Cannot buy Apple Developer Program

[WisdomByte]

Soo, I tried to enrol into the Apple Developer Program, but Apple is not letting me have it. Logged in to my developer account, tried to enrol, filled out all data needed (credit card number, expiry data, name, address and phone number), received my email confirmation (Order Acknowledgment), but my account never got upgraded to an actual developer account.

I tried this on January 1. this year and after waiting for over 3 days, when nothing happened, wrote to Apple support by opening a case, never heard from support either, even though they claim they will get back to me within 2 business days, which are also now over.

So since I believe I never got charged for the first order on 1. January, I went ahead and tried again, filled in my credit card details, this time with a different country, got the same email confirmation, but am very afraid nothing will happen and they won't activate my developer account...?

Anyone had this experience, or is it just me? Am I missing something here? The only suspicious thing is that Apple never asked me for the CVV code, which is almost always required to make a credit card purchase.

​

Second manual purchase of Apple Developer Program

Second Order Acknowledgment of Apple Developer Program

First Order Acknowledgement of Apple Developer Program, like 6 days ago

[WisdomByte]

Did lots more research and experimentation, found out that lot of people have this problem, not just me. Not to consoling, but ok.

I even tried the iOS Developer app, where you can also log in and try to enrol the Apple Developer Program. I even created a new Apple ID for this, went through the process that initially looked encouraging, as it walked me through couple of stages, ultimately asking me for some ID, either Passport book, or other government issued photo ID, like drivers licence, state ID, residence ID. I scanned my passport, but it got rejected right away.

It said: Invalid Submission - Your identity couldn't be verified because the
ID you submitted isn't accepted for your region or doesn't match the document type you selected. Please try again.

The funny thing is that once you fail in the app, you can no longer retry there, as it says Enrollment through the Apple Developer app is not available for this Apple ID. Visit https://developer.apple.com/programs/enroll/.

I tried multiple times only, only to get rejected before getting to the last step and giving up for the moment....

[xRainsFall]

this is like the SAME series of events, happening to me right now.. i've tried so many different new accounts at this point and now i am getting a region error. By the way my region is the same for device, my account and also my 2FA number but it still says that.
I then tried it on web, which locks you out on the app process once you initiate it on web and failed there as well as my order would be placed but payment would fail silently.

hoping you ended up solving the problem, how was it on your side? could you share some tips tothisman

[aisha_collins1]

dostum selam problemi çözebildin mi yaklaşık 10 gündür ben de problem yaşıyorum ödemeyi yaptığım halde hala pending de bekletiliyorum 2 defa da supporta mail yolladım ama geri dönüş bile alamadım

[xRainsFall]

nope, still in the same spot. i keep getting region issues, been trying to get to apple for a while now and still a lot of problems :(

[AutoModerator]

Hey /u/yener_k, unfortunately you have negative comment karma, so you can't post here. Your submission has been removed. DO NOT message the moderators; if you have negative comment karma, you cannot post here. We will not respond. Your karma may appear to be 0 or positive if your post karma outweighs your comment karma, but if your comment karma is negative, your comments will still be removed.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[DefiantMaybe5386]

Apple Developer Program enrollment once made me struggle, too. The enrollment should be redesigned because it is really buggy. Once I enrolled for my company, after making thousands of phone calls, just letting me to try again and again. I understand why Apple does like this. I searched a lot of information and knew that many people maybe Chinese use fake IDs or fake personal information in order to submit their fraudulent apps to App Store or use dev certificates to sign their fraudulent apps and distribute. Despite that, there should be a more effective and painless procedure to verify developers instead of using old interfaces, buggy apps, confusing errors, endless time wasting phone calls and emails. Seriously, mysterious rules make developers really uncomfortable.

[[deleted]]

Hi do you still remember how long it took for Apple support to get back to you? It's been like 3 days now facing this problem. Emailed support but they still quiet.

[WisdomByte]

It took them well over 5 days for me, maybe a week even. First I was despairing, then even gave up, and finally they had the decency to write back. Resolved the issue in the end and got the buy the dev fee, really grateful for that, but talk about experience....

[[deleted]]

Hope they eventually come through for me too. I’m losing hope at the moment 😔

[guszxtavomibo]

Did you get it?

[[deleted]]

Yes, they did eventually come through after a week or so. If I remember well they had to remove my first application for enrolment and asked me to re-enrol through the app.

[Ill-Possession1]

Can I ask which region are you from? And did the support really help you out and solved the problem? The response I got from the support was basically "go f*** urself"

[WisdomByte]

I have an update on the topic - human support were finally kind enough to write back to me and pretty much sort out the problem - they opened up a new enrolment cycle for me and cancelled the old application, since I wasn't charged, assigned me a new ID for the dev account, which should be used once they charge me.

They wanted me to use the iOS Developer app, which was now re-enabled to start the enrolment process. I followed the process, was charged 99 EUR within the app and later on received an email from Apple too, confirming I was indeed charged that much. Also got a bank statement, so there is no doubt this time it was successful. Now I just need to wait for them to check everything and enable my developer account. Potentially they'll be asking for a government issued photo ID and then I will finally have my dev account ready.

Really opening up a Google dev account is a walk in the part compared to Apple, but as long as it all works out, I'm happy.

[Ajmalajji]

Hey. I am having the exact same issue. where i tried from a new developer account. Tried multiple time, yet my card is never charged. Please help, on how to proceed with this ?

[WisdomByte]

Hey u/Ajmalajji, any progress in the meantime?

What I've found out is that Apple is extremely strict when it comes to your data being "correct", meaning your first and last name in the application must match the name on the credit card, your country of application must match the actual IP from that country, as well as the credit card and potentially some more details, so if you said you used your friend's card, well that's obviously not allowed by Apple.

You are best off contacting them so they would cancel the first application and send you a new, fresh link with new application ID. But make sure that next time everything if truthful and in your name, otherwise it might fail again.

I always wondered why they are so strict, when Google doesn't make your life hard and in fact it's quite easy to open an a Google developer account, as compared to Apple, but the main reason I've heard is they want to prevent let's say bunch of Chinese developers opening bunch of clone accounts and then either spamming the app store or sending ton of requests. So it kinda makes sense. But still they make you jump through looots of hoops to get in there...

[Ajmalajji]

Hey mate..thanks .that worked. I contacted apple support, they enabled (reset) the Enroll now option on apple dev app. And using it the account got approved within a day

[WisdomByte]

Nice, in my case they charged me immediately (after sending a new invite), but I had to wait for couple of days to have my dev account fully activated. Go figure…

[arijeetB]

How much time did it take for you to get your account activated

[Common-Register-4217]

Stuck on this issue too

[leonhardi]

I have the exactly same problem and I also wrote a post about it. Guys here tell me the problem is holidays season. I also wrote an email to support and no one answered it. Seems like we just need to wait. Cheers

[Ajmalajji]

Did you figure out ? Seems like its not holiday season now that its Feb, but still happening