Forum Discussion
JillArmour
Community Manager
May 30, 2023How to appeal a rejected partner profile in the verification process
If your partner profile has been rejected in the verification process you can appeal the deision.
Follow these steps
- CBullenBrass Contributor
JillArmour After many, many months, I have finally been verified. In case it helps anyone else, here's what I've discovered:
- Partner Center does NOT support Sole Traders, if you want your 'Trading As' name to be used as the publisher name. This is because (a) when registering as a 'Developer', there is only a entry box for the 'Publisher Name', which the verification team use for your legal verification - so that has to be the Legal Entity name (your name) and means your name gets used as the Publisher Name in AppSource / Commercial Marketplace; and (b) when linking your MPNID to an Azure application for login consent, the consent prompt shows your legal entity (name) rather than your trading name. I ultimately gave up, registered a Limited Company and reapplied through that.
- The first line of support - who respond to the 'Fix it now' uploads - are not allowed to engage in any conversation. They are only allowed to respond with the boiler-plate text we've all seen, which is rarely accurate. They are not allowed to use any discretion. As such, they're entirely useless if you have anything slightly out of the ordinary. In such cases, you need to raise a support ticket by clicking on the ? sign.
- The Partner Center people on Twitter / X are similarly useless. They're all very nice, but just forward your queries to the first line of support, then ignore any requests for updates.
- The second line of support - who respond to the support tickets - are not allowed to engage in any conversation. They are only allowed to respond with the boiler-plate text we've all seen, which is rarely accurate. They are not allowed to use any discretion. As such, they're entirely useless if you have anything slightly out of the ordinary. In such cases, you need to repeatedly reply with a request to escalate your case to the third line. You can also raise a support ticket on any other non-verification topic, arrange a conversation with the support specialist and ask them to escalate to the third line of support.
- The third line of support are not allowed to engage in any verbal conversation. They can respond by email to explain the problem - to tell you what information is being missed - but they're not allowed to tell you how to get past the blockage. They are not allowed to use any discretion. But they can trigger a 'Verified Credentials' process that might help you get through the "Who are you?" step.
- The people who validate the domain registration details do not understand that '/' means 'or', so they *require* you to provide a "Domain registration invoice" with the name and address matching Partner Center, stating the registration period and who the domain is registered to. They don't seem to care who the invoice is from, nor for how much. In my case, I owned my domain but bought it under a different name. In desperation I invoiced myself for $0.01, uploaded that and got past the 'Domain verification' step. When switching to a Limited Company, I similarly invoiced my company for the domain registration, which was also accepted.
- If you can, register for the "ISV Success" program. You need to tick that you're selling B2B and already have some products in other marketplaces, but they DO seem to be able to escalate to people who can actually use some discretion to verify your account.
- JillArmourMicrosoft
Community Manager
CBullen THANK YOU for this information. I hope other partners find it helpful!
Thank you all for being part of the community and best of luck out there!! 🙂
- JaxonRCopper Contributor@JillArmour
I'm struggling with all the others here with a rejected partner profile issue. If I am getting the "Our system indicated multiple failed attempts from your account. We are unable to proceed with your Account Verification" message, what can I do to get help with the verification? I can't find any where to open a support ticket and the "Fix Now" button doesn't seem to work because of the multiple failed attempts. What options do I have here?- JillArmourMicrosoft
Community Manager
JaxonR you have to appeal to move forward. Please refer to the top of this post for instructions.
- CBullenBrass Contributor@JillArmour, can you please check if there has been a misinterpretation of the rules/requirements somewhere within the Validation Support team. I continue to get the stock response that to verify my domain, I must provide:
"Domain registration/invoice or renewal that lists entity/contact and domain as they are stated in your account."
In British English, I understand the "/" character in that sentence to mean "or":
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/forward-slash
"The symbol /, used to represent 'or' and in the names of internet websites"
So I am asked to provide one of:
- Domain registration, or
- Invoice, or
- Renewal notice (I assume for auto-renewed domains)
that lists one of:
- Entity name, or
- Contact name
I suspect the "/" may have been misinterpreted, so requiring:
- Domain registration invoice
listing
- Entity and contact
Please check, and if found to be true, get that misunderstanding changed. That might explain much of the immense frustration witnessed in this discussion chain.- JillArmourMicrosoft
Community Manager
CBullen yes the "/" means or.
- CBullenBrass Contributor@JillArmour, could you please provide that information to the Vetting team, as in one email response I got for incident 2404170040003707, I was told:
"Please note that we need domain registration invoice for verification of domain along with business documents mentioned. Kindly make sure the details in documents provided should align with details as mentioned in your Partner account."
- stas_sultanovCopper Contributor
The situation is extremely frustrating.
I am trying to verify 2 different companies simultaneously, and I have failed with both of them on the Employment verification step.
With all the confidence I claim that support:
1. does not read the appeals, I've sent 3 for each account company
2. does not read the documents in attachment3. does not read the support requests, I have raised for each company
it`s such a shame...
we need this to verify our application that we provide to our customers but no luck.- JillArmourMicrosoft
Community Manager
What is the reason they are giving in their responses for your rejection? - tealightCopper Contributor
stas_sultanov MS sucks. I have to sell all my $MSFT stocks.
- CBullenBrass ContributorHi @JillArmour,
After months of this merry-go-round, of never being told what is wrong with the documents and evidence submitted. I just got an email from email address removed for privacy reasons, which naturally bounces if I try to reply:
"We tried to verify your Partner Center profile MpnId xxxxx information but were unable to do so
We’re unable to verify your profile information and give you full access to Partner Center.
After several unsuccessful attempts to verify your information, we’ve ended the verification process. No further action will be taken on this profile verification.
Failure to complete the verification process within 30 days may result in termination of your relationship with Microsoft."
So now what do I do?- tcarternepheletechCopper Contributor@CBullen,
I had the same issue and had to create a ticket by going to Help+Support icon at the top and create a separate ticket. Once you're blocked, you can only upload documents from the generic support ticket page.
- JoseLuisGarciaCopper ContributorHello, I am an individual seller and I have been able to register. Does it assign you an MPNID number? In my case they assigned me that number but it indicated that the information was incomplete. Check if everything is signed and accepted in the "agreements" section. In my case, the agreement as CSP remained to be signed. Now everything is ok.
- CBullenBrass Contributor@JillArmour
I'm still stuck in the Merry-go-round, still unable to find out why my details are being rejected. I've gone through lots of support tickets, escalated through the PS team in Twitter, tried DMing in LinkedIn the MS Execs who seem responsible. Not making any progress whatsoever. This is the most frustrating, unfriendly and broken process I've ever encountered.
What course of escalation do you have? Can you please email whomever is responsible for the Partner Center program, asking them to review support ticket 2404030040011553 and explain to me why my details keep being rejected, when as far as I can see, all the documents submitted *exactly* match my Partner Center company name. Without such an explanation of what doesn't match, I am unable to correct anything.
I suspect that one of the approved documents is a whois listing for the domain that shows my name, but since the EU GDPR regulations, they're not allow to show my name on the registration details page - only that the "Name and address has been validated".- StuHardmanCopper ContributorThis is the exact scenario i'm in, I can no longer submit documents and my account is apparently going to be closed. Registered Company No, VAT Registration No., Domain invoices in matching details, nothing works. I logged a support ticket which got closed with no further information. It's an absolute shambles.
- WiseOptimizersCopper Contributor
JillArmour and All -
We just started our business and we got the below issue with in Partner Centre. we have submitted all the required gov and tax documents but still Microsoft rejected and now we are unable to submit anything.
could you please suggest if we have any other solution to resolve the below issue , raised couple of partner centre support tickets but no success from Microsoft support team.
Please advise and provide your inputs, we are loosing the business from potential customers.
- CBullenBrass Contributor@JillArmour, I hijacked a different support request in which I was able to speak to a support assistant. They were able to review the internal email traffic to discover that the verification rejection was because I am a Sole Proprietor and have selected to join the Commercial Marketplace program. And despite all the rejection messages talking about domains and entity names, the actual rejection reason is that Commercial Marketplace *requires* proof of an incorporation certificate - and I'm not a Limited Co so won't ever have that cert. The follow up is to check if it's possible for a Sole Proprietor to be on the Commercial Marketplace, and if so, how to get verified in such a case.
- CBullenBrass Contributor
JillArmour I’m in the same verification endless loop. In my case I’m a sole trader, so my Entity Name is my own name. My domain registrar (IONOS) only has the option to enter my first and last name as the registrant, but the “Government issued letter” I need to provide also use my middle name. How can I exactly match both evidences, and does the Entity name also need to include the ‘Mrs’ at the front, as some of the documents have that too?
As a sole trader, I have my personal name, and a "Doing Business As" name that my customers know me by, so the one I should use as my Publisher name. But is there something in the verification process that requires me to publish using my personal name?
But the real issue here is that nobody will ever tell me what is wrong with the documents I’ve provided - it’s just a guessing-game of what I need to change. How do we actually escalate these issues to someone senior enough to make a sensible decision rather than simply match letters? In my case, realising that the names should be seen to match with/without a middle name and/or salutation.- tcarternepheletechCopper Contributor
CBullen the names all have to match exactly. I don't think Mrs. would be necessary and, if you are using a DBA, you're probably going to have submit that as documentation but it needs to all be the same. As far as the Entity on the domain registration, I would just make sure the company name is "FirstName LastName" with same casing and everything else. I have seen that any deviation from this puts you in the black hole of partner signup.
- JillArmourMicrosoft
Community Manager
CBullen If your domain paperwork states your first and last name as the domain use that to register your partner account on Microsoft partner center. If there is no space between the first and last name make sure you don't have a space between your registered account on partner center. As tcarternepheletech stated, it has to match EXACTLY!!!! Rename your account and submit again, you should get through.