Hi everyone, I’m looking for advice from anyone who has dealt with an Apple Developer account “Pending Termination” notice.
What happened Yesterday I received a Pending Termination notice for my Apple Developer account (not just a single app). This is a huge deal for me because it affects all apps under the account.
The notice cites 3.2(f) and 5.6.2 (Developer Identity). It includes language like: Evidence of Dishonest or Fraudulent Activity
You provided fraudulent and/or false account information, documentation, or otherwise falsely represented yourself or your submitted app to Apple either during the account enrollment process or after the account was created.
What I discovered (my mistake)
After the notice, I did a deeper self-audit and found something that looks bad and could be contributing:
One of my apps has a supporting website built from an AI template that look like tea app, the app itself have original code.
The Privacy Policy page on the website was empty, and the footer copyright name was wrong (not matching my legal entity).
What is correct
My company is in Good Standing and my Apple enrollment info, Agreements/Tax/Banking, support email, and App Store Connect privacy policy link are real and consistent.
Support email is reachable and we have responded to user emails.
App context
We never intended to mislead customers or represent ourselves as “Tea App.” Our App has different UI/functionality and a different mission. We knew Tea App had privacy issues (data leaking / targeting real people), so our goal was to build a safer dating-stories app where users share experiences only, we warn users at the beginning of the start of the app and warning when upload posts not to target real person or share real person image (so no identifying real people). When we launched, we also noticed some similar tea apps on the store used hard paywalls, so we wanted something transparent and accessible (no IAP, no ads).
App Timeline:
Dec 2: Our App launched. The first week was normal: few downloads, and the few posts were general experiences without personal info.
~Dec 9: Downloads suddenly spiked. At first we thought the concept was working, but we quickly realized some users were trying to use Green Tea the same way as Tea App — to target real people.
Immediately after: Our team disabled sign-up to stop new onboarding/content until we could design a safer system. This led to Dec 12 onward: 1-star reviews complaining they only saw a “green screen,” which was expected since sign-up was disabled.
Following weeks: We tried to reduce privacy risk further (e.g., removing photo upload in the latest version), but Apple review still rejected it as “targeting real people.” We explained our intent in the review notes, but a later response said the app was a “copycat.”
Late December (near Christmas): We had limited capacity to iterate quickly due to vacations, but we still monitored and replied to support emails.
Jan 5: A user emailed asking to remove a personal image because they thought we were Tea App. We replied promptly, clarified they had the wrong app, and explained that Our App does not host real-person photos.
I’m not sure whether this is what triggered Apple’s termination notice, but I’m trying to understand what went wrong and how to respond properly. If anyone has been through something similar especially if you successfully appealed. I'd really appreciate any advice. Thanks for reading.