Hi everyone,
We’re the team behind CREWA, a new running app from Almaty, Kazakhstan.
We’re developers, but we’re also runners ourselves. We run marathons, build running products, and on a good day some of us can move at around 3:30 min/km.
Apparently none of that prepared us for the endurance event known as Apple Developer Program organization enrollment. 🙂
We started this journey in late August. Since then, it feels like we’ve completed two additional marathons — except these ones were measured in Enrollment IDs instead of kilometers.
The good news: Apple has successfully verified our organization and documents. Twice.
The less good news: we still haven’t managed to get a single $99 payment authorization request to reach a bank.
Here’s our course so far.
🏁 Start — August 25
We began organization enrollment for:
CREWA, TOO / CREWA LLP
Almaty, Kazakhstan
D-U-N-S: 933910737
Our first organization enrollment was reviewed and accepted.
We reached the $99 membership purchase stage and submitted the payment.
Apple sent us the familiar:
“Order Acknowledgement — your order will be processed within 2 business days.”
Then… silence.
No charge.
No authorization.
No decline.
No request visible to the issuing bank.
We tried again.
Same result.
We tried another Kazakhstan bank.
Same result.
At this point our payment attempts had a remarkably consistent pace.
Zero dollars per kilometer.
🏃 First support lap
We opened Developer Support case 20000151195846.
Support checked the issue and told us:
“It appears that the system is having difficulties processing these payments.”
We were advised to enroll through the Apple Developer app because alternate payment options would be available there.
We tried.
Unfortunately, the app enrollment was not available consistently for our Apple Account. At one point we reached identity verification, but the process failed. Later the app displayed:
“Enrollment through the Apple Developer app is not available for this Apple Account.”
So we went back to the web.
🏃 Marathon #2 — Enrollment 5V95T49P42
We submitted a new organization enrollment.
Apple requested:
government-issued ID;
employment verification;
Certificate of Incorporation;
Statistical Card;
Taxpayer Certificate;
Articles and Memorandum;
certified English translations.
We prepared everything and submitted it.
Senior Advisor Jonas, case 102950970885, reviewed the documents and told us:
“We have reviewed and processed your enrollment.”
Great. Finish line in sight.
We accepted the agreement and submitted the $99 membership purchase again.
Because of our previous experience, we asked Jonas to check the order from Apple’s side.
He kindly did and confirmed:
“I can confirm the order has been received and is currently being processed.”
We waited.
Our bank waited.
Our developers waited.
Our servers, unfortunately, continued sending invoices on schedule. 🙂
No authorization request ever reached the bank.
Eventually the enrollment reset and we were back at Enroll Today.
At this point our Apple enrollment had officially covered more distance than some of our weekend long runs.
🏃 Marathon #3 — current Enrollment 394556UQ7H
We started again.
Apple requested the organization documents again.
We submitted the same complete package that had already been successfully reviewed, including the certified translations.
And Apple successfully verified us again.
Current Enrollment:
394556UQ7H — Verified / Approved / Ready for membership purchase
Senior Advisor Patrick, working on case 20000151195846, checked our previous orders and finally confirmed something very useful:
“I have checked these orders and can confirm they were unsuccessful.”
Patrick advised us to complete the current approved enrollment through the web and submit the payment once more. If it did not process within 48 hours, we should contact him again.
We followed the instructions exactly.
This time we used a third bank/card combination in Kazakhstan.
Apple:
“We are processing your order.”
More than 48 hours later:
No charge. No authorization. No decline.
We contacted the issuing bank directly and asked them to check not only completed transactions but authorization attempts.
Their answer:
They have received no authorization request from Apple at all.
So at this point we have:
2+ successfully verified organization enrollments
3 different payment cards / multiple Kazakhstan banks
multiple Apple Order Acknowledgements
multiple Senior Advisor cases
0 authorization requests reaching the banks
0 successful $99 charges
1 running app still waiting to get onto the iOS starting line
There is another slightly funny part of this ultra.
Every now and then a Senior Advisor appears, checks the case, gives us genuinely useful information and a clear next step — which we follow immediately.
Then, somewhere around the next aid station, communication becomes very quiet. 🙂
We completely understand that Developer Support handles a huge number of requests, and everyone we have spoken with has been friendly and professional. This isn’t meant as criticism of individual advisors.
We’re just trying to find the finish line.
In our running community, if somebody disappears during a long run, we normally turn around and look for them. 😄
So here we are, looking for our payment request.
The technical question
Has anyone experienced this exact pattern?
Organization verified → enrollment approved → web membership purchase submitted → Order Acknowledgement received → issuing bank receives ZERO authorization requests → enrollment/payment eventually resets
Specifically:
Did changing from a debit card to a credit card solve it?
Did using a card issued in another country solve it?
Did Developer Support eventually clear/reset something in the payment backend?
Did switching from web enrollment to the Developer app solve it?
Has anyone found a way to get an existing verified and approved enrollment successfully charged without starting the entire enrollment process again?
We’re happy to run 42.2 km.
We’d just prefer not to do 42.2 Apple Developer enrollments. 🙂
Thanks to anyone who can share their experience.
— CREWA team
Almaty, Kazakhstan
