Forum Moderators: martinibuster
As a non US citizen cashing my cheque is becoming an increasingly difficult prospect. You see not only do I have to arrange for my cheque to be cashed, exchanged into Aussie dollars (which involves the filling in of two forms) - cheques over $#*$!x require further authentication which means the cheque has to be physically sent back to the US before they are cleared. Despite the planes that fly back to the US every day this extra process takes a further 6 weeks!
So the money that I earned on the first day of September is not likely to hit my bank account until the 18th December (if I'm lucky)!
Of course I'm getting used to it now - money still comes to me every month - but its amazing that a company with as many innovations and cutting edge technologies as Google can't arrange for the people who are paying a lot of their bills to get their share of the profits a little quicker than 108 days after they earned them.
Of course I shouldn't complain too much - my real gripe is with Amazon which only sends cheques quarterly. The money I earned from them on the first day of July won't hit my bank account until 18th December also!
I notice you did not address all the other important issues Google would have to consider. ;)
banking services always cost money but
to put this in context - it costs me less to get adsense money into my account than if I made an equivalent value sale by credit card.
i don't know about the legal or technical issues surrounding changing the payment system so can't comment on a lot of what's been mentioned in this thread so far ...
but having spent my fair share of time chasing (late payers) of 90 day invoices, getting an adsense cheque pretty much when i expect it and without having to hassle for it is like a breath of fresh air.
If it is in terms of legal questions, it is funny that many other companies can do this. Burst to name but one, which I mentioned earlier. Are you suggesting that Burst has better legal advice than Google?
In terms of technology your "sigh" says it all. Google I would like to think has the technology to do this.
In terms of what is stopping them? You appear to have more inside info than I do. I can only assume that it suits them because they have the "monopoly" (lets not get into an arguement about the economic definition of monopolies). If overture/yahoo/msn started a publisher network and offered direct payment, wonder how long it would take G
Edited for spelling
Burst? What's that? I've never heard of it :)
>>You appear to have more inside info than I do
Didn't know you had any inside info. But, yes, they've even given me their algo ...I'm not going to disclose it here though! :)
Didn't know you had any inside info.
It might amaze you what you can find on a search engine whose url isn't www.google.com
But, yes, they've even given me their algo ...I'm not going to disclose it here though! :)
Oh I thought everybody had that. :-}
Is it a secret?
Suppose I better stop selling it :-}
(Note to AA-that was a JOKE!)
I thought everybody had that...
Suppose I better stop selling it
Trust someone in the finance industry to sell something that everybody already has ;)
Back OT...
cheques over $#*$!x require further authentication
Bear in mind that publishers are spread all over the world. To have a direct deposit for publishers in a variety of different countries from the US to Uzbekistan calls for monumental organisation.
...
There are payment processing companies based in Bermudas, Antiguas or the like (I have used epassporte.com, but I have heard of others).
Google could give the publishers the option to be paid through these companies (which charge small fees per transaction). Google would only have to check out the legalities of this country (not the country where the publishers live).
It“s not a Google concern how the money would be eventually transferred to the country of the publisher (all the points raised by Macro would be a problem of the publisher“s, not Google's).
Google's already discovered a brilliant way by which they won't have to get involved in various issues particular to different countries. They've already discovered a brilliant way of making it the publisher's responsiblity. And they've been doing it since day one ;)
All my other clients either wire me the money or send it to my PayPal account.
If Google wants to make extra cash by holding onto the money until a certain date, fine, but at least could they find a less risky way of transferring the money across the Atlantic?
Printing and posting cheques costs money, and I assume that it also costs to transfer between accounts. However, would a cost comparison of the methods show a big difference?
I take the points made earlier that there are difficulties in some countries, but many countries outside the US *do* have good banking systems. It should be possible to offer electronic payment to the UK without any difficulty whatsoever. It costs me more to cash Google cheques via a bank than it would to pay PayPal, and I for one would welcome the choice.
My guess here is that G likes to hang onto the money and reap the interest as long as possible, and it's simply not in their interest to change.
Here in the UK I get my cheques about a week after they are posted. I mostly have the cheques negotiated meaning I get the money into my account via a brokerage, but the money is still in G's account until that cheque finally makes it back to the clearing bank. The one time I had a cheque not negotiated it took a month to clear. Therefore I'm guessing that G gets to hang onto the money for six weeks plus if it posts a cheque, as opposed to it being paid out instantly if it transfers the money.
If Google wants to make extra cash by holding onto the money until a certain date,
They will change the TOS, publishers will meekly say "thats great, thanks G-you are so fantastic" and everyone will live happily ever after
Be nice to the staff and they may well cash the cheques over 3 figures straight away ; )
Another option for people would be to open an investment account. They may charge less in fees to do what you want, or give you an easy option to hold on to the US dollars.
Sean
Surely it would be a pretty simple exercise for them to paypal the money to people. Then it's the publishers' and paypals problem to get it into your bank account which they have worked out already for lots of countries.
Cashflow is an issue for many internet businesses that pay for advertising, so it's got to increase the number of memebers, and the prominance that their current members place the ads in to increase the adsense revenue in place of other ads/ products/ affiliate links...
Even with the lowest fee structure, a publisher receiving a $5000 payment would be paying $125.55 in fees, bringing that payment amount down to $4874.45. I am fairly certain that very few publishers - if any - are paying $125+ US to cash one check. A $10000 payment would have fees of $250.55. (The fee-free PayPal accounts have receiving limits of $1000/month).
I am sure if Google used PayPal, the forum would be filled with angry and upset publishers who were paying huge fees to PayPal to receive their payments. I would be willing to bet that PayPal is NOT an option they are considering.
The problem us foreign publishers have are the high bank charges for paying in foreign currency cheques.
Where I live, depositing a foreign check costs nothing, but I pay a US $14 wire-transfer charge for direct deposits from my leading affiliate partner (which pays in euros).
I suspect that Google will pay by electronic deposit when it can do so easily and reliably throughout the world.
Something many people are overlooking is the PayPal fee structure.
Surely paypal don't charge US citizens and not UK?
Direct Deposit would be great but a cheque from Google is fine too.
I receive my deposits for nothing and payments are made for nothing.
Once you receive more than $1000 a month, you need yo "upgrade" to a business or premier account, and those accounts charge fees. You cannot accept anything totally over $1000 per month - it will leave it as unclaimed until you do.
You might be thinking of funding your account (money from your bank account to your PayPal account, for example) which I believe is still free.
Even with the lowest fee structure, a publisher receiving a $5000 payment would be paying $125.55 in fees, bringing that payment amount down to $4874.45. I am fairly certain that very few publishers - if any - are paying $125+ US to cash one check. A $10000 payment would have fees of $250.55. (The fee-free PayPal accounts have receiving limits of $1000/month).
Actually, PayPal has a "Mass Pay" option that adds only a small fee to the sender of the payment, and the receiver of the payment pays no PayPal fees to receive the money:
[paypal.com...]
There are other reasons why google may not want to use PayPal (like opening up its financials to PayPal or the requirement of having the funds in PayPal before they can send a mass payment), but I don't think the fees for the publisher would be an issue.
I have received PayPal payments for the past 4 years every month on the 20th from the Fastclick ad network and never had to pay any PayPal fees to receive the funds (I have a paypal business account).
Google would have to pay 2% per payment sent, but there is a max fee for the sender of $1 per payment, so it comes VERY close to the cost of postage and envelopes.
MassPay can even be sent internationally in 5 different currencies.
ASA
That was last year. Now, things have changed. I opened a US account with my bank here in Canada. So I can deposit US checks in my US account and simply transfer to my Cdn account at anytime. No fees.
I still keep the US based account for misc revenue from PayPal. Having a US based account prevents any fees from PayPal. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post the name of the US-based bank so you can send me a sticky email. If I can post the bank name let me know and I will, it'll prevent answering a bunch of emails.
