Confusing and Inconsistent Application Process and now wants Billing Information?

[robinmalik]

Hi,

I'm championing the adoption of GitHub at my Educational Organisation (verified domain, approved and validated for Educational benefits and Global Campus membership), but we're having a very frustrating time with the constantly changing, and inconsistent application process for educational benefits. Whether you're approved or not seems to depend on whatever person processes it at the time.

Over the past 6 months we've had numerous staff members rejected when providing photos of their staff ID card (despite others being accepted), with some having to provide copies of payslips in recent months. This is despite:

• Using full name on profiles.
• Using email addresses associated with our verified domain.
• Already having been added to the approved organisation by an admin.
• Granting location access to prove we're coming from a campus location - our public IP space is very large and well known.

Most recently, a colleague has been told they need to add billing information(!). They are part of our existing Educational approved Organisation. Why are they being asked for personal billing information?

Furthermore, after "academic status" verification has succeeded, staff are getting notifications within GitHub saying:

"To redeem your Copilot Pro coupon, please sign up via this link"

... which redirects to https://github.com/github-copilot/free_signup - when I sat with a user to look at this it again tried to force them to enter billing information. I suggested they leave it over the weekend which they did, and then they were granted the GitHub Pro benefits.

Staff should not have to add personal billing information to accounts that are for work purposes. Why is this being asked for, and why hasn't anyone been asked until recently?