Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Since then the 'contact name' appears to have become 'payee name' and I have received a cheque in my name rather than in the name of the company. A cheque which the company's bank refuses to cash. I definitely never provided my own name as a payee name.
Has anybody else had this experience?
This change happened after I contacted google (about a month ago) to enquire which of the original fields the cheque would be made out to.
Apologies :(
Since then the 'contact name' appears to have become 'payee name' and I have received a cheque in my name rather than in the name of the company. A cheque which the company's bank refuses to cash. I definitely never provided my own name as a payee name.
So, put the cheque in your bank account, and get your company to sort it out with google ;)
Jokes aside, I have noticed the same thing. Fortunatly for me it's O.K.
Presented with a request for a company name and contact name it seemed obvious that the check would be made payable to the company. I certainly wouldn't pay for anything I bought from a company with a cheque made payable to an individual member of staff.
If the naming of the fields generated enough confusion to warrant a change then Google should have written to all account holders to check that suitable entries had been made.
The company is all set up to receive US dollar cheques and can do so at no cost.
Personally I am not set up to do so and by the time I have paid it into my personal account and transferred the funds to the company it will incur around $60 in charges.
You should definitely contact Google about this so they can change the form before the next checks are issued.
Fortunately, this doesn't effect me, but Google really messed up on this one. They say in their terms they can only issue checks in U.S. dollars and then they make a mistake which ends up costing their publishers a lot of money.
Yes, same for me. Loads of advertisers make this mistake and its really annoying, but what can we do? Hopefully they will sort it out for next time
I am sure it will all be sorted out but a little strange all the same.
Don't know how this works in your country, but that's one way to go about solving this problem.
As a side note...you got your check? I'm in the US and have not received mine yet. :-(
-Pete
I don't see why the bank views this as an issue as I am a director of the company, listed with the bank as a beneficial owner and they have already undertaken KYC (know your customer) on me, not to mention the cheque carrying the company's address on it as well.
However I do live and bank in one of the world's most highly regulated offshore jurisdictions and they appear to have departed from the concept of being sensible. No doubt there is some document somewhere that suggests such activities could be related to money laundering.
Years ago I did business with a bank in the US that was not very sensible about company name vs. individual name. I changed banks.
Most of my income is as a consultant working for large companies. Sometimes checks come in my name, sometimes in the company name. They are typically large enough to get noticed, so they have to be right. My bank never hesitates to take them for deposit. (they seem to like to receive money-strange concept ;} )
I certainly cannot see why they would not take it if you endorsed it using the name written on the check.
If you were cashing the check and walking away with cash, I could understand the concern by the bank. If you are depositing it to your account, and the bank places a hold (like the do in the US) for it to clear, they should have no problem.
You might want to have a little chat with an officer of your bank about something called "customer service" or about competition.
The individual will be required to pay federal, state and local income taxes, social security, and medicare taxes on the funds received. If the individual deposits those funds in the company account, the company may have to pay taxes on the revenue as well.
Ater individual and corporate taxes, and/or accountant's fees to try to clear the mess up, there'll be nothing left.
I think in some cases the company issuing the payment can be required to pay the individual's federal taxes on the payment if the individual doesn't pay them. That's why I'm surprised if Google is issuing company payments to individual. It can backfire on them and most companies I've dealt with are quick to ask your form of payment, to an idividual or to a company, and to demand your social security number (if individual) or your company Federal EIN number (if company) to keep clean with the taxing authorities.
Many here would think that's a bonus when dealing with Google :)
I just edited mine, but now it shows:
Company Name
Company Name
Address
city/state
The default 'payee' should always be the company (or better yet, just add an additional PAYEE field). Currently, whoever sets up the Adsense account is going to be the one that recieves the check in their name - even if it is for a major corporation!
One would think that with all those PHDs at Google, Somebody could have thought this one through a little bit better..........
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Intelligence doesn't necessarily mean common sense.
Almost all banks in the U.S. will let anyone deposit money into an account, they just can't cash it or take money out.
You wouldn't even have to sign it over to the company just endorse it and deposit it. Maybe it is different in other countries but this won't cause a serious problem for anyone in the U.S.
Looking forward to the mail coming tomorrow. Darn the holiday anyway.
If an individual has a company DBA off his/her name, that is one thing, but I still contend that corporate sites should ALWAYS list the corporation as the payee.
just my 2 cents.
Just offering a posible solution other than sending it back and waiting for a new check to be issued. :)
We changed our contact payee information so ours should come out okay. (Thanks to the post I saw here about a July check going out wrong. Thanks.)
It would be nice if adsense had a section that said important updates on our stats page that we could click on so we could be kept informed of any changes or new information. It would save them sending out massive emails and we could stay informed.
The default 'payee' should always be the company
Last month (for June's checks) that is what they did, and many people were here complaining because they had checks made out to their website name, and were unable to cash because they didn't have a registered business account. Sometime in the last month, they changed the account information to show one of the lines as "payee".
Some check's were made out to "Betty Jo's Knitting Club" rather than to Betty Jo herself, and Google probably is going on the assumption (when it changed the payee field) that while not everyone can cash a check made out to a business name or website name, nearly everyone can cash a check made out to a personal name.
