UPDATE Earnings have now been paid. MBA: I'm missing my March and April royalties.

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newuser-144e1fb0-c9f1-47ed-8dd5-529d5eaf1e07 asked May 23, '19

UPDATE Earnings have now been paid. MBA: I'm missing my March and April royalties.

*UPDATE*: On the 21st of June, I finally got all my missing Merch payments. I got an email from Merch support saying "We can confirm that the holds have been lifted for your payments. " I'm currently waiting on my June 29th payment but since it was on the weekend I'm hoping my bank will update the statement today on Monday. I have received the remittance email for it, as well as all previous remittance emails too. If anyone else has run into this problem my only advice is to just be patient, send proof of bank statement emails that you're not being paid. Also assume every email you send will be read by a different person so you have to mention what's been said before as it's not a thread. I'll never know what the problem was! So I can assume it was a problem on Merch's end then. I'm nervous that this will happen again but I'm happy I can go back to designing and uploading designs again! Thank you.

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(I am from the UK with a UK bank account)
Hello this is my first time posting here, so I'm not sure if it's allowed - I just really need some help.
The last time I was paid by Merch By Amazon was at the end of March for the February royalties.

Before March ALL OF MY PREVIOUS ROYALTY PAYMENTS worked fine. I am also being paid by other websites directly into my bank.

I haven't received remittance emails since March 21st. I'm missing March and April royalties and the corresponding emails. I've already emailed Merch support and they have run me around in circles. They say there's an issue with my bank details, which hadn't been changed. I went to my bank yesterday and they said that my IBAN is CORRECT, my name is my full name on the account, the bank BIC number is CORRECT. What could be going wrong?

I also think I'm not dealing with real people? It feels like bots as I've had 4 identical emails with different names. The fact that there's no phone number to call is ridiculous - Amazon is withholding money without transparent communication. I cannot find any issues on my end as to why this suddenly has stopped working. I emailed when April didn't pay for March's royalties and was told to wait, now it hasn't worked again.

If anyone else has SOLVED this issue, please let me know? and please reply to my case email, it's been too long. I don't know if I'm supposed to drop the case number here, so I wont unless asked.
Thank you,
Sarah

merch by amazon response payments

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Answer 1 · 2019-05-24T08:39:15Z

newuser-144e1fb0-c9f1-47ed-8dd5-529d5eaf1e07 answered May 24, '19

Can absolutely no-one help me with this? The only email copy paste I received is that it's been sent for investigation. (I've had this email twice already, and the response I KNOW I will get - which is "oh there's something wrong with your bank account"

I keep getting run around in circles.
Previous payments in JAN 29, FEB 29, MAR 29 worked perfectly and my bank account said those payments were direct deposits and not redirects.
MY IBAN is correct and verified, my banks BIC is CORRECT. My name is correct. This is an issue on your end! And looking through the forums for some incline of an answer shows me I'm not the only one this has happened to.

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Answer 2 · 2019-05-24T15:44:12Z

FocusedOnResults answered May 24, '19

Hello - Does your bank see the transactions coming in?

As in, are they coming to the gateway and for some reason not passing through? I hope I am explaining this correctly - I am USA based and I see you are UK based.

Also, can your bank print out a statement showing all incoming deposits? Then you can show it to Merch that on x date - nothing came to the gateway.

I had a situation (with eBay if I recall) a few years ago, and there was a glitch - on the bank's end. They kept saying the transaction wasn't coming in - it was - and they were (God knows why) rejecting it as it "looked suspicious" How a deposit looks suspicious is beyond me but...

Has your bank made any changes (after your last successful deposit from Merch)? They won't tell you if they did due to security - but still ask them.

If it is not then resolved, I would document all the steps you've taken and contact Merch again with the back up information. I hope to see an update from you that you have successfully resolved the matter.

We are on a long holiday this weekend - so you may have a delay in Merch responding until next week.

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newuser-144e1fb0-c9f1-47ed-8dd5-529d5eaf1e07 commented · May 24, 2019 at 04:21 PM

Hello, thank you for replying.

The last bank deposit from Amazon was on March 29th, there's nothing for April 29th and my bank couldn't find anything - they couldn't see any transactions for the 29th of April at all if that makes sense. My bank really can't find anything wrong. That's a good idea showing Merch my statement so show the last payment.

I haven't received my remittance emails from Amazon as well, the last one was on the 21st of March and I got paid on the 29th March. So I'm missing April and May remittance emails and because I didn't get one on the 21st of May I assume I wont be getting my April royalties this month either.

For more history, I switched to a new bank early January (Been on Merch for more than a year)
I've received currently 3 payments to my current bank account. Jan 29, Feb 29 and Mar 29. These payments are not redirects, that's something I asked my bank. They are directly deposited.

My IBAN is correct and verified, my banks BIC number is correct and my name is my full name.

I really hope this can be solved.

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FocusedOnResults newuser-144e1fb0-c9f1-47ed-8dd5-529d5eaf1e07 commented · May 24, 2019 at 05:51 PM

Hello

Just playing Devil's advocate (as I was thinking about your predicament after I replied), your returns for the two months in question did not create a negative balance correct? I am guessing not but just to remove an possible issue, I thought I'd query.

Second Devil's advocate question- your payment data on Merch (old bank) did not somehow revert did it? You should be able to see in your settings if it did (I think).

In this forum, admin will not reply to questions such as yours, she may advise and give you an email address. It is not an unwillingness, it is their policy. It makes sense as far as security as some people post way too much info - thus creating a security breach possibility.

Another tidbit - when you email Merch and then reply and then you reply to them - unless something has changed - they can Not see the past correspondence - you know how usually you can scroll down and see the back and forth correspondence? They cannot see it. Definitely keep this in mind when you contact and correspond with them.

I have found them to be willing and helpful - I think many (if not all) are offshore and if so ESL (English Second Language) but there is a high willingness to help.

I'll watch for your updates - hopefully it will be fixed in a day or so, if not sooner.

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newuser-144e1fb0-c9f1-47ed-8dd5-529d5eaf1e07 FocusedOnResults commented · May 24, 2019 at 06:30 PM

No the two months did not create a negative balance.

My settings did not revert, I've checked. I had emailed about this on the 4th May, updated my settings (although nothing needed to be changed) The email acknowledged that they've been updated and that I would be receiving both royalty payments at the end of May + both remittance emails (which together was a decent amount of money) but since it has not happened again, I'm still going through the email process.

I didn't know about that they cannot see the past correspondence, I will be mindful of that when I send future emails about this - thank you.

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Answer 3 · 2019-05-25T06:09:09Z

Elizabeth@Amazon answered May 25, '19

Thank you very much for your question. I'm sorry to hear that you're having trouble with your Merch by Amazon royalty payments. Unfortunately we aren't able to provide any direct assistance on payments here in the forum community, but I would like to reassure you that you've done the right thing by engaging our email support team. I would recommend gathering as much information from your bank as possible and sharing that with them as they work to investigate this for you.

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newuser-144e1fb0-c9f1-47ed-8dd5-529d5eaf1e07 commented · May 31, 2019 at 02:36 PM

May I ask how long these investigations usually take place? The last email I recieved they asked if I was paid in March (that was when I was last paid) and I said yes, sent a screenshot to prove it and I've heard nothing back since then.

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Answer 4 · 2019-05-31T14:40:46Z

newuser-144e1fb0-c9f1-47ed-8dd5-529d5eaf1e07 answered May 31, '19

Not much of an update but I thought I would post anyway.

TLDR: Nothing has been solved, still no payments, still no remittance emails. 2 months missing payments now.

The last email I received was on the 25th of May with someone asking me if I was paid on the 29th of March (they could see the payment) and I replied yes, I sent them the screenshot of my bank statement for that day. This is to prove that I've received previous payments and I'm not sure why it would stop working all of a sudden.

I am still waiting on a reply.
I sent an email earlier today with a bank statement screenshot to show I wasn't paid on the 29th of May for my April royalties either. No remittance emails either.

So yeah, sad that nothing has been solved yet. I'm losing much hope

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Answer 5 · 2019-07-01T08:36:48Z

newuser-144e1fb0-c9f1-47ed-8dd5-529d5eaf1e07 answered Jul 1, '19

Final (*hopefully*) update with this. On June 21st MBA emailed back saying "We can confirm that the holds have been lifted for your payments. " No explanation about what was the problem in the first place. I can assume it was a problem on their end and it's now been fixed.

However, I'm still currently missing my June 29th Payment, but I will be checking with my bank today to see if it's went through since the 29th was on a Saturday. I have received the remittance email saying I would be paid on the 29th, which is a good sign because when I was missing the previous payments I didn't get the emails. Now the emails are coming in

All the previous missing payments have now been paid to my bank account.

Despite the fact it's been sorted, I didn't get an explanation about what went wrong. I feel like I will be nervous every month waiting to see if I will get paid. I found the Amazon Merch Support system to be poor, my criticism is that I talked to many people who didn't seem to know what happened in previous emails - so it was separate instead of a thread they can follow. I was given the same copy paste emails. However I'm so happy that I got my earnings in the end! I can go back to designing and uploading again.

Sarah

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