Developer Fixes Broken Referral Program That Paid Out Nothing Due to Bad URL
A developer building a referral program for their Android app discovered the invite button had been pointing to an incorrect URL with no referral parameter, meaning no referrals were ever tracked. The flaw went unnoticed until the developer reviewed unrelated wallet code and found that users' balance fields could be written directly from their own devices without server-side verification. This security gap prompted a broader fix before the referral payouts could safely go live. The rebuilt system uses Android's Install Referrer API to properly attribute new installs, and limits referral code claims to within 60 minutes of account creation to prevent abuse. The developer advises others to close any client-writable balance or loosely verified action vulnerabilities before launching incentive features, rather than retrofitting fraud prevention afterward.
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