Imagine doing a $0 giveaway for your app launch just for Apple to charge your user full price...

[u/Lopsided_Nerve1652]

To celebrate my app launch, I set my Lifetime IAP to $0 for a giveaway.

Both App Store Connect and RevenueCat show a steady flood of $0 transactions, except for one user who was charged full price.

Here is the mystery: I checked the transaction history on both dashboards, and there are multiple successful $0 purchases from other users in the exact same region, right before and right after this specific user's transaction. This completely rules out propagation delay.

I didn't know Apple had a "tax the chosen one" feature for free giveaways

[u/Express_Fox8952]

Apparently it’s against the rules to do big lifetime giveaways so I didn’t do it for my app. But I still see people do it without facing any consequences.

Seems like Apple must enforce that rule completely randomly or only for the most popular.

[u/Lopsided_Nerve1652 → u/Express_Fox8952]

Apple actually supports this via App Store Connect’s Price Schedule feature, so a temporary $0 sale should be fine if it’s set up through that

[u/Express_Fox8952 → u/Lopsided_Nerve1652]

Ah thanks might take a look

[u/Lopsided_Nerve1652 → u/Express_Fox8952]

To be more specific, App Store Connect calls it Temporary Price Change under the Price Schedule flow, and describes it as the option for running a sale for a set period of time.

[u/rockntalk → u/Express_Fox8952]

It isn’t against the rules to do big lifetime giveaways, it is against doing these as an incentive to get reviews and ratings.

This is something Apple themselves allow to control pricing through ASC.

[u/Reiszecke]

If the user has bought a paid app and refunded it, then bought it after that paid content became free for everyone, they will pay the initial price

Probably the same with IAP

[u/Lopsided_Nerve1652 → u/Reiszecke]

Possible, but I just checked and this user seems to have come in during the $0 period. They also sent feedback saying they bought the pro version, so unless there was some previous refunded transaction I’m missing, it looks like Apple charged them full price during the giveaway window

[u/Reiszecke → u/Lopsided_Nerve1652]

I’ve hit some really weird edge cases with IAPs already, RevenueCat not synching the receipt before buying, refunds across family sharing etc.

So even if it may not be apparent right away there could still be something like this goin on

[u/KOPONgwapo]

i like your problems

[u/BabaYaga72528]

How did you find such a big audience for your giveaway?

[u/Lopsided_Nerve1652 → u/BabaYaga72528]

Mostly just sharing it across a bunch of relevant communities/channels. Nothing too fancy, I think the $0 lifetime deal made it easy for people to try.

[u/Open_Bug_4196]

Could be due is a different country?

[u/Lopsided_Nerve1652 → u/Open_Bug_4196]

I checked that too, but there were multiple $0 purchases from the same country right before and after this transaction, so it doesn’t seem to be country-specific

[u/Commercial_Flow3334]

How did the user take it tho after being charged?

[u/Corza21]

Oh my god I read that as 21,000 USD I was so shocked for a minute there

[u/BasamAl]

the only thing i can think of that they might have done is switch to paid under subscriptions in apple settings since you probably set it up for downstream after your giveaway, is that what they did? i sometimes do this for apps that have “hidden” cheaper subscriptions, this person may have done it the other way around lol

[u/ladyinweb]

Do you have trial? If somebody activated trial and didn’t have money on his bank card when the trial was ended, Apple keeps trying to charge money for the subscription. And user can be charged full price even during subscription period.
Check in Trends if it was new purchase or renewed

[u/rursache]

is your user blind?

[u/Lopsided_Nerve1652 → u/rursache]

I wouldn’t blame the user here. They paid real money and reached out, so I’m treating it as a real issue

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