15-year account flagged for termination over one unreleased app — seeking advice

Question

Created 6h

Replies 3

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I am facing a nightmare scenario with Apple and need some advice or insights from anyone who has experienced something similar.

The App Review Board is going to terminate our account because a new app has been rejected multiple times in the review process and remains unresolved. （4-5 times)
No specific instructions or evidence provied, only guidelines (Section 3.2(f)) which are vague. We are very shocked that they are terminating our account because of an unreleased app (not visible to any user).
We publish apps on both the Apple App Store and Google Play. The Android version of this app was already released and has been running for half a year. We understand Apple has its standards, so we kept revising it in the review process. Google Play also has its own review process; a successful launch means the app couldn't have any serious problems.
Our Apple developer account is 15 years old. We have always played by the rules. There are 10+ apps with many users. For the past month, all our update reviews have been paused because of this "flag for termination".
If they actually terminate the account, does it mean they will permanently hold all our pending payments and delete/remove all our existing 10+ good apps? What's wrong with our existing apps that have been running for over a decade, and what about our dear users? Is this all because an unpublished app failed multiple times in the review process (but was released on Google and has been running for more than half a year)?

We are very confused.

What other department could we seek help from at Apple?

Apple ID of the app: 6757391175

【Why mention Google's Play Store?

It's not just app review rejections. (Different stores, different rules) 2. And It's not single app termination 3. It's account termination. It must mean the app violate rules seriously. But it's published on Google, so the app is a normal app. That's the reason mentioning it. 】

Answer 1

Claude31 OP

6h

Hi, we may understand your worry of potential termination, but you don't show the rejection message, and I cannot find 3.2(f) section in the guidelines, so it's very hard to say anything specific.

realeased on Google and running for more than half an year

As you know, the rules are quite different on the 2 stores. It just probably means rejection is not due to a crash.

📢 Note: you duplicated the text in your post.

Answer 2

Tomato OP

5h

App Review Board is going to terminate our account because a new app had been rejected multiple times in review process and remain unresolved .

What does 'multiple times' mean? Twice? Five times? Ten times?

Why do you repeatedly mention Google's Play Store? What does your termination have to do with it?

If you have kept your account for 15 years, how do you not know that you can get your account terminated if you keep submitting the same software title without resolving underlying issues?

Answer 3

Etresoft OP

3h

What does 'multiple times' mean? Twice? Five times? Ten times?

The OP said 4-5 times.

I cannot find 3.2(f) section in the guidelines

Someone else posted something similar. It's paragraph 3.2(f) of the Apple Developer Program agreement. This paragraph lists issues such as, "any act intended to interfere with any of the Apple Software or Services, the intent of this Agreement, or Apple’s business practices" and "any unlawful, unfair, misleading, fraudulent, improper, or dishonest acts or business practices".

As is always the case, Apple provides some examples, but those examples are always "such as" or "for example", not an exhaustive list.

These criteria are not vague and do not require a published app, or any app, really.

The takeaway here is that violations of the Developer Program are serious, full-stop issues. One could view repeated submissions in this case as an attempt to find a different reviewer who might inadvertently approve the app. So those repeated submissions could, themselves, be the violation in question.