Customer Support built a cheap copy of a SaaS app

“We only need it until the migration.”— Plant Manager

Reason:

Honestly? Because the form takes 30 minutes to complete and times out after 14. Started as copy of copy of Budget2026_old.xlsm with a script attached.

Built by:

Katrin, a product owner

Build time:

a long Thursday

Built with:

an AI agent with shell access

Database:

a production table where the primary key is the customer's name

Authentication:

the guest Wi-Fi password is also the admin password

Deployment:

accessible through an IP address because DNS is "later"

Responsible:

nobody. It has no owner.

Documentation:

a README that begins with "temporary notes"

Security situation:

production secrets are in .env.example

Future disaster:

It will send an invoice of €240,000 to the wrong country.

Age: 3.8 years · originally expected to last 4 weeks · 3 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 74 days ago · original builder left 667 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 304 users, alive 46x longer than intended, nobody owns it.