As flawless as I know Google to be, this time, for the first time in my experience, it failed miserably.

Context

• I'm trying to signup for a developer account on Google Play Console: https://play.google.com/console/signup
• I'm using 💯 legit details:
  • Using my existing, long-term, Google account.
  • Using a legit, existing, long-term registered, and active, Romanian legal entity.
  • Using legit phone number:
    • Existing, long-term, phone number
    • Officially registered as the company's official phone number

Problem 1. Sunday, March 2, 2025

This one's on me, I didn't have enough balance on the company card used to pay online.

At this specific date, Google seemed to work fine, registration wizard went through, all good, but payment failed, for the mentioned reason. But I got the email from Google saying that my order is pending, and I need to fix my payment method. All bueno.

I did a wire transfer to the underlying account, on Sunday, but for some weird reason, business transfers are not instant between two banks, both registered in Romania.

But fine, no rush, in a few day should be fine as well.

Problem 2. Monday, March 3, 2025

Money came in, I clicked on the link from the email received from Google, payment went through, all perfect at this point.

Got the payment confirmation email from Google, got the payment notification from my banking app. All seemed in order.

BUT

At this point I was expecting to have my developer account activated, maybe not real time, but still within minutes or hours.

This did not happen. And still not happened as I'm writing this on Wednesday, March 5, 2025.

Problem 3. Still Monday, March 3, 2025

I said fine... being as it is, I'll try to signup again. Maybe I'll lose 25$ but so be it.

And... surprise, surprise... the Google Signup Wizard (https://play.google.com/console/signup) doesn't work anymore 🫢. And still not working as I'm writing this on Wednesday, March 5, 2025.

Why?

Because the Google phone number validation, which is mandatory for a business-owned developer account, is not working. At all.

There are two options, send a validation code via SMS or via Voice call. None of these options work. Inspecting the network call, it fails with a useless message: Precondition Failed, HTTP Status Code 400.

As a note, SMS never worked, but Voice call did work when I managed to finish the wizard up until the payment step, on Sunday.

Problem 4. Still Monday, March 3, 2025

Assuming it's some ridiculous problem "on my side", like phone being used on my personal account as well, or maybe some quota being reached for my carrier, I tried other numbers, other browsers, other internet connections:

• phones from other Romanian carriers and eventually from other countries' carriers, phones of friends from Ireland, USA, UK, Germany.

Nothing worked. Google phone number validation fails without a meaningful reason and it seems to be a global Google issue!

Problem 5. Google Support. Monday, March 3, 2025 - ongoing

Running out of ideas, I started a Google support ticket here: https://support.google.com/

Not sure why I was expecting more from Google Support, maybe because I watched The Internship movie, who knows.

But no... huge disappointment!!! It was as useless so far as any other support center that has to handle any real issue.

The first reply, that came after ~12 hours was basically a template script that said nothing relevant.

After replying to it in a somewhat aggressive tone, but still politically correct, some things started to happen. I got a little more relevant replies stating that they raised the phone validation issue to their technical stuff, and the payment issue should be taken up with their payment support team 🙄. But I'm still waiting on reply on that, whether I should open a new support ticket, or they'll transfer the existing one.

Radio silence has now reached 27 hours.

Problem 6. The payment. Weird one.

Indeed there seems to be some odd problem with that 25$ transfer.

While, as stated above, everything seemed to be fine on Monday I have the following issues:

• If I click the Transaction Details link from Google's confirmation email, I can see the transaction details, and the status there is Completed
• If I click on the Activity tab on my payments center for the relevant payment profile, I don't see the transaction in the activity log.
• If I look in my banking app, the transaction still appears as pending, not completed. As in it was not yet claimed by the merchant, aka Google.

Problem 7. Similar fail on a brand new Google account.

Had another idea, to create a brand new Google account, from scratch and signup on Play Console with this one.

All fine, up until the point where I had to enable 2FA which apparently requires a phone number as well, auth app is not good enough. And surprise, surprise, same issue there. A 💯 legit phone number cannot be validated here either. Similar behavior, just a different error message, but just as useless, no actual reason.

Problem 8. Google Support saga continues. March 5 2025.

Got a reply from support after 37 hours.

Unfortunately, we do not have direct contact with Google Pay Support. Please contact our Payment Support team directly for further assistance. They have the necessary tools and resources to resolve your issue. Please provide your registration order number to them.As for your phone number verification, we've documented and escalated your issue to our technical team. They're working to resolve it as soon as possible. I understand this could be an inconvenience on your end. We appreciate your patience and kind understanding during this process.

Wtf... ok so be it.

BUT

Guess what... I can't submit the support form to Payment Support team without a Merchant ID. Which I obviously don't have because that's the issue itself!!! 🤯

I lost it and dropped the political correctness in my reply.

Fkn h*ll man.... I can't submit the form to Payment support because I don't have a Merchant ID!Which I obviously don't have because that's the issue I'm trying to solve!!This is fricking unbelievable! I mean it's Google, not some low level, obscure company.I'm trying to create a legitimate dev account, with legitimate details that have legitimate history! It's like the happiest scenario there is!! And it's impossible to do it... on Google!!It's absurd!!

Curious what happens next.

In the meantime I did find an actual email address for Google payments support in Europe: pay-eu-support@google.com. Dropped them an email with the issue, as well. We'll see what happens. I'll probably post this story on social media eventually and tag Google everywhere.

The pay-eu-support@google.com didn't help though, quoting:

Our team currently supports Google Play end users. To get the best developer support, please go to the Play Developer site.

Problem 9. Google Support saga continues. March 6 2025.

Got the reply from Payment Support team, as instructed by the other support team :))).

Another excuse.

Quoting below 🤯:

Thank you for contacting the Google Payments Merchant Team.

As much as we want to help, your concern is handled by the Google Play Console Team. Please be advised that you have reached the Google Payments Merchant team and our support is only limited to the monthly payout inquiries of the Developers selling apps and in-app purchases in Google Play and Chrome Web Store.

You may contact the Google Play Console Team through this link for further assistance.

Dropped the message to the provided link... now waiting again...

March 6 2025. Google Support.

Got a response regarding my current transaction, saying there's an issue with it, without any details, and they had to revert it. Indeed it was cancelled, and it's also reflected in my bank history and amount. They said that I need to do the sing-up wizard again. Which I can't do because of the phone validation not working issue, so I'm waiting on that.

March 8 2025. Success!!

Just as a force of habit, on March 8, in the afternoon, I said to give it another shot, though I didn't receive any more updates from Google Support.

And surprisingly, out of the blue, the phone validation worked via Voice Call. SMS still doesn't work but whatever. I finally managed to complete the Google Play Console Developer Account registration. After ~1 week. It's not 100% complete, 'cause they still need to validate the ID documents that I provided, but still... I expect that to be a no-problem since everything is 💯 legit.

Tough, but thangawd it's done!

March 10 2025. All good.

Identity successfully verified.

Extra Google Support Idiocracy

While the opened support ticket - email thread is radio silent for 27h now, I can see the support ticket being in progress on the Google Support site.

It even says that it was Last Updated 1h ago. With what?! I have no idea because it gives zero info, zero details, zero actions I can take on it. 🙄🫢