This is one of those blog posts I've thought long and hard about; on one hand, I want to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt, since their customer service has always been top notch. On the other hand, I wish someone at Amazon would get a clue.
So one of the companies I'm involved with, Braintrust Digital, recently signed up for Amazon Payments using a business account. The system asked for a number of verifications, completely fine, including bank account information. A days after all these verifications were completed, the trouble started.
After receiving a large payment, the company sent one last verification, asking for the last four digits of the SSN (social security number)—an odd request for a business account, since corporations, while recently ruled to be people, still have FEIN (Federal Employee Identification Number). I enter the last four of the EIN, get an automated response thanking me for my entry, and then...Nothing.
A day later, I get an email saying I'd entered it wrong, and that I need to re-enter the information. Ok, fine, so I re-enter the last four digits, again get the automated response thanking me for successfully entering the information, and...
The account is now locked. No worries, as the small warning at the top of the page tells me there are things that can be done with the account and things that can't be done with the account. Here's the warning:
Click on the "here" link (isn't that sort of 1990s linking, to use "here" for the link—but I digress) and here's what we see we're allowed to do:
So the corporation can't send money or receive money, but it can withdraw it, right? Yes, according to the list, the only thing we CAN do is withdraw the money. So we go through the process of performing a sweep into the corporate bank account, and...
No, it's not telling the truth. At all. The transfer fails, and fails fast.
So we try to launch an inquiry into the failure, using these two links ("Problem with this transaction?" and "click here to inquire about an error" to, well, inquire about the error.
We enter the transaction ID and asking, simply, why it failed. Very simply, as in: "It failed. Why?"
Apparently these are fighting words, because we're told that we're disputing the transaction. Really? Yep, says so here...
Ok, so now what? Can we find a live person to check in with to find out why it failed? Well, only between 7am - 4pm PST (did we mention this was Amazon, based in Seattle, WA, USA?) Says so right here, in a rather snarky way:
No number to call, just a call-back request, either now or five minutes from now, meaning we have to be online to make the call (a call back service, yes, but not so convenient for real business folks, but that's another story all together...)
Tomorrow's blog entry? The incessant requests by Amazon to send Social Security information, date of birth and full legal name by (drumroll, please) EMAIL.
So one of the companies I'm involved with, Braintrust Digital, recently signed up for Amazon Payments using a business account. The system asked for a number of verifications, completely fine, including bank account information. A days after all these verifications were completed, the trouble started.
After receiving a large payment, the company sent one last verification, asking for the last four digits of the SSN (social security number)—an odd request for a business account, since corporations, while recently ruled to be people, still have FEIN (Federal Employee Identification Number). I enter the last four of the EIN, get an automated response thanking me for my entry, and then...Nothing.
A day later, I get an email saying I'd entered it wrong, and that I need to re-enter the information. Ok, fine, so I re-enter the last four digits, again get the automated response thanking me for successfully entering the information, and...
The account is now locked. No worries, as the small warning at the top of the page tells me there are things that can be done with the account and things that can't be done with the account. Here's the warning:
Click on the "here" link (isn't that sort of 1990s linking, to use "here" for the link—but I digress) and here's what we see we're allowed to do:
So the corporation can't send money or receive money, but it can withdraw it, right? Yes, according to the list, the only thing we CAN do is withdraw the money. So we go through the process of performing a sweep into the corporate bank account, and...
No, it's not telling the truth. At all. The transfer fails, and fails fast.
So we try to launch an inquiry into the failure, using these two links ("Problem with this transaction?" and "click here to inquire about an error" to, well, inquire about the error.
We enter the transaction ID and asking, simply, why it failed. Very simply, as in: "It failed. Why?"
Apparently these are fighting words, because we're told that we're disputing the transaction. Really? Yep, says so here...
Ok, so now what? Can we find a live person to check in with to find out why it failed? Well, only between 7am - 4pm PST (did we mention this was Amazon, based in Seattle, WA, USA?) Says so right here, in a rather snarky way:
No number to call, just a call-back request, either now or five minutes from now, meaning we have to be online to make the call (a call back service, yes, but not so convenient for real business folks, but that's another story all together...)
Tomorrow's blog entry? The incessant requests by Amazon to send Social Security information, date of birth and full legal name by (drumroll, please) EMAIL.
5 comments:
Have you guys had it resolved yet? I am trying to set up an account and they can't "verify the account information" and I keep getting those emails as well.
It's been resolved, but took moving heaven & earth. I'll post two updates over the next week...
Tim, I really would love to know how you resolved this. I work through Mturk and had this issue come up in the past few days. My last course of action was to email and fax in my marriage license, drivers license, utility bill and a screen shot of the mturk page where it shows the tax info as verified. Hopefully that covers any address issue, tax issue, name issue and anything else. I sent it off at 2am cst since I work nights, so I'm not expecting to hear back until late today. Still, I need this solved so knowing how you did it would be great.
Meg, I'm trying to track down the person I spoke with, the Amazon Payments compliance officer (for financial service companies, the compliance officer is the one where the "buck stops" at her desk).
She personally called me and resolved it in about five minutes, after expressing deep concern that I'd even been asked for that information. She'd specifically mentioned she would speak to the team to see that the process would be corrected. Hearing your account, it sounds like it's hasn't, so I'm digging back through my notes to see if I can contact her again. Might be worth a story for one of the magazines / newsletters I write for.
I have had TERRIBLE experiences with Amazon customer service in the last few months. I hate the fact that as a self-publisher, my best choice for eventually making a living is digital sharecropping with Amazon. I guess I'll just have to try to funnel my readers to my webpage as best I can and hope I can build up a readership off Amazon. :/
Post a Comment