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"We are unable to activate your iPhone Developer Program membership"

A

ajbrehm

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 14, 2002
341
0
Zurich, Switzerland
After months of waiting and empty promises Apple finally sent me an email with a code to activate my iPhone Developer Program membership.

But when I followed the link and submitted the number, the following appeared:

Code: 
We are unable to activate your iPhone Developer Program membership because we are unable to successfully verify your identity. 
Please contact us and reference Enrollment ID# AAAAAAAA for further assistance.

(AAAAAAAA is an ID#.)

I have been a customer in the Apple Store and iTunes Store as well as an ADC member for years. Why can Apple suddenly not verify my identity any more?

What happened to Apple the past few months???
 
Did you get a response?

I had the same problem. I submitted a ticket to apple 2 weeks ago and still no response. Arrggghh...
 
Did you try calling ADC? I've found that to be MUCH faster than doing any kind of online thing.
 
Thanks for the tip. I didn't even realize they had a number.

I called today and found out you can't buy a membership with a credit card in a different name than the ADC account. Not that they tell you that in advance...
 
bstrong said:
Thanks for the tip. I didn't even realize they had a number.

I called today and found out you can't buy a membership with a credit card in a different name than the ADC account. Not that they tell you that in advance...
Click to expand...

Apple are entirely too inflexible for a company that serves the mobile professional worldwide.

1. My iTunes Store is in German because my credit card is German. (I am a EU citizen, live in Ireland, and keep my credit cards outside Ireland because of Ireland's credit card tax. I can speak German but find German phrases surprising and confusing.)

2. The Apple Store refused to accept that my parents' German address is NOT _my_ default address. It's in the address library because I once sent them a keyboard. It took me years of calling the Apple Store again and again to convince them to remove the address. (It was the only one that didn't have a delete button next to it!)

3. In Frontrow all the television show trailers are in French. I have no idea why.

4. When I tried to connect the iPhone it didn't work because my credit card is not Irish. The nationality of the credit card was not mentioned in the requirements so it wasn't obvious what the problem was. I called o2, the phone company, and they forwarded me to their UK line who finally told me that with an 086 telephone number I was not an o2 customer. All of this was caused by Apple insisting that the iTunes Music store software be used for connecting the iPhone. (When _I_ (not Apple support) finally noticed what the problem could be, I called a friend and got his credit card number and the iPhone connected! Great security they have there.)

5. Sometimes stuff I order from the Apple Store gets lost because the Apple Store reformats address fields. The word "basement" under a house number and street suddenly becomes a town and one of the address fields sometimes vanishes. The c/o field also gets cut at some point. I have had couriers call me asking where "Basement" is in Dublin (because the second address field was merged with the town field) or for why they couldn't find my name on the door (because the name in c/o had vanished).

6. All of Apple's forms for entering address fields cannot deal with Irish addresses. I finally got a reply from Apple regarding my iPhone developer program subscription and it turned out it was due to them having some forms with a "town field" and some with a "city field". Apparently in the US "town" and "city" are the same. But I live in town = Rathmines, city = Dublin, and postal code = Dublin 6.

These things have been going on for years, ever since the online Apple Store and iTunes existed. But do Apple care?
 
ajbrehm said:
I have been a customer in the Apple Store and iTunes Store as well as an ADC member for years. Why can Apple suddenly not verify my identity any more?
Click to expand...

I think Apple has never actually verified your identity. All that Apple does usually is to check that the e-mail address that you gave actually exists and that you reply to emails sent there. It could just be possible that Apple has checked your identity for the first time, for example by checking that your address actually exists and that you are living there.
 
gnasher729 said:
I think Apple has never actually verified your identity. All that Apple does usually is to check that the e-mail address that you gave actually exists and that you reply to emails sent there. It could just be possible that Apple has checked your identity for the first time, for example by checking that your address actually exists and that you are living there.
Click to expand...

How would they do that?


Either way, as I said above, the issue was about the name of my town (Rathmines). They checked and didn't know that it was part of Dublin. That's the kind of checks they employ.

So the procedure was:

1. Announce a free SDK to the customer.

2. Tell the customer that to use the free SDK he needs a non-free subscription.

3. Tell the customer to wait for a few months until he is allowed to buy the subscription.

3. After a few months tell the customer that he can give you money now.

4. Take customer's money.

5. Wait a few weeks.

6. Tell customer he can activate his subscription now.

7. When customer does that, tell customer that you cannot verify his identity and that he should contact you.

8. Ignore customer for a while.

9. Send customer an email telling him that you didn't know that Rathmines was a part of Dublin and that everything is fine now.

If this series of delays doesn't end, I will begin to hate Apple, I am sure.

I have NEVER before been part of a transaction like that!
 
It has become screamingly obvious over the past couple of weeks that Apple isn't wrapped nearly as tightly as they'd like you to believe, hasn't it? I signed up to ADC quite some time ago and I've never had any noticable problems but a friend, who signed up recently, has access to all kinds of things I do not. Why? Phase of the moon, raining in China, woke up funny that morning...who knows? We paid the same amount for the same thing but with very different results. Technically it doesn't matter, I'm not interested in the 2.1 beta or any of that crap, but it's yet another less than satisfying Apple experience in what's turning into a sizable line of less than satisfying Apple experiences.
 
This just happened to me. I assume it's because I choose to go by the name Robbie but officially it's Robert (so that's what my credit card says on it). What's the best fix? Change my name on my Apple account?
 
robbieduncan said:
This just happened to me. I assume it's because I choose to go by the name Robbie but officially it's Robert (so that's what my credit card says on it). What's the best fix? Change my name on my Apple account?
Click to expand...

Oh, hi, Robbie.

Thanks a lot for all your help with explaining Cocoa and memory management to me back then a few months ago. It worked. I wrote lots of stuff since then and think I finally understood retain and release.

My iPhone app, a Hebrew vocabulary trainer, also works and is running fine on my phone. It just needs more words.

The best fix appears to be complaining to Apple. Takes about 10 days of constant complaining (send a complaint every three days) and then they resolve it.

There is a form somewhere for contacting the dev support. If you cannot find it, I'll look it up for you.

Regards and stuff,
me
 
ajbrehm said:
There is a form somewhere for contacting the dev support. If you cannot find it, I'll look it up for you.
Click to expand...

Thanks! There was a link on the error page to a "contact us" form. I got an automatic email back with a case number etc. I was just wondering if I could solve this faster. I had a look but I can't change my name on the ADC profile...
 
I'm having the same problem. I've sent at least 10 emails to ADC support and they have not responded.

Anyone know if you can submit an iPhone app if this code isn't activated through the link?

UPDATE: I called Apple directly and got activated... I recommend anyone else having this problem to do the same.
 
missed a step...

i. Accept money from customer 24/7

ii. Only offer order-related support during business hours M-F and have a recorded message tell you how little you mean.

I'm an Appleado from way back and it just feels they are not as warm, soft and cuddly as I once imagined....

It does actually warn you to use the same exact name as in the deal, I think that was cool, maybe because it re-routed me to the Japanese store with which I had an account, it got the address info in Jap on one side and Eng on the other...

Stupid, regardless.

I don't see why it takes half a day for the activation email to come. One could could be led to believe that there is some human carefully checking your details and cross-referencing against other records from the same email address.... though that obviously does not seem to be the case......
 
Update

Being Monday morning, I gave them a quick call here in Japan and got through without delay. I spoke to a savvy Japanese staffer who understood the problem quickly and said he'd email me with instructions in English or Japanese, whichever I was in the mood for.

The instructions came within 10 mins or so and said to prove my identity, reply to the email with address / contact details and the order number and he'll make everything peachy...

I just replied and will see how long it takes them to sort it.

Good service so far, just wish they did it on weekends :p Oh, mail just came in ...

Dear Leon Stafford,
We are following up with you regarding your recent iPhone Developer Program purchase.
Your order information did not sufficiently match your enrollment information and as a result the ability to activate your Program was placed on a temporary hold. We have reviewed the issue and have removed the hold on your Program activation. At this time, we ask that you please refer to the original activation code email that you received and click through the link once again.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact us.
Best regards,

iPhone Developer Program
Click to expand...

Awesome!!

Off to code my fortune now :p
 
I had the same problem since I have read must call the ADC support to fix it.

Any suggestion about wich country to call. I am from Greece and my country it is not listed at the ADC Telephone Support.
 
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