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warning DISALLOWED_CHARACTERS_IN_PHONE

Disallowed characters in phone number (reason 38)

What this means

Your ad text contains disallowed special characters in the phone number such as punctuation symbols or letters that can't be dialed.

Why this happens

Microsoft Merchant Center's product schema has format and value rules per attribute. This issue is typically: missing a required attribute for the category, an invalid enum value (e.g., 'XL' submitted where 'M, L, XL' is the valid set), out-of-range numbers, or attributes that conflict across the feed.

How to fix it

  1. Look up the affected attribute in Microsoft Merchant Center's product data spec.
  2. Check whether the attribute is REQUIRED vs RECOMMENDED for your product category.
  3. For enum-style attributes (gender, age_group, condition), use ONLY documented values exactly (case-sensitive).
  4. For free-text attributes, stay within the character limit and avoid promotional language.
  5. Re-submit and check the next processing cycle.

Common pitfalls