I understand your point about "fake companies," but from where I stand, if I'm actually operating a real product, it's not a fake company — how others, or Apple, choose to perceive it is a separate matter from what it actually is. On why not a Chinese company instead: as I mentioned earlier, the main driver is that another product of mine needs Stripe, which doesn't support companies registered in mainland China. As for this specific app, I'm fine with enrolling as an Individual to get it published — as I mentioned in an earlier reply, I'm already in the process of doing exactly that, just ran into a separate issue along the way (ID verification getting rejected on a fresh Apple ID). Thanks again for the advice either way.

That's a fair point, and it actually clicks something into place. I'd guess the registered agent likely pays referral/affiliate commissions to YouTube creators who recommend their service — that would explain who actually profits from steering people toward this path. I can't think of anyone else in the chain who'd benefit from it. The tutorial gets ad revenue and an affiliate cut either way, regardless of whether the viewer's enrollment ever actually succeeds.

Had a discussion with AI about this afterward, and it helped connect a few dots. On the scale of it: FBI IC3 reported $20.9B in online fraud losses in the US alone in 2025, up from just $1B in 2015 — a 20x increase in a decade. Combined with FTC data, the reported total hits $36.8B. That's before counting unreported cases or anything outside the US. At that scale, "fraud as a business" isn't really a metaphor — it's organized, well-funded, and iterates on its tactics the same way any other industry does. On why fraudulent operations look like normal companies: it's not that they're especially good at faking it — it's that the bar to legally form an entity (LLC, EIN, D-U-N-S, business bank account, website) is so low that it filters out essentially nothing. States profit from registration volume, not from vetting legitimacy, so the paperwork trail looks identical whether you're a legitimate solo developer or a shell company. On why Apple doesn't just clean up after the fact: banning an account post-hoc means the damage (chargebacks, scammed users, reputational cost) already happened, and re-entry is cheap — a new LLC is a few hundred dollars and a few days. So front-door verification, as blunt and painful as it is, reduces total fraud volume in a way that after-the-fact bans alone can't. On why they don't just permanently ban the person instead of playing whack-a-mole with entities: it turns out Apple's identity verification does try to do this to some extent. Per Apple's own documentation, their ID verification vendor extracts and retains the document ID number (passport number, etc.) during the photo ID check — not just a one-time face match. In theory that ties a fraud flag to the person, not just the account or entity, so switching Apple IDs or forming new LLCs doesn't necessarily reset anything if the underlying ID is already flagged. The catch is this cuts both ways. It can't distinguish between an actual repeat offender and someone who tripped a cluster of unrelated risk signals for the first time — which might explain why my phone call ended in a flat "final decision, no appeal" rather than a specific reason. If the block is sitting at the identity/document level rather than the document-quality level, no amount of resubmitting cleaner paperwork under the same passport would move the needle. And it turns out this isn't just theoretical for me. Support had suggested enrolling as an Individual instead, so I tried creating a new Apple ID to do exactly that — and got hit with "ID verification rejected" on the very first identity check, before any company or D-U-N-S info was even involved. I reported it back to support, who said they'd look into it. So at this point it genuinely looks like my personal identity information itself may already be flagged, independent of the LLC. Which is a pretty stark example of a legitimate user getting caught in the same net as actual fraud.

Thanks for laying that out — it genuinely helps me understand why the enrollment was likely declined. The "benefiting from scammers" framing is honestly a bit jarring to sit with. I'm just a developer who followed a fairly common YouTube-tutorial playbook for setting up a US LLC to sell software globally — it never occurred to me that going through a well-known registered agent would put me in the same bucket as fraud or money-laundering operations in Apple's eyes. But I take the point that the perception exists regardless of intent. Not knowing any of this going in made the rejection pretty rough to deal with. Email support never responded, and the phone call just ended with a cold "this is a final decision, not subject to appeal." That's really why I ended up here — I just wanted to understand why.

Thanks for the reply — at least it points to a possible reason behind the rejection. For context: I'm a developer based in China. I did compare costs, and forming a company in China is noticeably more expensive than a US LLC. I haven't done a detailed comparison on the tax side — I'd guess every country has its own complications there. The more concrete driver is payments: I have another SaaS product that needs a platform like Stripe, and Stripe doesn't support companies registered in mainland China. A US entity was really the practical path to get access to that kind of payment infrastructure, not an attempt to cut corners. One more thing worth pushing back on: using a registered agent to set up a bare-bones LLC doesn't automatically make someone a scammer. Not every founder has the capital to set up something more elaborate or hire a lawyer for every step. Facing a final, non-appealable rejection with zero explanation is genuinely disheartening when you're just trying to build something on a limited budget. And every piece of personal information I submitted was genuine — real passport, real address, real signature. If someone actually intended to scam people, they'd do it regardless of which country or state their company happens to be registered in. Jurisdiction isn't really what determines whether someone's a scammer.

I had almost the exact same experience with a Wyoming single-member LLC (foreign/non-resident owner) — valid D-U-N-S number, EIN, passport, and an active company website. Went through a document verification round (passport, employment/role verification letter, formation documents), resubmitted everything requested, and still got declined with no specific reason — just a generic note about enrolling as an individual instead. Called Developer Support by phone afterward to ask for clarification, and was told the decision was final and not subject to appeal, no reason given. Did you ever find a path forward on this, or any more specific reason from support? Starting to think this may be a structural issue with how Apple's verification handles newly formed, solo-founder, foreign-owned LLCs rather than anything specific to the documents submitted.