Changing Company Name to match legal documents

PeterFA 35

During the verification of my dev account (signed up for the Windows&Xbox program), I was told that the documents I submitted wouldn't match the company name I chose. Unfortunately, the partner center doesn't show any company name and when I try to change anything, I get a server error.

The server error tells me to contact support, but there is no clear way to actually do so. The support for the verification has only replied with a standard answer, reiterating what I already knew and what doesn't seem to work in my case.

The "Legal info" page only shows a "Publisher Name", not a company name (see screenshot below). I was under the impression that the customer-visible publisher name didn't have to match the legal name, but since this was the only thing accessible to me, i proceeded with changing that. However, when I press "Save", I get the following server error:

Something went wrong. Please try again, if this problem persists please contact Microsoft support. Http failure response for https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/dashboard/account/v3/api/accounts/<my accnt num>/account-entity: 400 OK

Knowing that some Microsoft pages have issues with international phone numbers (e.g. the + not being accepted), I already tried changing the data to not have any special characters, but saving still doesn't work.

How can i proceed with this? I have already tried different browsers, finding that Safari and Firefox don't work at all for the Account Settings, but Edge and Brave at least let me open the "Update" page, with only the "Save" button failing me :'(
Screenshot 2024-11-20 at 13.39.56

Junjie Zhu - MSFT 19,751 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-11-21T02:50:22.8433333+00:00

Hello @PeterFA ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

For your scenario, please open a free support ticket here: Contact Us. Sign in with your email address associated with your Partner Center account, go to Contact us tab, find Non-Technical Support - Dashboard, click "Ask Copilot".

You need to state your issue and ask Copilot to help you open a ticket.

Thank you.
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-11-21T10:17:52.45+00:00
Unfortunately Copilot doesn't really know how to do that. All I get out of it (and it took several questions) is:

Go to your profile page for the relevant program (MPN, CSP, or Developer). 2. Look for the option to create a support ticket.

So I looked and ended up with the AI bot in the parner center. I then clicked "Contact Support", but it refused to open a ticket unless i talked to it. I explained the server error and it gave me this reply:

If the error persists, you should contact Microsoft support for further assistance.

I then told it to "please help me create a support ticket", to which I got this reply:

If you have access to the Partner Center AI assistant, select the AI assistant icon in the upper-right corner and explain your issue. If the AI assistant cannot resolve your issue, select Contact Support at the bottom of the pane.

Disregarding the fact that I am, in that very moment, already talking to the "Partner Center AI assistant", I did press the "Contact Support" button yet again and it leads me to a form of predetermined subjects. None of which is "Your server reports an error when i try to change basic settings".

Please tell me which of the topics I should choose. I already did open a support ticket for account verification, and the response was only "just change your company name" and sounded as if it was just autogenerated.
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-11-21T10:32:12.2933333+00:00

As a side note, when authenticating with Copilot, it shows up as an unverified app. I guess you could fix that by having the Copilot team sign up for a Partner account, but I can see why they wouldn't want to do that... ;-)
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-11-21T11:30:18.5733333+00:00

To add another goodie, because this experience is just too special not to share it: I wanted to check the status of my old ticket about the account verification. The ticket shows up in the "Help + Support" overview. I then clicked on the ticket for the details, but the details only show briefly and I then get the error message:

There was a problem retrieving the support request details.

Upon reloading the page I got a window telling me to sign in again. I clicked on the "Sign In" button and get to a page that says "You signed out. Please make sure to close all your browser windows". (of course, signing in again also didn't get rid of that error)
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-11-21T17:36:36.93+00:00

So, I did get a reply to my old support ticket, saying that it has been transferred to "[Team]" (sic). I guess that means I just have to be a little more patient.

To be clear, I am not reiterating my journey here only to let of steam, but I do hope that somewhere at Microsoft there is a UX-person already begging for some budget or a team to fix all these things and maybe this post helps them make their case....
Junjie Zhu - MSFT 19,751 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-11-22T01:53:51.8833333+00:00

Please tell me which of the topics I should choose.

Please choose Partner profile.

Please create a new support ticket and let me know if the response is still not helpful.
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-11-26T16:18:55.41+00:00
So, under Partner profile I didn't find any subtopic that would match my issue.
Thus I proceeded with the original support ticket with the vetting team. Unfortunately, this has led me in a circle and I am starting to feel like your support, given its org constraints, is simply not capable of dealing with a situation where your website doesn't work.

Here is what happened:

(as said previously) I contacted support about "where do I change my company name, this setting doesn't exist for "Developer" in partner center. Changing "Publisher Name" results in a server error".

after several automated/standard "please upload more documents" emails, the guy from the (i guess) vetting team told me he is going to forward my ticket to "[Team]" (sic) as he cannot help me.

The person from "[Team]" turned out to be someone from "Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program". They asked me to either book a call with them or send them a screenrecording + HAR browser log. I couldn't book a call, as a bug in partner center prevents me from accessing my ticket, so I did a screenrecording, reproducing all the issues and send it in, together with another description of my issues.

The person from "[Team]" replied, telling me that thanks to my information, they could confirm that this issue wasn't in their scope and that they would have to ask an Expert Team to determine which team could help me.

The Expert Team responded after the weekend, telling him that the "Vetting Team" would be able to help me

Today I got contacted by the vetting team. They tell me that "I should either upload more documents, or update my company name to match my profile".

THIS IS THE EXACT EMAIL I GOT A WEEK AGO. I STILL CANNOT DO THIS BECAUSE YOUR WEBSITE STILL DOESN'T ALLOW ME TO.

I know that every individual involved in this is probably doing the best they can, given the environment they have to work in, but it seems clear now that you, as a company, will not be able to get my account running.

What is the best procedure to get a refund and have my Publisher Name deleted from the current attempt at opening an account? I want to avoid that yet another name for my company gets blacklisted because it is associated with a defunct account somewhere in your system. I cannot change it myself, since your website is broken. I would then create another outlook email address to create another personal account for my company to sign up for the "Windows & Xbox" program and just try again, hoping that a new account won't trigger the bugs in your website.
Junjie Zhu - MSFT 19,751 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-11-28T07:39:43.4466667+00:00

Hello @PeterFA ,

Sorry for the inconvenience, but the forum can't help you more. Vetting Team is the only team that can help you solve the problem. Please keep in touch.

Does the same error occur after creating a new account?
Thank you.
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-11-28T11:36:19+00:00
Thank you @Junjie Zhu - MSFT

It looks like there has been some change in my account, and I now am getting two additional sections in the "Update" screen:

Additional information for verification

Contact information for customers

And filling those out allowed me to complete the form. However it did reset the whole verification timeline and now I am stuck at "Employment Verification", without any details as to what is required. I didn't even get a notification from support telling me that they fixed the form.

Since support is ignoring this question, can you @Junjie Zhu - MSFT tell me if, for Developer accounts, "Publisher Name" is synonymous with "Company Name"? Because support kept telling me to change the latter, while the Update form only offers the former. It is annoying to have to randomly change settings and then hope that one guessed correctly and magically reaches the next level.

The "AI Assistant" tells me the following, which seems to contradict what support probably, maybe expects me to do:

In Partner Center, the "Publisher name" and "company name" are related but not necessarily the same. The "Publisher name" refers to the name under which your apps or services are published and visible to customers. This can be different from your "company name", which is the legal name of your business entity.

It'd be nice if I could use the brand name my customers know me under as "Publisher Name", rather than my company name...

This "word definition" is kind of a generic question, so I was hoping it is still in the realm of the forum.
Junjie Zhu - MSFT 19,751 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-11-29T09:08:55.9133333+00:00

The AI's explanation is correct.> In Partner Center, the "Publisher name" and "company name" are related but not necessarily the same. The "Publisher name" refers to the name under which your apps or services are published and visible to customers. This can be different from your "company name", which is the legal name of your business entity.

You can set them to the same or different. But generally speaking, it is best to have the publisher name roughly the same as the company name.
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-11-29T09:20:58.5833333+00:00

Sorry to be so persistent on this, but could you then explain how this works for a Developer account?

As you can see on the screenshot in my original post, there is only a "Publisher Name" setting, yet support keeps telling me to change the "Company Name". This is super confusing to me and none of the four people in support I have talked to so far has addressed this question, even though I asked every one of them.

I know that a full partner center / work account has a "Company Name" setting under the "Partner" tab. But in my developer account, there is no "Partner" tab. Only a "Developer" tab. (under Account Settings).
Ahmet 5 Reputation points

2024-12-01T09:32:23.79+00:00

@PeterFA Did you solve this I'm getting 100% the exact same issue When I go to Legal Info > Update Contact Info and try to change just one field I'm getting errors: Something went wrong. Please try again, if this problem persists please contact Microsoft support.

Http failure response for https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/dashboard/account/v3/api/accounts/89571580/account-entity: 400 OK It seems like once you start the verification process you can't even make any changes to your information? I tried contacting support but they did not help
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-12-01T21:53:23.93+00:00

@Ahmet Glad I am not the only one suffering through this.

I did get past that error message though. Now I am stuck in the next level. For me it got somehow solved after I got bounced to the guy from "Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program" and then back to Vetting. Suddenly the update form looked different for me and they added two more sections to it:
"Additional information for verification" and "Contact information for customers".

They never notified me of any changes, so I cannot say for sure when that happened.

The way it is now, whenever I want to change anything in that Update form, I have to attach a government document. Obviously this is also insane, as I have no idea what document I should attach if I just change my phone number.... In any case, it now doesn't allow me to press "Save" unless I attach some file. Once I do, the "Save" works. However, this seems to have reset the whole verification process. Now I am stuck at "Employment Verification", even though that step was previously cleared...

I asked support what happened and if they forgot about all the documents I already sent them, but the don't reply. All I get is the standard "Please send in more documents" mail. There is no information on what documents they want and what the documents are supposed to contain, given that I already sent in so many... Guess those got deleted when I submitted the update?!

They can't even say what they mean when they refer to a "Company Name"

This is by far the worst customer support experience I have ever had. Certainly never gonna use any Microsoft products where it can be avoided. It is one thing that their web interface is obviously completely buggy, but another if you refuse to provide any customer support for something that is supposed to be used in a professional setting.
Junjie Zhu - MSFT 19,751 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2024-12-02T07:01:34.94+00:00

Hello @PeterFA ,

It is recommended that you keep the publisher name and company name consistent, and confirm that the company name and address in your Legal business profile have no spelling errors or abbreviations. They must match your formal company business registration records exactly.

I have to attach a government document. Obviously this is also insane, as I have no idea what document I should attach if I just change my phone number....

Microsoft asks the primary contact (normally your Global or Account admin) to provide official documentation. Documentation could be a business registration, tax registration certificate, or a receipt from the company's home country/region, municipality, or questionnaires to complete. Microsoft uses this documentation to verify that the company is authorized to do business under that name and located at the provided address.

Thank you
Ahmet 5 Reputation points

2024-12-02T08:54:49.5166667+00:00

I do wonder if Microsoft have even tested this process themselves, I think they would cry from the experience
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-12-02T09:18:37.23+00:00

Hello @Junjie Zhu - MSFT ,

It is recommended that you keep the publisher name and company name consistent

I don't know how to say this any clearer than I already did: There is no "company name" setting in my "Legal Business Profile". LOOK AT THE SCREENSHOT I PROVIDED IN MY FIRST POST.
There is ONLY a Publisher Name.

I cannot keep two things consistent if only one of them exists.

If there is supposed to be a "Company Name" somewhere, then that would indicate that your web UI has another bug where it doesn't show me required information. This would require someone from customer support to take note of this.

Is there some keyword I have to use in a support email to make sure that it reaches a human?
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-12-02T19:03:11.0733333+00:00

@Ahmet: So, now my profile got approved. Without any notification, mind you. The last document I sent in was an invoice for a domain registration.

If you are still stuck at the error message for the Update form, I attached a screenshot how the bottom of the Update form looks for me after they apparently fixed something:

If this is not how it looks for you, you have to somehow find a way to get them to fix this for you.

In the end, the whole ordeal took around 3 weeks. Kinda crazy given that you can open bank accounts in less than a day...
Ahmet 5 Reputation points

2024-12-02T23:13:48.56+00:00

@PeterFA I'm glad you managed to get approved and thanks for the update I've replied to my support ticket and asked them to update my profile to include those two fields.

I guess that was the bug in the end, we're just seeing the wrong form for the step we are on.

I'm 1 week into this, wish me luck.

If a Microsoft employee sees this my case number is 2411280040007365
Yakir Israel 0 Reputation points

2024-12-23T00:18:39.34+00:00

Hello,

I'm experiencing the same issue. The error message states, "Entity name doesn't match with the provided document" (full message attached). I’ve submitted the VAT registration document for my business, which has the same name as the publisher name.

Does anyone know how to resolve this?
PeterFA 35 Reputation points

2024-12-23T10:43:09.8266667+00:00

@Yakir Israel based on my experience, you can assume that the message they sent you just means that "something is somehow wrong". Do not take it too literal. In my case, the last thing I did before getting approved was to submit an invoice from my internet domain provider that had my company name and address on it.

Maybe there is no humans involved at all in the review and sometimes their OCR program pics up the wrong text as "company name"?! And then, once you submit enough samples, it has a better chance at guessing which text block is your company name?!

Interestingly, even after my account was approved, I still received a bi-weekly email asking me to submit more documents to get my account approved. So, the process that sends out emails and asks for more documents seems to be completely disconnected from the actual approval process. I had to explicitly ask them to close the ticket so that they would stop spamming me.
Yakir Israel 0 Reputation points

2024-12-24T12:34:13+00:00

Thanks for the info @PeterFA ! If that's the case, and the verification process is being handled by an OCR program, then I will try what you suggested and upload additional documents that include the name of my company.

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