Ask HN: Is it not possible to enroll for Apple Developer anymore?
I've been trying to enroll for Apple Developer for over a month and nothing works. The Apple Developer app won't accept my Canadian passport for identity verification. The enrollment is for a Delaware LLC, so my Apple account region is set to US. I can't switch the account region to Canada either, because I haven't lived there in years and don't have a Canadian bank card. If I enroll through the website, the enrollment gets approved, I accept the term and, when it's time to pay, all my cards get declined. I tried ~7 bank cards (debit, credit, personal, business), all with matching billing addresses. All US cards. All the banks tell me they didn't decline transactions from Apple. I tried no VPN, VPN and residential VPN. I tried from my MacBook, iPhone, Safari, Chrome, incognito, non-incognito. Phone support is unavailable every time I check. I tried talking to regular Apple Store customer support but after repeating myself over 5 times with different agents, the last person I got transferred to told me they couldn't help with Developer stuff. If I email Developer support, they reply ~5 days later with unhelpful canned responses like "have you tried Safari incognito?", "you should try the Developer app instead" or "make sure your billing address matches your bank information". I'm at support email #9 and enrollment attempt #3. Has anyone had similar issues and been able to fix them?
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You may hate this advice but it worked for me: have Gemini walk you through all the requirements for your given situation. It took 6-8 weeks for all my stuff end to end, including whatever agreement I needed for European sales, but Gemini was very helpful and correct on all the stated steps and gotchas. Yes, I’m American but I had a slightly convoluted situation with addresses and bank accounts, and going at the process blind would’ve been much less successful.
Send a cold email to the exec whose portfolio this falls into. Probably Eddy Cue or Craig Federighi.
That part of their business, along with the News part, has been like this for years. It’s incredibly frustrating to real people like you and I when they don’t have the (enough) equivalents on the other side. I don’t know why they do it, but it has to be intentional. Nothing helpful here, but I sympathise.
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Just a heads up: there is a massive, incredibly detailed [dead] comment below by luyao_street that actually explains this exact issue. It seems to be caught by the spam filter, but it's a goldmine. The TL;DR of their advice, cheapest first: 1. Try adding the card directly to your Apple Account from an iPhone/iPad first (the web page often silently fails). 2. Use Safari (cards often fail in Firefox). 3. Stop changing variables (VPN + region switch + different browsers = triggers Apple's fraud algorithms as a 'takeover'). 4. Request a phone callback via the developer portal and ask them to complete the order manually. 5. Crucial flow check: Individuals pay at enrollment. For an Organization, you pay only after Apple verifies your info and emails you next steps. If your LLC is asking for money before that email, you are in the wrong flow. Also, for orgs, you must use a custom domain email (no gmail) and the D-U-N-S info must match character-for-character. Might be worth scrolling down and reading it before you give up!