You basically tell DnB that you are applying for a US government contract. They are then required to give give you the number within 1 day.
They will tell you that they will revoke your number if you don't enter yourself in some government database within 90 days. You can then enter yourself there (or as happened for us the first time we needed the number, we were just too busy to do that and figured that we would let it expire and deal with the consequences if anyone really needed to use the number).
Yeah, sorry, I have little tolerance for government created monopolies that are overly bureaucratic. We actually did have an SBIR for which we needed it.
D&B seems to be a good company, but the DUNS system seems broken and requires payment just to signup for no value being provided.
What makes you think D&B is a good company? As far as I can tell all their revenue streams sit right on the border of extortion. If they couldn't convince major players like apple or the US Gov to require the usage of a DUNs number, they wouldn't even have those revenue streams.
Additionally they are at this point the number 1 source of voicemail spam for me. And asking them to not call is non-functional.
This is the method I used in the past when I needed a DUNS number for other reasons. However, recently trying this did not work at all. They simply email back saying "You're not a contractor for the US government" and then close the request.
There was another article recently about the awful DUNS # process for the App Store. You can find some good tips in the comments, including applying via the federal site and applying via Apple's form. Readers suggest both of these methods are faster.
It's probably just a hoop they make you jump through to make sure you're "serious" so that they can cut down on app approval times without hiring a bunch more reviewers.
My little non-profit apparently got a DUNS number automatically when we filed our first 990EZ "online postcard" with the IRS. I had no idea that it existed until a merchant card processor wanted it along with our EIN because D&B had never called or mailed us anything. When I did the lookup on D&B's web site and found the number already assigned, I gave it to the people who wanted it and thought nothing more. Two days later, the phone calls and letters started. "Your Dun & Bradstreet registration is incomplete and may not be accepted!" They haven't shut up for over a year. Fortunately they don't appear to have a working telephone number for me.
Marco Arment spoke about the hoops he went through when going through DUNS on Build and Analyze (#93, 24:48 in[1]). While his discussion isn't as accusatory, it might be worth a listen for his experience in dealing with them.
A reassuring note for UK readers - I got my number in 3 days, and nobody tried to upsell me on anything. (It's possible there's less paperwork for them in the UK, what with UK company details being centralized.)
They did assure me that this stupid number would be useful for all manner of stuff, which, so far, it hasn't been. But since they didn't charge me for this misinformation, I'm willing to let them off.
I've dealt with these jokers with going after federal grants... very, very shady and I totally empathize. Getting a DUNS number is actually free and you can get it in 24 hours, but you have to call their super secret number for federal contractors. Just tell them you're only using it to suckle on the government udder. It is the same number regardless.
My experience: after about a month, they finally called and took my information over the phone. I then waited the 2 weeks for the information to "propagate" to Apple, tried to sign up, but it said something was off. It turns out they forgot to put in our website address. So I tried to sign up for their iUpdate account (which allows modification of your data), and apparently I missed one of the questions, so now I can't update it online, and the only choice is to mail in this paper form along with like 3 paper forms of identification, then wait for a few weeks for them to give me credentials to iUpdate, then make the single-field change, then wait another 2 weeks for it to propagate to Apple. I called to ask "since you were able to take all my other information over the phone, can you please just make this minor modification?" The answer was always "no." D&B is indubitably the worst "service" I have EVER worked with!
"If you would like to obtain a D&B D-U-N-S Number for your business, please complete and submit the form below. Companies based in Germany will receive their D&B D-U-N-S® Number within five working days. Companies based outside of Germany will receive their D&B D-U-N-S® Number within 30 working days."
Yes, D-U-N-S numbers are a scam. The 30 day delay is to scare you into paying -- I got a number free in a couple days. D&B will cold call you later to sell you their many other bogus services. They'll also sell your information to anyone who pays.
I also had to register for a DUNS number. I was somehow able to do it online and get the number emailed to me immediately, without any phone calls or other human interaction. Of course the email contained promotions for services like "DNBi SelfMonitor" for $39/month. So much for accreditation.
I have found a hack to get a DUNS number instantly that I have used for 5-10 different companies of mine, it works every time and as far as I can tell there is no backlash. feel free to email me if you're reading this and want to save $230 lol
Same thing here. I gave up and decided to go through D&B's website and filled out their forms last night. Got a call this morning. For $295 they can expedite the process and get you your number in 3 days or wait 30 - 45 days. This is completely ridiculous. If I get my number in 6 weeks and wait 2 weeks for Apple to update their database I'm looking at a 2 month delay in releasing my app. Nice job Apple.
It is not a cost. The number is free to get. It's also only necessary if you setup a company developer account - it is not needed for an individual one.
I believe the requirement of a DUNS number began sometime around June 2012. Before that, they required a company to upload their incorporation documents. My guess is manually validating those documents became too much of a burden, and it was easier to just rely on the same international database that the government uses to identify companies. Basically, it allows Apple to offload the manual labor of verifying companies to a third party at no cost.
Just FYI, having a DUNS code is also part of the requirements for publishing on the Windows Store. Symantec is the third-party doing the verifications for Microsoft.
This is a serious scam, wonder my Apple is going with them. Not only do they scam you to signup for an account, they call you every month and scare you into buying a report. They say that multiple companies are requesting your credit reports and its not complete, you need to pay a certain amount to get it in shape.
Any update can take up to 14 days and they call you at odd hours to confirm those details as well.
Serious scam and a huge pain in the ass every company has to deal with while signing up for a developer account.
I started my signup process in August and got the developer account setup for our company in November. F#$%ing BS!
I explained my full process at http://blog.metamorphium.com/2012/12/03/apple-duns/