I’m in the middle of verifying as part of the INFORM debacle…Banking Verification is up next, and here’s my dilemma:
Amazon replaced my Business Name + Address info with my Legal (personal) info before they sent my postcard. I thought about changing it back but just left it and am waiting for my postcard to verify that…
For my Banking Verification, my Bank Statement shows in the name of my Business LLC at the physical store address, which is no longer on the account anywhere as they changed it. Real Handy, huh?
I came across this comment from a Moderator on a thread on the NSFE and thought it was interesting:
"In terms of your specific situation, as long as the name chosen on that verification screen is located somewhere on the account and the information submitted on the bank statement also matches information on the account it will be sufficient for the verification process.
Am I going to have issues getting the Bank Account verified?
if so, what do I need to add/change as soon as I verify the Legal address? Should I go back into my Business info, add the LLC and the store address back in as the Business Info and ask for another postcard? Thanks for any guidance on this…
When they changed our Business Address and Phone Number to our personal address and cell phone number, we immediately went in and changed it back to the business address and business phone number. This happened before we got notice to verify the Business Address and Phone Number.
We would. Not sure you can do it while the postcard is in route, but, after you receive and verify as it currently is, we would make the change and request a new postcard if the system says it needs it.
What does your Official Registered Address show? Is it the same as on the bank statement? If so, then we would attempt the verify the Deposit Method with the statement you currently have with the business name and business address. (Note - when they changed our Business Address and Phone Number, they didn’t change our Official Registered Address.) The Official Registered Address is like for a corporate office where all the official paperwork part of the business is run through. The Business Address and Phone Number is like a warehouse / retail building where the customers are served by the business from. They could be one in the same or they can be different. For most of us, they are one in the same. We have not seen anyone say that their Official Registered Address has been tampered with. But we have seen … us and others … who have had the Business Address and Phone Number changed.
Because a bank account would be handled at the Official Registered Address, the Deposit Method verification (bank verification) should be tied to that address.
Legal Entity - Person who has control of the Amazon Account - name and address
Official Registered Address - Business name and address where all legal documents are sent to and where business permits, licenses and documents of creation would contain on them.
Business Address and Phone Number - Business name and address of warehouse / retail sales operation that serves the customer (product sold and shipped from).
My Legal Entity = Corporate Office = Official Registered Address = Me Personally @ my house.
My Business Info used to show my DBA / my Brick and Mortar store / Physical address / etc but was changed and is now showing my home info. The DBA and physical address (that are now gone) is what’s on the Bank Statement.
I’ll try to upload the Bank Statement as soon as my address is verified. If it doesn’t work, I’ll hurry up and change the Business address back to my Brick & Mortar, re-submit, and will open a case with Seller Support…
Ok, just to be clear, my LEGAL Entity on Amazon is Me, and that is correct. My sales tax license is in my personal name, my 1099K comes in my name and is filed on my personal tax return as a Schedule C. I just finished verifying my Legal info, using my DL, and it went through OK, I don’t want to change that. (Is this what you mean by the Official Registered Address?)
The Business Name/Address/Phone on the account is what I assume will need to be changed back to my LLC…
Postcard came, verified OK, went into Banking and uploaded Bank Statement for verification. Crossing my fingers it goes As-Is without doing any more address changes, I still do not have an Official Registered Address field…
@Lost_My_Marbles@Medic ; Update for today…email this morning told me that Banking could not be verified because name doesn’t match what’s on the Bank Account. I still do not have an “Official Registered Address” spot…so I opened up a case with Seller Support…and I screenshotted the various places on my account that the Business Name still appears (Screen Name, Bank Account Name on file, Return Name + Address is an exact match to the Company Bank Statement, etc). It’s there if they wanted to see it.
My guess is I’ll end up having to update the “Business Address + Phone Number” back to what it used to be, wait for a PIN postcard, and then re-try it. There was a thread somewhere a couple months ago on NSFE that a mod was pushing Support Cases to an internal team that was dealing specifically with this LLC bank account issue but I can’t find it. I tagged a couple mods on one of the NSFE threads.
This is what we did. The difference with us is that we had the Deposit Method verified with the business name before Amazon changed our Business Address and Phone Number. The end result for us was having to then verify the Business Address with the post card.
We received that one and there was an earlier version that was equally non helpful.
Hello from Amazon Selling Partner Support, Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the issues you are having verifying your bank account information following the INFORM Consumer Act. I know this is highly important to you, but seriously this is new to all of us and we are still just trying to figure it all out too. This is a difficult task because there are like 50,000 of us working at Amazon. And another 3.5 million Sellers. But the important thing is that because our company will get fined $14K per incident per day if a violation occurs, it is so much better for everyone, if you have to do a great deal of things, become terribly confused, and/or possibly have your account deactivated. If we think you need to take action, we will contact you with a terse and confusing email with vague instructions. We ask that you respond to these messages within the specified timeline, as the law may require us to deactivate your selling account until you successfully verify, once or twice. Not getting an email doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have done something, it just means we didn’t know you had to do something.
Has anyone got a contact in the media? The WSJ and the NYT, and maybe even the WP need to be aware of this total botch Amazon has made of complying with this new law.
OK, I assume I’ll get another reply tonight and will move forward tomorrow depending on what they recommend. Will keep you posted, thank you for the continued help!
I have learned the Amazonese language after many years of study. That was a translation of the message @BennyMac received into English. Obfuscation, is I suspect one of the main reasons the indigenous Amazon workers developed their own language.
Should I just go in and “Add a New Address” under Business Name + Phone Number and then re-click to Verify the Banking? I’m not sure how long to be patient for them to advise me (I kind of assumed the Verification dept wasn’t working weekends), this slightly ominous warning was at the bottom of that email…so the clock is ticking (especially if I have to get another postcard + pin)
