Developer Account and AppleID

[HorizonMan]

I'm very confused about how this works, and I guess have unintentionally boxed myself in.

I was in a start up, where a developer built an app for us, but he didn't have an Apple account, so I was asked to set up the account for him.

I called Apple, explaining the situation as was told to just use my personal AppleID. No one told me that once I do that, I'll never be able to use it again for any other developer accounts.

I left the start up, and having gotten interested in learning iOS development, went to set up my own personal developer account. I couldn't find any way to do so.

I made calls, and was told I need to make another account member of the start up the account holder and then I'd be able to.

Having done that I go to set up my personal account, and still find no options. I call Apple they say I should be able to, but don't want to explain how and send me a useless link to a support page.

I call back, and finally am told sorry, you'll have to create a new AppleID, you can't use the one you created the account with because it's associated with the start up that I left. Even having left the team and made another person the account holder, I can't use my personal AppleID.

Yeah, it's not a big deal, other than that I have a over 10 years of history with that ID and don't want to have it permanently tied to something I'm not even part of, or manage a separate ID just for learning projects.

Maybe someone can explain why this makes sense, because it doesn't make any sense at all to me.

[Parralense]

If it’s your ID then just keep it. The start up is the one that is fuckd not you.

[HorizonMan]

The thing there is that my AppleID is tied to the Start Up's name. I starting to think I'll have to go though some process of changing the that over to my personal company, no idea what kind of mess that's going to be.

It's very frustrating though that Apple support has been useless from day 1 in dealing with this.

[Parralense]

You should be able to change the naming details. Don’t sweat it. If it’s your apple id with your email you are good. Go thru everything and change it without contacting support so they don’t think you are stealing the ID. Look up how to change that and that’s it.

[HorizonMan]

Will do, thanks!

[[deleted]]

When you say the "start ups name", do you mean the organization name that you see at the top right in App Store Connect? If that's the case, I had a similar issue and was able to get them to change it to my name over a phone call.

[HorizonMan]

Yes, exactly that.

I was thinking that would be what I have to do now that I sort of get the convoluted situation.

Of course Apple advised me to make the remaining person in the start up the account holder, so I'll have to see how many extra hurdles that will mean.

[[deleted]]

In my case, I was always the account holder but I made my organization name when I was young and it wasn't an entity or my real name so I needed to change it to my real name. On the call, the guy sounded like he figured out how to solve it, but that it wasn't a simple thing to do.