Saturday, March 7, 2020

Yes, as an Android developer, your income will be withdrawn by Google without any prompt!


  • 2020/01/29: I got a warning on Play Console that I have to resubmit my proof of identity, so I resubmitted it immediately. However, I already did it on Jun 5, 2017.
  • 2020/02/04: I got a message from Google Support saying that I'm not someone else. So I clarified that I am I myself immediately.
  • 2020/02/11: Our payment account was RESET TO ZERO without any prompt, at the same time Google also frozen our account.
  • 2020/02/14: I replied Google Support about the situation about account reset, but there is no response at all.
  • 2020/02/14: Then I called many Google Support phone numbers of their Taiwan office, and in the end I can still only had e-mail support about this. But worst of all, they said that they have no permission to deal with it, and some expert team was investigating this. (Sorry they replied in Chinese)
  • 2020/02/29: I replied to Taiwan's support staff again, but they said they were not able to known the progress of expert team.
  • 2020/03/06: Finally I got confirmation from Google saying that they had confirmed my identity. But Google didn't return my USD756.8 back to me.
Yes, USD756.8 is not much and I can just let it go without struggling. However, your money could also be withdrawn by Google when they just wanna do it, without asking you any question.

So, please transfer your money back to your account as soon as possible. I made the mistake that keeping money in Google Merchant account for several years. Yes, for several years we just earned USD756.8. But actually we are semi-profit organization and our profit is accumulated mostly by donations.

I hope that there won't be anyone facing the same injustice situation like me. Please tell other Android developers you know, thank you.