When your app gets rejected by App Review and you get the message that "Your developer account has been flagged for removal", it means that things just got pretty serious, and if you don't want to kill your app business by mistake read on - because if doing it wrong you may do an irreversible mistake, just like the guy from the Apple forums, which has killed his million dollar business.
Why Apple flags your account for removal and what does it mean?
When this happens you will get the following message in App Store Connect:
Upon further review of the activity associated with your Apple Developer Program membership, we have determined that your membership, or a membership associated with your account, has been used for dishonest or fraudulent activity. Therefore, your Apple Developer Program account has been flagged for removal.
That means that Apple believes you violated one or more policies and Apple is pretty strict about them and they plan to terminate your account by default from now on.
How to get out of this situation
This is an unpleasant situation indeed, especially if you are running a business and have people depending on you. However, not all is lost and you can defend your position because Apple is giving you the option to do so. To get out of this situation you need to appeal to the App Review Board (this is different than App Review and they are the last ones that decide the fate of the rejected app and your Apple Developer Account. To get out of this situation you need to write the appeal, using this link.
Before writing the appeal
Before rushing to write an appeal you must first understand what NOT to do because this will NOT help your situation and you WILL get terminated:
Don't say "I'm not wrong" or "I didn't do anything wrong", "I'm innocent"
Don't be rude in your messages (Apple really doesn't like this one)
Don't write an appeal before analyzing what you may did wrong
What you NEED to do before writing the appeal - analyze your situation and gather information:
Was I resubmitting my app despite being rejected multiple times?
Did I carefully read the policies regarding my situation?
What did App Review ask me to do when getting rejected? Did I comply with their request?
How to explain the situation:
After you analyzed your situation with events that lead you to this point, you need to start gathering information and writing it down in your desktop text editor (or anywhere else but not in the contact form yet).
At this point it is important to explain the situation:
What do you think you did wrong
Why it became a misunderstanding
What you will do in the future that this WON'T happen again
3rd point is the most important of all and you need to spend time on this one. Remember that you shouldn't act rude or stressful and demand something from them (explanation, etc).
What are the chances of a successful appeal?
I've done this with several clients and the success rate of the appeal being accepted was very high. Note that this varies from case to case and some appeals need a very strong position if the policy violation was severe. This was my personal situation but from what I've read on the web, people have different policy cases and explanations which it may put them into a tougher position. At any point, you need to treat the case seriously and you also need to be serious about not doing the same mistake again or Apple will terminate you without an option to appeal next time.
Also, note that some policy violations do not get an option to appeal and the account may be terminated without any explanation.
To the guy that lost 1 million dollar business
He actually never said it is 1 million dollar business directly, but mentioned he was not qualifying for the "small business program" any more which in other words mean that he reached 1 million dollars in sales in one year.
My business has been on App Store for 3 years with 30 Apps on the Apps Store. Our revenue just reached a milestone this year that made us unqualified for Small Business Program. We were very grateful for such an accomplishment this year and our small team was prepared and ready for our next milestone next year.
He was rejected multiple times by App Review Team and resubmitted the app without doing any major changes
“We noticed your app attempts to manipulate customers into making unwanted in-app purchases. Specifically, we noticed that your app displayed a secondary promotion.”
After that he appealed to the App Review Board and he got rejected:
The appeal got rejected due to: “insufficient information”
Which he could have most likely avoided if he'd followed the template written above. You can read his story on Apple forums.
Summary: If your account gets flagged for removal,
Analyze your situation before rushing to write an appeal.
Don't be rude or act stressed in your appeal.
Gather all necessary information before writing your appeal.
Explain what may possibly went wrong (as you see it).
Do spend time explaining how you will prevent the situation from happening again in the future.
Publish Date: October 02, 2024