My ad campaigns were frozen this morning because Google claims my credit card charge was rejected. I couldn't imagine why. So I called the credit card company and they assured me that they didn't reject any charges from Google or anyone else. As of matter of fact, they accepted a charge from Google yesterday. So I pulled up my online statement for the credit card, and, sure enough, there's a chunk of change paid to Google on June 1.
If I go to my AdWords "My Account" tab, there are payments received all through the month of May, but no payment reflected as being received on June 1. It "looks" like Google charged my card but something in their system didn't record that fact. My AdWords account says to update my billing information and they'll process the charge and resume my ads. That's the last thing I want to do because then Google will charge me twice, on two different credit cards, for the same expenses.
I called Google first this morning, and they said my account was under review, and they suspected the billing problem was the reason why. The person who had my account under review was supposed to call me back. After nothing in a few hours, I sent an e-mail with more detailed information. Still nothing. I've called back this afternoon and they said the payment people don't respond by phone, only by e-mail.
So I decided to set up a new account with a new credit card and see if I could run my most profitable ads on that account while this one gets straightened out. Different e-mail address under a different domain with a different credit card. The only thing the same in both accounts is my name. Sure enough, they froze the account until the billing issue is rectified.
So I'm in AdWords hell, not making any money from this account, and I've heard nothing from Google. Sure, a day or two or three is nothing to them. I'm just a small fry customer.
It did occur to me that this is just a convenient way to do a review of my account without calling it a review. Just claim a billing problem, hold off on applying that charge to the account, and release it when they're ready. Sort of like when I was a kid and if you looked like a hippie, the cops would pull you over for "weaving" so they could search your car.
See, Google's already engendering mistrust in me. So much for being an active Google supporter.
Oh well, in a bit I'm off to the golf course and when I get home this evening, I'll go over to the dark side and start investigating using Overture. Somebody must want my money.
I logged in Tuesday and saw the "Note: We were unable to process your last payment." message. (why the heck can't they send an email to the address of record with this info? It's pretty important.)
I went to update the credit card info, but since Tuesday, every attempt to update the cc info with any cc, regardless of its status/limit/availability has resulted in the error:
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it. Please note that using your browser's back button in AdWords can increase the likelihood of errors. If you think this was the cause of your error, please try again without using the back button."
(Of course, this has nothing to do with the "back" button ...)
At the same time, checking in my Billing Summary, I see an attempt has been made to process a payment without success ... regardless of the cc's validity.
The reason given is:
"The issuing bank for your credit card has declined this transaction. Please check to be sure that your account has sufficient funds for this transaction."
Which is hogwash, and undoubtedly has to do with the previously noted error.
I sincerely do hope their engineers are, indeed working on this.
And it's a very important area - billing - with very important consequences - entire account stopped, so things are really serious.
Feedback would be really appreciated.
I did notice in my payment history for a while yesterday that its final line was about a balance carried over to July instead of June. I'm guessing that payments received on June 1 got caught in a glitch somewhere.
What really bothers me about this whole experience is customer support. I know Google has been slammed about this in the past and now I've had to deal with it.
When I called American Express in the morning to see if they'd declined a charge by Google, I got a woman who took all the time we needed to walk through the account so we could understand what did and didn't happen. I wasn't hurried and she did her utmost to make it pleasant and answer all my questions.
Not too long ago, I upgraded my web hosting plan, and somewhere there was a glitch that shutdown my web site, because they didn't think the payment hadn't gone through. I was bounced from technical support to billing who wanted to bounce me back to technical support. I explained that I'd already talked to them and was getting frustrated. At that point she slowed everything down, made it a three-way call with technical support, and we walked through the entire process until they found the problem on their part and had me up and running again.
I just returned from a dental appointment for my teenage daughter. The dentist took us in to his office when he was done, explained the options for what needed to be done, laid out the timeline for future options over the next year. I left with a good understanding what needed to be done and when and what all the possible options were.
With AdWords, my original phone ended with "Someone else will get back to you." They never did. The second phone call ended with "Billing doesn't reply by phone, only e-mail." Amazing. I spend only about $4k-$6K a month in AdWords and that's probably small potatoes for them. But I can't even speak with someone by phone in billing? Then I get an e-mail response to my e-mail telling me to try something I already tried. I never did get an e-mail or a phone call saying the problem was fixed. I don't even know if it was fixed. Maybe tomorrow my ads won't run again. I just don't know. I'm left with the impression that I'm not worth their time and whether I'm a happy Google customer or not is not that important to them.
I spend only about $4k-$6K a month in AdWords and that's probably small potatoes for them.
It's more than enough to pay 1 support person...
The payment was debited from my bank account but it showed as declined in adwords.
After screaming and shouting for 5 days, they topped up my account with £100 with isnt much but atleast they admitted they were at fault.
Still receiving the "engineers are working to fix ..." error message, but the Billing Summary FINALLY indicates that the transaction went through.
I'm still receiving a "Not authorized" error when attempting to connect to the "edit" link next to "Billing and Payment" on the Billing Preferences page.
It looks like they are trying to do something with user permissions or something and it's screwing up their billing interface.
8 DAYS! I could have gone on vacation!
