How do you register for an Apple commercial developer account when black listed?
How do you register for an Apple commercial developer account when they've black listed you?

Our small company decided that we want to make an Apple App, and have it show up under the company name on the Apple Store. I figured out the paperwork, jumped through all the hoops for this tedious company registering process and filled in all the forums. Things seem a lot simpler to do an individual developer account rather than a company.

Things start out well:

May 15th 2023:

"We've received your enrollment request. Once we verify that you have the authority to bind your organization to Apple Developer Program legal agreements, we'll email you with instructions on how to complete your enrollment."

Where this went wrong is in confirming that I was granted such authority by the owner of the company, which I was.

There are several people that can answer incoming phone calls and I told all but one, who was out to lunch at the time, that there could be an incoming Robo Call from Apple and how to route the call to the owner of the company, whom I also informed to expect such Robo Call.

Per Murphy's Law Dianna came back from lunch just the phone rang with said Robo Call as she arrived at her desk. Before I could get to her she hung up on the Apple Robo Caller thinking it was one of the MANY Robo Caller scams that come in every day.

No problem, I'll send an email to Apple Support and ask them to call back. This is Apples response to said email:

May 16th 2023:

"Dear Lavelle,

To participate in the Apple Developer Program, your organization must submit a request to reinstate the original membership.

Please provide specific reasons why Apple should consider reinstating your membership in a response to this email.

We will ensure your request is reviewed by the appropriate teams.

Sincerely, Apple Developer Program Support"

Who the heck is Lavelle? No one in this company by that name.

How do I reinstate a membership that I've never yet had?

My response to that specific email went unanswered, where I explained about the receptionist hanging up on the Robo Call, in detail. It seems they didn't read a word of that message nor the first message by their above response. Seems like an Eliza responder.

A while later I sent another email asking for help and got this response:

June 6th 2023:

"Thank you for contacting us.

We've received your support request and will get back to you in one to two business days. Your case number is [123456789...].

For additional information on development-related topics, visit Apple Developer Support.

Best regards, Apple Developer Program Support"

I've been waiting for that "two business days" response now for going on nearly three months.

Two other colleagues also tried to register our company. They got zero responses of any kind. Hence it seems we've been black listed by Apple.

So I'm turning to you here at HN, what are your suggestions on how to move this process along, to get our company registered for a commercial account?

Are there any real human contacts at Apple to call, that are not reading some auto response script?

To me it has become more this kind of issue:

"He tasks me and I shall have him! I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perdition's flames before I give him up." - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I was told Steve Jobs say said something along the lines of "We do not care about developers". Anyone have the exact quote? I want to hang it on my wall. How did Apple get to the top of the world with such poor treatment of developers?