Forum Discussion
Frustrating support responses - business verification
I've been trying to get my business verified. It's a maddening process and the support "people" don't appear to understand how dates work.
I sent our VAT registration document - too old (well it's as old as the company is as you'd expect and couldn't be more proof that it exists legally).
So I sent our bank statements for March 2025. I get a response that says that's too old. I ask them to look at it again as it's literally last month.
Then I get this response today:
"...The document that you have provided is no longer valid since it was issued for the period (01/03/2025 - 31/03/2025). Kindly share with us a more recent document.
All documents submitted should be issued within the previous 12 months or where the expiration date is a future date that is at least 2 months away."
I'm beyond understanding how they think last month is over 12 months ago.
Somebody please help me. Support ID 2503270040004554
9 Replies
So after 6 weeks of banging my head against a brick wall I've finally been verified. I'm pretty sure (because obviously this broken system tells you nothing) the issue was the bank statement I uploaded had a date range on it "01-04-2025 to 31-04-2025" and they kept insisting it was more than 12 months ago. I edited the pdf to redact the first part so it just left 31-04-2025 and 3 days later I was in.
This is absolute madness.
At what point does an actual human being look at this forum and see all the issues partners are having with the same exact process, and then think to themselves, "yeah, this is totally working, let's change NOTHING about how partners are verified, it's completely perfect as is."
Since appointments are "not available for this type of support request", we all take to the forums to voice our displeasure over what is seemingly a dreadfully simple issue only to get here and be further frustrated by the unhelpful AI moderators copy-pasting the same helpdesk article we have all read 100 times while waiting 5 days to be rejected again with little to no context.
This process needs to change, but sadly since you're the only viable game in town, it won't because we all still need verification.
- JillArmourMicrosoft
Community Manager
They are aware of the issues and working on changes. That is all they share.
Man, I've been hurting for 2 months and I still haven't gotten any help.
I am so exasperated with these nonsense replies. 3 times now I've uploaded a valid document that's dated either 1 or 2 months ago, and they repeat the dates back to me and say it's too old as has to be within the last 12 months. Last time I checked March and April 2025 were not more than 12 months ago.
It's the same canned response from multiple "people".
How do you escalate these tickets?
- JillArmourMicrosoft
You need to submit your domain paperwork with a date that is less than 12 months old and doesn't expire for two months from todays date. Once you submit that you should be fine. Bank statements will not work in place of domain paperwork. :) Good luck!
That's not the problem. The problem is they are saying March 2025 (i.e. LAST MONTH) is more than 12 months ago.
- JillArmourMicrosoft
Look at the comment in this post, it may be a good suggestion since months/dates switch around depending on which country you are from and maybe they are misinterpreting your document.
