I am in a very bad spot with our indirect reseller Microsoft account and am hoping that maybe someone out there might be able to help me.

In mid May, I placed an order with Pax8 for a new customer and the order was rejected by Microsoft with the error, “Associated partner LegalBusinessProfile NotFound.”

It turns out that when we moved offices and I updated our business’s address at partner.microsoft.com, Microsoft de-authorized our partner status, which I didn’t catch, and then put our Cloud Service Provider (CSP) indirect reseller program into “Suspended” status after some time.

In the partner center, I was able to get our legal business profile fixed easy enough – I just had to open a ticket and send them some legal documentation. Everything under the “Partner” tab in the Partner Portal is now green checkboxes and “Authorized”. Pax8 tried the provisioning again, and got the same error.

It turns out that our “Indirect Reseller status” is now “Suspended” and this wasn’t changed when the “Partner” status was fixed.

Microsoft has a webpage that describes why this can happen and what to do to get it fixed at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/account-settings/suspended-partner-center-account . It says, “Microsoft suspends Partner Center accounts for Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program when:

Significant account abuse is detected

Your vetting status is Rejected for more than 30 days”

We haven’t had any account abuse (mercifully, our existing tenants are still operational and being billed for through Pax8), so our vetting status was almost certainly to blame. That same document says, “If you are sure that your account is compliant and should be moved back to Active state, contact Support for help with reactivating your account,” so I opened a ticket with Microsoft.

Actually, 3 tickets so far, because every single one has the same copy-and-paste reply:

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Partner support about the suspension of the CSP account. 

In the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement, both Microsoft and our partners reserve the right to walk away from the partner relationship by providing 30 days’ notice to the other.  The notice of suspension and termination proceeding was provided April 2024.  Neither party is required to offer an explanation for the decision to terminate the partner agreement. As Microsoft is exercising its rights under this section 4.b of the Microsoft AI Cloud Program Agreement, we are unable to share an explanation or further details. 

Thanks,

I can’t get anywhere with Microsoft support. We just landed a big customer and need to set up their tenant. I am afraid that if this goes on much longer or if somehow we are unable to add any more customers to our Pax8 account, that we’ll lose this customer, which is large enough to really hurt the business.

Does anyone here have any ideas on how to get through to someone at Microsoft that could help with this situation? Does anyone else have any other ideas on what else we could try?

Some additional notes:

When clicking “Agreements” in the partner portal, we get an error message, “Service unavailable. Something went wrong. Please try reloading the page, if this problem persists please contact Microsoft support.”

Everything in Legal Info/Partner looks good. Our “Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program status” is “Active”.

Everything in Legal Info/Reseller looks good except that “Indirect Reseller status” shows “Suspended”.

Under Identifiers/Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, I have 1 PartnerGlobal ID and 2 PartnerLocation IDs, corresponding to our old and new addresses. Do I need to delete the old PartnerLocation ID? I haven’t done so because it looks like this step is irreversible but I am getting desperate enough to try it.

Our “Company profile” is not filled out, but the “Update” button stays grayed out after I fill in the information and it appears that I am unable to update this.

I thought that maybe I just needed to sign the “Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement” again, but I can’t find anywhere on the partner portal where I would do so.

I went through my emails exhaustively and we did not receive a, “notice of suspension and termination proceeding” in April 2024, or any other time for that matter.

I can’t find a copy of the Microsoft AI Cloud Program Agreement to even see what section 4.b says.

I’ve dealt with government bureaucracies a lot in my career, but I’ve never experienced a Kafkaesque situation 10% as bad as this one. This is probably the most stressful thing I’ve dealt with in this business in the last decade. This could destroy our business if I can’t get this sorted out.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I tried to include as much detail as possible and it got long. If you got to this point in my post, thank you for helping or trying to help me.

The latest ticket ID we have from Microsoft is 2406050040012239

​I am in a very bad spot with our indirect reseller Microsoft account and am hoping that maybe someone out there might be able to help me.In mid May, I placed an order with Pax8 for a new customer and the order was rejected by Microsoft with the error, “Associated partner LegalBusinessProfile NotFound.”It turns out that when we moved offices and I updated our business’s address at partner.microsoft.com, Microsoft de-authorized our partner status, which I didn’t catch, and then put our Cloud Service Provider (CSP) indirect reseller program into “Suspended” status after some time.In the partner center, I was able to get our legal business profile fixed easy enough – I just had to open a ticket and send them some legal documentation. Everything under the “Partner” tab in the Partner Portal is now green checkboxes and “Authorized”. Pax8 tried the provisioning again, and got the same error.It turns out that our “Indirect Reseller status” is now “Suspended” and this wasn’t changed when the “Partner” status was fixed.Microsoft has a webpage that describes why this can happen and what to do to get it fixed at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/account-settings/suspended-partner-center-account . It says, “Microsoft suspends Partner Center accounts for Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program when:Significant account abuse is detectedYour vetting status is Rejected for more than 30 days”We haven’t had any account abuse (mercifully, our existing tenants are still operational and being billed for through Pax8), so our vetting status was almost certainly to blame. That same document says, “If you are sure that your account is compliant and should be moved back to Active state, contact Support for help with reactivating your account,” so I opened a ticket with Microsoft.Actually, 3 tickets so far, because every single one has the same copy-and-paste reply:Thank you for contacting Microsoft Partner support about the suspension of the CSP account.  In the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement, both Microsoft and our partners reserve the right to walk away from the partner relationship by providing 30 days’ notice to the other.  The notice of suspension and termination proceeding was provided April 2024.  Neither party is required to offer an explanation for the decision to terminate the partner agreement. As Microsoft is exercising its rights under this section 4.b of the Microsoft AI Cloud Program Agreement, we are unable to share an explanation or further details.  Thanks,I can’t get anywhere with Microsoft support. We just landed a big customer and need to set up their tenant. I am afraid that if this goes on much longer or if somehow we are unable to add any more customers to our Pax8 account, that we’ll lose this customer, which is large enough to really hurt the business.Does anyone here have any ideas on how to get through to someone at Microsoft that could help with this situation? Does anyone else have any other ideas on what else we could try?Some additional notes:When clicking “Agreements” in the partner portal, we get an error message, “Service unavailable. Something went wrong. Please try reloading the page, if this problem persists please contact Microsoft support.”Everything in Legal Info/Partner looks good. Our “Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program status” is “Active”.Everything in Legal Info/Reseller looks good except that “Indirect Reseller status” shows “Suspended”.Under Identifiers/Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, I have 1 PartnerGlobal ID and 2 PartnerLocation IDs, corresponding to our old and new addresses. Do I need to delete the old PartnerLocation ID? I haven’t done so because it looks like this step is irreversible but I am getting desperate enough to try it.Our “Company profile” is not filled out, but the “Update” button stays grayed out after I fill in the information and it appears that I am unable to update this.I thought that maybe I just needed to sign the “Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Agreement” again, but I can’t find anywhere on the partner portal where I would do so.I went through my emails exhaustively and we did not receive a, “notice of suspension and termination proceeding” in April 2024, or any other time for that matter.I can’t find a copy of the Microsoft AI Cloud Program Agreement to even see what section 4.b says.I’ve dealt with government bureaucracies a lot in my career, but I’ve never experienced a Kafkaesque situation 10% as bad as this one. This is probably the most stressful thing I’ve dealt with in this business in the last decade. This could destroy our business if I can’t get this sorted out.Sorry for the wall of text, but I tried to include as much detail as possible and it got long. If you got to this point in my post, thank you for helping or trying to help me.The latest ticket ID we have from Microsoft is 2406050040012239  Read More

​