Payment problem for Adwords

difficulty using credit card for Adwords account

[Spearmaster]

Note: Side discussion split off from another thread:

[webmasterworld.com...]

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I get no answers from anyone for two months.

The day I post a message in here, as seen above, I finally get an answer.

Thank you for your email.

Due to difficulties with previous accounts you created in our program, we are unable to allow you to advertise on Google again.

HUH?

I have one other account. It didn't work. Couldn't get any assistance with that account, and on advice of a Google staffer I opened another account.

This looks very fishy. The other account worked, then was disabled because of a pop-up - okay, found that out, and fixed it, and asked them to restart the campaign, but then something was disallowed (can't remember what), fixed that, then asked them to restart the campaign. Nothing.

This is not a plea for help, although I'll certainly take it if I can get it. This is to point out that Google Adwords is:

1. Very peculiar about how they deal with issues
2. Definitely not even-handed about how they deal with issues.
3. Responsive ONLY when you tell them that you are going to take advice given in this forum (to email them every day until the problem is resolved).

That's fine - if Adwords doesn't want my money, I suppose that's their right. But I will also make sure that the webmasters in my industry learn the pitfalls of dealing with Adwords.

[edited by: Marcia at 12:50 am (utc) on Nov. 20, 2002]

[GoogleGuy]

Hmm. I'm not familiar with that email. Hard to say what exactly was going on with your previous account..

[Spearmaster]

If you ask me, no one should be familiar with such an unbelievable email like that. Sounds a lot more like some support person who was tired of hearing about this case over and over again (well, not that much) and kept on putting off what he/she was supposed to look into.

Is it possible to escalate a reasonable request to higher management? I still can't believe this is the answer I got, which tells me nothing.

As for what was going on, there was nothing other than I just described. If there had been any shenanigans going on I might have understood that crazy answer that I got. But there is nothing other than the normal type of requests they should be getting from lots of other customers.

..... Okaaaay... must be some one has gotten a round tuit :)

NOW it says "Note: We were unable to bill your credit card. Your account has been suspended until you provide new credit card information. "

This despite the fact that they billed me for the original $5 startup fee - on two separate accounts. And despite the fact I have not had a single clickthrough, and they are supposed to be billing me in arrears, correct?

No matter which way you look at it, two months to discover that there MIGHT be a problem with the credit card is a bit long, don't you think?

[Spearmaster]

Ok... now let's see what's going on. Are there any members here having difficulty using a PayPal debit card to fund your Adwords account?

I know the balance in my account, and it's one heck of a lot more than $50. But I now keep getting a "Card Declined" message.

[Spearmaster]

First of all, there was no notice of what the problem was until today. Because the email from Adwords support was nothing short of incredible, the intent was to see if an escalation was justified.

Secondly, the PayPal debit card works everywhere - and I mean online and offline - except at Google. Even more strange is the fact that the Paypal log does not even show that an attempt to charge the card was made - normally it will show this with the notation "Denied".

You may think this is disruptive, if so I apologize. But I see this as a sign of a much bigger problem. And it's not like I haven't tried other cards in the past.

[Brett_Tabke]

It has worked fine in the past. So have a couple other dc's from other banks.

[webdiversity]

Don't know the specifics about this particular case but we have had card declined e-mails before when our clients were too busy making money to go to the bank to charge up their debit card (it's called a Visa Delta here in the UK).

Google take the account down, the client pays funds in, we resubmit the card again and the account is back on in minutes.

I'd be interested to know when Google intend to introduce some for of insertion order or pre-pay facility. The collection of an un-defined amount whenever you hit a threshold doesn't always work well for us.

Or is that too presumptuous of me? And how about agency recognition, with the opportunity to get access to all accounts through one master log in? There's other stuff on our agenda regarding Google improvements, which I've fed in already so no point going over old ground.

[Spearmaster]

The point is that there should be no problem with any Visa/MC debit card that has funds available - that's the whole point of such a card.

The only other assumption I have left is that the "denial" was not from PayPal, but instead Adwords is *blocking* the use of this card.

Very nice. From no notice of a problem to a direct blocking of my preferred payment mechanism and only after someone (I presume GG, thanks) intervenes. If you ask me, something needs to be fixed.

I'll think twice about putting in a new card now.

[Dougal]

Hi

I've had the same 'difficulties' email and for 2 weeks I have been emailing google daily with no response.

I have been using adwords select since it started with minimal down time and 1 or 2 card declines (admittedly our own fault). As webdiversity points out:we resubmit the card again and the account is back on in minutes. However this time things seem different:

>No attempt to take the payment
>ALL cards entered into billing page are declined
>No response from google support

I feel very frustrated as spearmaster appears to be. Some of our company cards we tried have 5 figure limits. I can only presume that by declining the cards:

A-They just don't want our money (and adverts)? - This could be serious
B-They have a problem with their system? hmm

As I maintain(ed) the campaigns my colleagues are battering down my office door to pull me to pieces as they take the email message from google to mean: 'Dougal has inadvertantly found some way to cause errors our adwords software so lock him out"

Without any replies from google as to what 'difficulties' actually means spearmaster and myslef are in limbo with no way to correct any error or mistake as I am betting it's nothing to do with the money.

Google, if your listening a little help would be most welcomed before I'm publicly stoned to death by my co-workers.

I can only hope no other adword select user has live with the response:
"we are unable to allow you to advertise on Google again"

Any suggestions welcomed

Dougal

[vibgyor79]

Spearmaster,

I'm not sure whether this is related to your problems - but once, all my Google AdWords accounts were disabled. By "disabled", I mean I did not collect any clicks or impressions (I had started a thread at WebmasterWorld too) even though the ads had been approved and gone live 3 months back.

So basically -

- All my credit cards were disabled.
- I was not allowed to openb a new account. My existing credit cards were not accepted by AdWords
- All my ads suddenly died of unnatural causes.

I sent repeated mails to AdWords Customer Service and finally all my accounts were restored back in 5 days.

The problem?

My accounts were put under "fraud" watch list because I had multiple accounts (multiple usernames) and was accessing it from the same computer. Apparently, a company/entity is allowed only one AdWords account. I guess they somehow realized that all the accounts I was accessing were for different companies/entities/businesses.

Google AdWords has a dud "fraud protection system" that seems to disable a lot of credit cards/accounts and causing a lot of heartache for the advertisers.

[Marcia]

There's no way to resolve things like this without reference to specific accounts and account numbers; it could be any number of things. At this point, probably the best course of action would be to get directly in touch with them on the phone about it. That way the particular transaction could be traced, which is really impossible without reference to the numbers.

[Spearmaster]

Vibyor, that's interesting, considering what the Google rep told me at the conference - open another account.

However, the final email I got was that they had a problem processing the card.

Marcia - I don't know if anyone is asking for specific help here - what I am trying to point out is a definite problem and lack of support.

It does, however, make sense that Google should take the necessary steps to discover problems in their own systems.

At this stage I'm not really worried about my own accounts - not only am I too busy to deal with this, but if Google doesn't want my money, that's their problem. I've always focused on content anyhow but seen PPC as a good way to jumpstart things.

[Slud]

Thanks for the "fraud" lead vibgyor79. My account has had the same trouble no impressions, declined cards, new account also declines card, etc.

Hopefully, AdWords support will read at least one of my emails and get it straightened out.

[Dougal]

Hi Everyone

I'm back on Google!

Thankyou all and vibgyor79 for the fraud tip.

After many, many emails without reply I scanned my Passport, Credit Card, Bank statements, Cheque books(as we advertise for more than 1 business) and everything but my A***. Emailed it to Google and hey presto!Reactivation.

I even got a Xmas present to keep me warm whilst I was out there in the cold from Google.

I would suggest that you should be as transparent as possible about what it is you are using Adwords for and the truth will prevail.

Good luck everyone and I do hope this is a properous new year for all.

Regards

Dougal