhere that has Code Quality enabled on some repository. It's very possible that, due to what you mentioned about adjusting roles and organization membership recently, that it no longer applies to you and we didn't update our filter in time.

To be super sure that you turn it off everywhere if you don't want to pay for it, go to any organizations you're the admin for, and go to Settings > Code Quality (it'll be in the left side bar), say "No repos" for the "Repo Access" dropdown, and turn on enforcement - it'll then turn it off everywhere in the org and stop it from being turned back on (in very large orgs, this can take a few minutes to propagate).

This links to this, which says

https://docs.github.com/en/code-security/concepts/about-code...

> GitHub Code Quality is currently in public preview and will become generally available on July 20, 2026. During public preview, Code Quality scans will consume GitHub Actions minutes but you will not be billed for other usage. From July 20, 2026, usage will incur additional charges. See GitHub Code Quality billing.

>If you want to avoid charges, disable Code Quality before July 20, 2026. See Disabling GitHub Code Quality.

https://docs.github.com/en/code-security/how-tos/maintain-qu...

>( Repo > Settings > Code Quality)

I don't see that tab, so either the docs are out of date, and it's called something else now, or it's not on all accounts/all repos. (Due to being in preview?) I don't know.

It's probably now called CoPilot Code CoPilot Quality CoPilot™. Do you see that anywhere in your settings?

Oof, you're reminding me of Microsoft Redesigns the iPod Packaging video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k

For those lucky 10,000 just learning about that today, for extra frisson, enjoy the fact that that video came from Microsoft itself: https://www.engadget.com/2006-03-15-microsoft-we-created-the...

Hahah fantastic. Ok, I might have bad taste, I like Microsoft's version. At least the first 30% of the way before they stuff it with visual noise.

If you don't, be sure to enable the `tool_search_tools_regex` ... tool.

> I don't see that tab, so either the docs are out of date, and it's called something else now, or it's not on all accounts/all repos.

Correct. It's only for certain plans like GitHub Team and Enterprise Cloud.

The weird part about this e-mail is that they said they recently left some organizations because "the tone of the paid services" increased. So either they're still a member of one of these organizations, or GitHub mistakenly sent the e-mail to past members?

It sounds like they gave you a feature for free you didn't want, and now are trying to charge for it. Very much a dark pattern.

The person writing this doesn't have the feature. It would have had to be enabled by someone on a GitHub org they were a member of.

It's not even available on personal free plans like the person says they have. Either the e-mail was sent in error, or it's enabled by someone else in an organization they're a member of.

What about this email is a "shakedown"?

I was thinking the same thing, but I think it's down to this person not actually using the thing that GitHub are saying is moving to a paid service. It's hard to stop using something you don't use.

The part where it says they are about to start taking your money?

Sending a billing notification to someone who has no billing information on file, but is part of an organization where someone probably enabled that beta feature ("You're receiving this because your organization is using the GitHub Code Quality public preview.") isn't a shakedown.

Christ it's the airport bellhop scam:

Someone appears, gives you a service unprompted(carries your bag of spams some AI code reviews), them later demands payment.

Did you even read the email? It's an extremely boring standard billing notification that explains exactly why that person received it "You're receiving this because your organization is using the GitHub Code Quality public preview." and when it would be come into affect.

It's not a small print somewhere, or one of these weekly app store subscriptions that run up high bills because someone clicked "Yes" in a game.

It's like calling a Netflix renewal email a "shakedown" just because they send you an email giving you a heads up that your trial will convert into a paid subscription.

You're making my point here - this sort of corporatist, bait-and-switch-if-you-dont-opt-out behaviour is illegal in many countries, Netflix got spanked for it this spring.

You don’t have to pay if you stop using the feature. This is a huge nothing-burger.

That featur is opt-in: someone had to check a checkbox somewhere to enable it.

And yeah, that how the businesses work: you opt-in to feature, then you start paying for it. Sometimes the latter part is delayed, in which case it's a good style to send heads-up email about it. Nothing unusual or scammy about it.

The wording could have been more clear: Instead of "what you'll pay" it should have said "what your organization will pay".

Everything else about the e-mail is clear that it's about the organization, though. I don't know why this person would think they're going to start getting bills "per committer" of the organization where they're not already the responsible party for billing. Like GitHub just decided that they're going to start billing this one person for every committer in the org, but only for this one feature?

> More details are available in our documentation ( https://docs.github.com/code-security/concepts/about-code-qu... ).

^^^

I got the same email, and I don't have a credit card on file with them. I wonder what they're going to do?

Is this really the normal way to do this in the US? Does no billing info mean you’re immune? If they have your real name in Germany, they would just send it to collections and get their money if you really owe them something, even if they don’t have a way to charge it directly themselves.

Yeah, as far as I know. Also github doesn't have my real name, for instance. I am sure they could know it, but I never agreed to any billing, either.

Generally yes, though I remember seeing a post on hacker news in the past month where a SAAS sent an invoice after the free trial ended rather than terminating it.

I always expect a failed billing or no billing info after a trial to cancel and not be pursued (I regularly do trials with a temp card that I immediately de-activate so it cannot be billed in case I forget to cancel)

For the vast majority of services, yes

This would be fairly uncommon for consumer facing services in the US, outside of medical services.

I guess if you signed up for a cell phone contract and didn’t pay after the first month, and didn’t have a billing method set, it would go to collections. Things like that are generally uncommon though. It usually only happens with things like medical services, loans, auto repair, home repair/contractor services, and contractual services such as cell phone plans and utilities. (Contractors and mechanics may actually take out a lien.) Usually this only happens when there’s larger sums of money at stake or when it’s a large company with an airtight contract and a well-staffed billing department.

Things like consumer software subscriptions don’t usually involve this risk, there have been exceptions but consumers don’t like it and tend to punish it.

I'm sure they could technically do that if they have the right wording in their terms. But most consumer services are not actually going to give you a paid service without billing info, because it'd create such a headache for them to collect.

Even if they sell the debt to collections, the collections service is probably only going to pay them fractions of pennies on the dollar, since "bill for random service someone signed up for the internet" is not likely to have a high recovery rate.

The e-mail is pretty clear that it's about an organization. You can't even enable this feature on free personal accounts.

It must be some organization you're a member of.

I am the organization owner, so I still got confused.

Hi, I'm the PM at GitHub in charge of this feature - this feature only charges to organizations/enterprises, not to individuals. If you don't have payment set up the feature will just stop working, I'm not going to come track you down or anything.

Thanks for clearing that up!

A QGIS-Developer post, original title anyone else get a vague github shakedown notice? is this about qgis?

This is about an optional setting for org admins you need to disable in the repo settings, Security and Quality. Not vague at all.

Uh? What? Shakedown? You enabled a free preview of a paid service, they are now letting you know what it will cost to continue to use a paid for service, how on earth is this a 'shake down'? GitHub deserves a lot of crap, but not for this.

No, I didn't, because I quit GitHub when they started demanding mandatory SMS 2FA

Huh? Just to make sure I wasn't missing something, I checked and my GitHub account has only a TOTP app and hardware security key configured, no SMS/phone number.

As a matter of fact GH even has a red "Less secure" badge on the SMS 2FA in the settings discouraging its use, as well as the following text in the description: "We strongly advise against using SMS because it is susceptible to interception, does not provide resistance against phishing attacks, and deliverability can be unreliable."

This option must have been added later.

U2F was always an option, because I used it since they added the MFA requirement (and like others here never gave Github my phone number). I think TOTP was also available from the start. The warning to not use SMS for MFA might have been added later.

I’ve been using GitHub with TOTP since they added it in 2013, and other non-SMS methods since then. No phone number on my account.

> No, I didn't, because I quit GitHub when they started demanding mandatory SMS 2FA

They haven't demanded that of me. I have 2FA with a Yubikey and a TOTP app.

I don't ever recall giving them my phone number.

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