My name is Viktor Seraleev, and I live in Chile. I'm founder of Sarafan Mobile Limited (team ID G5293S9UFX). Our developer account was closed on September 21, 2023. We specialize in developing photo and video applications for creators.

 

 

 

 

According to App Store benchmarks, almost all of our applications consistently ranked in the highest category for retention on the 1st and 28th day. The average rating for our applications was above 4.5. You can check out our apps on Google Play, where they also boast excellent performance. Further validating the high quality of our applications are approved grants from Xiaomi, totaling $150,000 for advertising expenses across three of our apps.

The removal of applications resulted in the following losses:

• Apple has not paid us $108,878 revenue (this amount is for 3 months).
• Our 6 applications had a total of $33,680 MRR as of September 20, 2023.
• One day before removal, we had 1209 active trials.
• We are left without means of existence. The applications were our sole source of income. I cannot convey the challenges that we and our families have faced due to the account termination.

Here's our story:

On August 21, 2023, Apple removed our Reely application during the update review. Along with the removal, we received a notification citing a violation of section 3.2(f) of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement:

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.

If you would like to appeal this termination decision to the App Review Board, you must do so within 30 calendar days.

The notice did not identify any developer accounts that Sarafan’s account was allegedly associated with. The notice also did not identify what steps Sarafan was required to take to preserve its account, stating only that Sarafan had 30 days to appeal the decision. I removed access from all accounts, leaving only the full-time developers. Additionally, I asked the developers to log out of all accounts they might be connected to.

We addressed potential violations and filed an appeal on the same day. On September 6, 2023, we received a rejection:

We have found a pattern of manipulative or misleading behavior that has led to the termination of your Apple Developer Program membership. These behaviors can include, but are not limited to, inaccurate metadata describing your app or service, misleading app content, engaging in inauthentic ratings and reviews manipulation, providing misleading customer support responses, providing misleading responses in App Store Connect, engaging in misleading purchasing or bait and switch schemes, or other dishonest or fraudulent activity within or outside of the app.

Again, this reason does not specify which particular application the claim pertains to. What are we accused of? Review manipulation or some violations on the payment screen? We solely utilized official advertising channels: Apple Search Ads, Facebook Ads, and TikTok Ads. We've decided to revisit best practices and incorporate these recommendations into each application.

On September 7, we submit a new appeal. Within 10 days, we updated each of the six applications: removed all rating requests, revised all payment screens in line with Apple's recommendations, added Intercom for swift user assistance, established a help center with articles on canceling trials, requesting refunds, and implemented subscription management directly within the applications.

During the preparation of the appeal, we identified three suspicious activities associated with our application, Rolly. We are convinced that our account has been deliberately targeted:

1. On Instagram, we encountered an advertisement for our Rolly application. It turned out that our creatives were stolen and used to promote another application in the same niche.
2. Our Rolly application was entirely copied by the developer NIGII Technologies LTD. The name, icon, and screenshots of the applications were identical.
3. An attack was launched on the Rolly application through the purchase of fake 5-star reviews (16 out of 29 reviews turned out to be fake). How did we uncover the deception? Almost all users had logins consisting of random Russian letters, despite the fact that the reviews were purportedly written by users from Germany, the USA, France. Moreover, these reviews were written within a strictly limited time period.

We are confident that the purchase of fake reviews led to the account being blocked and all applications being removed. We have reported all these issues to the AppReview team.

On September 21, Apple automatically closed our account and removed all applications. We were in shock.

On November 1 (after an 8-week wait), we received a rejection for our second appeal:

We're contacting you regarding your request to reinstate your Apple Developer Program membership, which was terminated on September 21, 2023.

After a thorough evaluation, we're not granting your appeal for reinstatement to the Apple Developer Program.

Please note that this decision is final. We will not process subsequent appeals.

Since we added the Intercom tool, we've found that Apple did not access our applications before the rejection. The last session was recorded on September 20, at the time when we submitted the latest update.

 

 

 

 

Apple’s conduct exposes it to multiple claims. First, Apple has breached its own DPLA Sections 3.2(f) and 11.2(g) by failing to provide any evidence that Sarafan had violated these provisions and by disregarding the affirmative proof provided by Sarafan that it had fully complied with them. Apple’s conduct has caused substantial damages to Sarafan, including $108,878 in Sarafan’s balance being withheld by Apple, a loss of over $33,000 in monthly recurring revenues that Sarafan’s applications had been generating prior to the account termination.

Second, Apple has violated California Business & Professions Code Sections 17200 et seq., which prohibit unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business practices. Apple’s pattern of issuing vague, automated termination notices to members of the ADP, coupled with the retention of developers’ revenue post-termination, is directly proscribed by this law.

Apple’s conduct further subjects it to claims of breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional and negligent interference with a prospective economic advantage, and intentional interference with contractual relations. See Digital Will Inc. v. Apple Inc., 3:23-CV-04266 (N.D. Cal. 2023).

We hired a lawyer and are currently filing a pre-trial claim against Apple. Nevertheless, Sarafan is prepared to resolve this matter amicably on the condition that Apple immediately reinstate Sarafan’s developer account and transfer to it the $108,878 being unlawfully withheld by Apple.

I, Viktor Seraleev, founder of Sarafan Mobile, urge you to sign the petition for the restoration of our account and the refund of funds. Only with the support of the developer community can we set a precedent and draw Apple's attention to our issue.