Fred is an employee of your company that builds an iPhone app. Fred is responsible for registering it but decides to use his personal account details. If Apple paid the money into Fred's account you would be reasonably aggrieved
So there is nothing wrong here - well after your rather odd decision to register as one legal entity (a UK Limited Company) but provide the bank account details of another legal entity (yourself).
I suspect that the money is effectively lost to you.
and that you should withdraw the app (if you can) and re-register honestly and clearly as yourself.
I suspect that the money is effectively lost to you. and that you should withdraw the app (if you can) and re-register honestly and clearly as yourself.
Are you seriously claiming that -- if they were so inclined -- Apple couldn't safely resolve this issue within an hour or two?
The problem is that this issue is indistinguishable from the following scenario from Apple's point of view:
Corporation Makes Application
Programmer has control of communication with Apple Store
Programmer leaves Corporation aggrieved
Programmer asks Apple to personally wire him the Corporation's Money
Corporation is f-ed.
That is the fundamental problem he has getting this issue solved, and I'm guessing that from his story that his communication skills aren't helping people at Apple get in a place to help him.
You misunderstand. The company is a real UK limited. They can be setup over the internet. It's registered and real. I can setup a company over the internet, but not a bank account.
He (for some reason) made up a fake company in a country he doesn't even live in.
Which, if true, Apple never actually verified existed in the first place. Seems a bit odd to be pushing for it now.
I can't really blame him, either. The sign-up is confusing, the legal requirements are often poorly specified, and it's to do something that seems to makes sense (I want a fictitious name, I'll create the company later) that's actually a really bad idea given Apple's requirements.
I don't think there's any ambiguity here about whether the author made a mistake. He knew he didn't have the company when he started. He just didn't expect that mistake to cost him so much. I sympathize, but his mistake involves both taxes and accounting, and I'm having a hard time blaming Apple for the fact that it's a debacle.
I have no trouble blaming Apple for failing to resolve an outstanding debt after many months of poor communication with the individual to which they owe.
Surprised at the downvotes. Clearly you people have never had to deal with trying to get anything done with Apple or any other similar massive inattentive bureaucracy (like, say, immigration services?).
It's one thing to, in good faith, work through an outstanding issue with someone over the course of months, another to simply ignore any/all requests until they go through extraordinary measures to capture your attention.
The onus is not on Apple to verify it to that extent up front, but if they suspect fraud or tax evasion they'll go by the book on it. That will take time.
3+ months of little-to-no communication, stonewalled by front-line support and having to e-mail sjobs@apple.com before getting any response is "by the book"?
I get the impression that you're arguing (and users are downvoting) from the vantage point that Apple is a reasonable organization. They are most certainly not.
The only organization I know of that beats Apple and the AppStore when it comes to Kafkaesque bureaucracy is US Immigration Services.
I think the real subtext here is that it would take an unusually awesome company to resolve a problem like this quickly, and whatever anyone thinks of Apple, when it comes to process they are not unusually awesome.
Nobody is asking for "quickly". It's way too late for "quickly". How about making a proper good-faith effort to reach an amicable resolution in a remotely timely fashion, instead of general stonewalling?
I think it would take a bit more than an hour or two. It would require a full investigation: copies of relevant documents, approval from their accounting department, approval from the App Store management at some level, consulting with their legal department and probably an affidavit from the developer too.
It's a bad situation for both parties. It sounds like he's doing the right thing trying to make it public and get advice. If the media does some of the vetting of his story Apple will take him much more seriously and perhaps not view him as a fraudster.
The two resolutions -- verifying him as a suitable corporate officer, versus floating him a personal 11k loan -- are so widely different, I can't even begin to fathom what your point is?
At this point I have nothing to say that jacquesm and vessenes haven't already said, so I'll spare you the long-winded response and just say this doesn't look like Apple's problem.
Since Apple isn't at fault for the original mixup, they have no responsibility to help resolve their outstanding debt in a reasonably timely manner? It has been months.
So what I'm getting from this conversation is that you don't own a business, or if you do, you don't invoice. Months is a blink of an eye in receivables/payables terms. Here's a startup lesson for you: if you deal with big companies, factor in enough buffer to survive 6-9 months before getting paid, even when you do things by the book.
I manage a business, and we do invoice. Like any other business, our customers pay late. What I don't have is individuals who owe us money stonewalling our requests for communication/resolution on a late invoice.
When a Net-30 client takes 6 months to pay you on your 3rd project, they are being worse than Apple: they know how to pay you, they have people assigned to paying you, the process has already worked in the past, and they're simply not paying you.
Here Apple is dealing with someone who basically invented a fictitious company in a different country (! ! !) and is now trying to collect on payables. What do you expect to have happen? I actually believe vessenes --- he may just never get paid. I wish him the best.
Here Apple is dealing with someone who basically invented a fictitious company in a different country (! ! !) and is now trying to collect on payables. What do you expect to have happen? I actually believe vessenes --- he may just never get paid. I wish him the best.
I'm curious -- what reporting to the government/legal paperwork do you see Apple as doing that makes the payout legally more difficult due to the use of a fictitious name?
In the U.S., using a fictitious name is incredibly simple -- is it really that much more complicated in the U.K.? Why is this suddenly an "oh my god" situation?
What is possibly preventing Apple from changing their records to use his personal name?
I think you are missing an absolutely crucial point here, Apple already tried paying him, several times now.
The reason it didn't work is because the bank did not want to accept the payment because they would be in violation of the law on money laundering if they did.
I think you are missing an absolutely crucial point here, Apple already tried paying him, several times now.
With the wrong name (ie, not the name he entered on the bank account form). Which was the original problem.
Is Apple reporting the payment to the tax service? What's to prevent Apple from switching the account to a personal one, or transferring it to an additional legal entity? Why are they taking many months to find any resolution?
As long as you stick to the form and procedure in place things will run smoothly and you'll be fine.
If you start making exceptions people higher up will have to get involved to authorize the exception, that will take a lot of time because they really won't want to do that without making sure they're not setting themselves up for a problem.
OP was doing something not 100% on the up-and-up imho and that is the prime cause of all this trouble.
All that's necessary is verifying that the individual in question is an suitable officer of the corporation.
As long as you stick to the form and procedure in place things will run smoothly and you'll be fine.
Unless Apple decides otherwise. We've had payments come in months late for no apparent reason, and didn't see resolution until Apple received a spate of bad press.
The 'for no apparent reason' sort of proves that already. So if you had would you blame apple ?
If Apple put up their usual bureaucratic wall, ignored our requests, or required multi-week/month turnaround times to resolve the issue -- then yes, I would blame Apple.
Fred is an employee of your company that builds an iPhone app. Fred is responsible for registering it but decides to use his personal account details. If Apple paid the money into Fred's account you would be reasonably aggrieved
So there is nothing wrong here - well after your rather odd decision to register as one legal entity (a UK Limited Company) but provide the bank account details of another legal entity (yourself).
I suspect that the money is effectively lost to you. and that you should withdraw the app (if you can) and re-register honestly and clearly as yourself.