itunes payments, banking "Please stop emailing us."

hrgpac · April 2009

I already posted this answer, but it needs its own thread:

Hello

Please stop emailing us. Your 22 emails in the past two days is bordering harassment. We receive a thousand emails a day, and will respond as soon as we can.

Kind regards,

 Dean Migchelbrink | iTunes Finance | Apple Inc

History:

Asking about payment in Jan:

By contract, the Financial Reports and Payments are due 45 days from the close of our fiscal month. So December sales are due by mid February. In practice, we attempt to have all reports placed in your iTunes Connect account by the 15th of each month....

Kind regards,

 Stephanie Rodriguez | iTunes Finance | Apple Inc

Jan 16th and no payment:

A USD payment for the US territory was wired to your account on 12/19/08 in the amount of $xxxx USD.
It has not been returned to our account. Please contact your Bank for assistance.

Kind Regards,

 Stephanie Rodriguez
| iTunes Royalty | Apple Inc

Jan 23th and no money on bank:

I am looking into this for you and will have answer soon. I will contact you as soon as I can get more details.

Kind Regards,

 Stephanie Rodriguez
| iTunes Royalty | Apple Inc

Feb 16th and after sending a bunch of emails:

My apologies for the delayed response time. We have an incredible amount of daily communications that we receive and our response time is generally a 30 day turn around time.

However, I have researched you payment problem. Unfortunately, it appears the reasons for your delayed payments was due to an issue with the intermediary bank your bank uses to convert and transfer the funds from bank to bank. Payments were rejected for invalid account number. Which sometimes is a general response from them. We have corrected the problem and you should begin to see payments funding to your account this month starting the 28th of February and continuing through the 15th of March.
...
 Stephanie Rodriguez
| iTunes Royalty | Apple Inc

April 1st, STILL NO MONEY... after an email to check my bank data:

Thank you for your e-mail.

Please note that we will update your bank details in our financial system (SAP), however, these changes will not be reflected in your iTunesConnect account. You will not receive a confirmation notice when this has been updated, however, please allow ten business days for this to be reflected in your wire payment instructions.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Best Regards,

 Danielle Penhall | iTunes Royalty Team | Apple Inc

The original reason for which didn't work the first time:

Thank you for your e-mail. I will be changing the information tomorrow morning. I am showing that the reason for the first rejected payment was that the corresponding banks were not established in our accounting system....

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Best Regards,

 Danielle Penhall | iTunes Royalty Team | Apple Inc

After the 10 business days... NO MONEY... I sent a bunch of emails again every few hours and then:

Hello

Please stop emailing us. Your 22 emails in the past two days is bordering harassment. We receive a thousand emails a day, and will respond as soon as we can.

Kind regards,

 Dean Migchelbrink | iTunes Finance | Apple Inc

AND THE MONEY?

hrgpac · April 2009

I made a thread in the Apple Developer Forums with this info, and GUESS WHAT? Seems that the moderator DELETED the whole thread, not blocked, deleted...

So,the moderator answered this simple question

IS THIS APPLE?

ethanwa · April 2009

Get a lawyer dude.

objective-d · April 2009

I'm in the same boat - only 1 payment since Jan (I'm owed payments for pretty much all regions).

I've sent 5 emails now with zero response (in the past, they had been quite responsive).

I've received payments for all regions before (back in Nov last year) so I know my banking info is setup correctly.

gbh · April 2009

objective-d;73693 said:
I'm in the same boat - only 1 payment since Jan (I'm owed payments for pretty much all regions).

I've sent 5 emails now with zero response (in the past, they had been quite responsive).

I've received payments for all regions before (back in Nov last year) so I know my banking info is setup correctly.

same here, I'm about to just quit.

Ed99 · April 2009

yeah it really is amazing how out of touch their billing department is... it's hard as hell to reconcile the mysterious randomly received wire transfers to each monthly report, and they are certainly no help if there is a discrepancy...

A 30 day turnaround for answering a simple question is ridiculous. They need to do some serious hiring.... ( and maybe a firing of that dude ;) )

Intruder_qc · April 2009

I hope this is not going to be a growing problems :-(, I am not ready to put something on the AppStore anytime soon, but I am a bit worried about what's going in the future.

I sincerely hope Apple will resolve this issue quickly. Btw are you guys having the problem are in the US or other Country? I know wire transfer between country can be a bit more troublesome, especially now they are a lot of new regulation to prevent money laundry and terrorist financing.

Maybe Apple did try to do the transfer but maybe it get stuck with one of the bank. It will be interesting to know exactly where the problems lies.

Fred

brendand · April 2009

Well, I've had very positive responses and success from Apple. I don't think these problems you're having are typical given the number of developers. Most likely the ones not having any troubles aren't vocal about it.

The other day I sent them an email that my UK payment was missing from February. Exactly on the 15th it appeared in my account. So all has been good on this front. Just got my first March financial report yesterday from Europe.

One thing I'm not sure about is if you should be posting these emails. I'm pretty sure all communication from Apple is supposed to be confidential according to the NDA you signed, although don't quote me on that since I haven't looked it up.

The people you are dealing with are just employees trying to do the best job they can do. Posting their names on a forum isn't doing you or them any favours. That being said, I understand your frustration. I ran into some problems with bank account information last year, but it was all eventually sorted out.

Thanks,

Ed99 · April 2009

brendand;74082 said:
Well, I've had very positive responses and success from Apple. I don't think these problems you're having are typical given the number of developers. Most likely the ones not having any troubles aren't vocal about it.

Although something as extreme as what hrgpac experienced is probably unusual, Apple's payment system is severely lacking, especially on the customer service end.

Would it be that hard for them to send out email receipts when they actually send the wire transfers? Then there would be no dispute wither a payment was send or not.

Also brendand, you say after the email you got your deposit on the 15th.. did you ever get an email reply? It's my guess the deposit just happened to go down on the 15th, and your email probably still hasn't been read ( at least that's what I seem have experienced... things do seem to get transferred eventually, but they are unresponsive to emails and unable/unwilling to provide any kind of customer support)

brendand · April 2009

Ed99;74094 said:

Also brendand, you say after the email you got your deposit on the 15th.. did you ever get an email reply? It's my guess the deposit just happened to go down on the 15th, and your email probably still hasn't been read ( at least that's what I seem have experienced... things do seem to get transferred eventually, but they are unresponsive to emails and unable/unwilling to provide any kind of customer support)

Yes, you're right. I did not get an email about it. I just assumed they silently took care of it for me. But I guess you're right that it could have been a coincidence. Oh well. Ce la vie.

Warblader · April 2009

Well.... extreme and extreme... I am still waiting for my September 2008 to March 2009 US and World payments! Over $7000 they owe me. I also got a message about a problem with a "intermediate bank". But why should this be my problem?? They have had so many months now to see the problem and to fix it. Why should I fix something that is wrong on the inside of their system? I use the exact same bank and account and all other info on PayPal, Kagi, RegNow, Share-It, Plimus and other to do wire transfers and all those are working without problems. AND they did manage to do the transfer for August 2008, so why suddenly do they have problems?? There is no way to get a real answer from them on what is wrong... because something must be wrong somewhere! All other regions are working OK too.

williamapps · April 2009

There must be some thing wrong inside Apple i suppose.
They never give you any properly reason for they over due 45 days payment.
It seems They igno developers's payment inquired email since Feb.
What on the hell.

Prenvo · April 2009

brendand;74082 said:
The other day I sent them an email that my UK payment was missing from February. Exactly on the 15th it appeared in my account. So all has been good on this front. Just got my first March financial report yesterday from Europe.

I'm in exactly the same situation (missing UK - sole region) and also emailed them at [email]iTSPayments@apple.com[/email] and have yet to get a reply. I did email [email]iTSTax@apple.com[/email] a couple of weeks ago with a quick question and they answered it in less than 5 minutes: I can't understand why they don't even have an automatic reply just to confirm that they've even got it.

But heh: I'm just hoping they actually do go through each email they get...

Glass · April 2009

I have the same problem myself. I haven't received a single payment. I've emailed [email]iTSPayments@apple.com[/email], but no reply. It's very frustrating waiting for several thousand dollars.

gbh · April 2009

Glass;76083 said:
I have the same problem myself. I haven't received a single payment. I've emailed [email]iTSPayments@apple.com[/email], but no reply. It's very frustrating waiting for several thousand dollars.

been almost a weeek since I sent them a question and no reply.

Glass · April 2009

gbh;76084 said:
been almost a weeek since I sent them a question and no reply.

I called them 10 days ago. He said he can't do anything and that I have to email itspayments. I sent them an email right away. Now after 10 days and no word back I sent them another email.

Not sure what to do if they don't respond, since they can't do anything when you call them. I guess what I would have to do is to threaten them with a lawsuit.

tkilmer · April 2009

I see a class action suit against Apple in the future. I have yet to have an issue, but it is inevitable.

panzeriti · April 2009

Suin time!

scotopia · April 2009

How many people do you need for a class action (I know jack about legal stuff). Apple has treated me horribly for months; rejecting things for no reason, being rude to me on the phone, flat out lying to me (and being caught in the lie) several times AND they are severely late with my payments...I hate to say it but if nothing changes soon; sign me up for the class action.

kilobytedump · April 2009

scotopia;76234 said:
How many people do you need for a class action (I know jack about legal stuff). Apple has treated me horribly for months; rejecting things for no reason, being rude to me on the phone, flat out lying to me (and being caught in the lie) several times AND they are severely late with my payments...I hate to say it but if nothing changes soon; sign me up for the class action.

Me too I'm afraid. They owe me 1,000's and some of us have families and houses to pay for :(

HKhalil · April 2009

Sign me up too. This is bordering the ridicule.

Apple, if you can't handle the workload, hire more people. This isn't our problem, and it shoudn't be.

FlyingDiver · April 2009

Forget the class action suit. It should cost you a hundred bucks or less to have an attorney send them a demand letter. Do that, and get the paper trail started.

joe

Warblader · April 2009

I got an email from [email]iTSbanking@apple.com[/email] a little while ago, saying that they will now try to transfer via the intermediate bank I gave them. But if that does not fix it either, I'm very tempted to join in on a class action suit!!

kilobytedump · April 2009

Warblader;76246 said:
I got an email from [email]iTSbanking@apple.com[/email] a little while ago, saying that they will now try to transfer via the intermediate bank I gave them. But if that does not fix it either, I'm very tempted to join in on a class action suit!!

Well done on getting an email back. How many did you send and how long did you wait for a response (curious).

Its not like my mails are coming from a strange email address. They come from my .mac account (which I also pay apple for).

Warblader · April 2009

Waited 14 days for the reply from itsbanking... sent them 3 emails in that time that they didn't reply to.

Also sent [email]iTSPayments@apple.com[/email] a few more emails... must be 30-40 emails I have sent them since this **** started.

kilobytedump · April 2009

Gentlemen! It appear the good ould whine helped!

I GOT PAID!

For Australia anyway. Its Marches payment but its correct as I didn't make enough there anyway in Feb.

Hope the rest of Feb's money turns up along with Marches next week.

Anyway, I'm shocked.

Kieran, guys, I hope you get yours also.

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itunes payments, banking "Please stop emailing us."

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