I'm posting this half to vent, and half so that other Australians can find this and actually be able to sort it out when they have the same problem.
I'm trying to publish my first app on Google Play, and I've spent weeks trying to get through the developer account creation process, it it infuriating how incompetent DNB seem to be.
So first of all, Google requires a D-U-N-S number for an organisation developer account, I'm in Australia so had no clue what that was, I did my research and figured out I had to register for it on the DNB website.
I'm a sole trader/sole proprietor, and already had an Australian business number, so on the DNB website I could look up my ABN and request a DUNS number, this came through after about an hour.
Excellent I should be all set now right? Nope, google rejected my DUNS number because the address was incorrect.
I looked up my new DUNS number to check the address it used, and it was empty, alright fine, let's update it - except there's no way to update it at all.
The only thing that hints about address updates on DUNS numbers is the one form here that DNB happily shove in my face, except it only works in the U.S. which is not where I'm based.
I also tried creating a DNB account and looking through their portal but it doesn't give me access to anything about my business and has no way of linking it.
So I kept looking, I found some other contact forms on DUNS, but this only seems to go to the sales team, and I didn't receive any response from them.
Next I tried the phone numbers on DNB, I rang about 5 of them including all the AUS and NZ numbers as well as a few nearby countries, as far as I can tell none of the numbers on this page actually connect https://www.dnb.com/en-us/utilities/global-customer-service-centers.html
I then tried some numbers from white pages for DUNS offices listed in Australia, one of them directed to Experian but nobody on the phone could help.
Eventually I found some other people saying that Equifax is now responsible for DUNS in Australia, and I followed their process to get to this form https://www.equifax.com.au/DandB-DUNSRequest
This form seemed like it actually might work and go to the right place, so I filled it out and waited, 4 weeks later I still haven't heard anything back.
I've now delayed my app release by over a month, all because of an overseas company that doesn't offer any working process for Australians to get a DUNS number setup.
I saw some threads of people having success after signing up for paid services with DUNS, however given how predatory their business seems to be this was out of the question for me, I'm not throwing money at a company that can't even offer a basic service to people.
I was thinking about everything again today, it's been so long and DNB seem hopeless at handling this, so I tried to contact Google developer support, but quickly realised the support link takes me back to developer registration, which I can't complete, maybe there's another way to log a google case but I didn't dive that far into it.
As I'm basically ready to give up and maybe not even publish my app after all, I decided to try one last thing, registering for the Apple Developer Program.
This is completely backwards of course, but I saw a lot of threads from Apple devs who were able to register for DUNS via Apple, which made me wonder if they had an integration with DNB or something that would solve this for me.
Turns out they have a special referral link to actually contact DNB from Australia
https://support.dnb.com/?CUST=APPLEDEV
I filled this out and finally have a reference number and a 14 business day ETA.
Awesome, maybe I'll actually be allowed to create a developer account in 3 weeks, I suppose we'll see.
If this doesn't work out I'm either just going to have to go for a personal account and somehow find people for the requirements or publish the APK's on github.
I can't express how frustrating this sort of stuff is, it completely kills my momentum to create something if I'm stalled waiting for other companies to do basic admin work that I really should be allowed to just do myself.
submitted by /u/CForChrisProooo[link] [comments]