Industry earthquake! A large number of sellers' payment accounts are invalid

The cross-border payment industry was hit hard by the sudden withdrawal of Wells Fargo Bank from the cross-border payment business, which triggered a chain reaction and directly caused a large number of sellers' payment accounts to become invalid. At the same time, some sellers also triggered issues such as consumer law and video verification, and their funds were reserved.

Wells Fargo Bank withdraws from cross-border payment collection business, sellers' accounts are in crisis

At the end of January, Wells Fargo was still actively promoting the improvement of its global payment capabilities. However, in February, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, with news that "Wells Fargo will withdraw from the cross-border e-commerce payment collection business" spreading in the industry, which attracted widespread attention!

It should be noted that the withdrawal of Wells Fargo Bank will directly lead to the invalidation of the bank accounts issued by the cooperating cross-border institutions. Institutions such as pingpong that cooperated with it have been affected, and a large number of sellers have been affected.

"The pingpong payment account was invalid, Amazon failed to transfer money, and changing the new account also triggered the consumer law review," a seller said helplessly. It is understood that many sellers have received the message "your deposit method is missing, invalid or unspecified". Not only is the credit card marked as invalid, resulting in the inability to return the money normally, but even the returned money will be returned to Amazon.

Such voices are heard from time to time. And according to the feedback from sellers, the official statement of changing the account on February 10 is not the best option. Many sellers said that they were unable to deposit money before that. If the payment account is not changed in time, the seller may face the risk of the store being closed and the funds being unable to be withdrawn. It should be noted that even if the change is made, the process may still encounter audits such as the Consumer Law and the second instance.

If the seller is not sure whether he needs to change the payment account, he can first log in to the pingpong account to check the message notification. If he receives a "partial VA upgrade notification", he needs to update the payment account.

It is reported that because Wells Fargo Bank withdrew from cross-border business and was unable to recover the funds, the bank account issued will become invalid from March 1. Pingpong will automatically update the bank account in the seller's backend, and the seller needs to use the updated bank account to rebind on the platform.

The centralized switching period is from February 5 to February 22. Wells Fargo will centrally process the funds on February 23. It should be noted that the funds deposited between February 24 and 28 will be uniformly intercepted and returned starting March 1.

The security and stability of the payment account are self-evident to sellers. To ensure that store operations are not affected, sellers can check the new payment account before updating it. The specific process is as follows ↓

1. Copy the account ID in the message notification , go to Platform Management-Store Management in the upper left corner, and select the corresponding platform to search.

2. Click on the store name to view the new payment account after the upgrade (if replacing, the old payment account can be viewed in the message center).

3. Log in to the Amazon Seller Center backend, click "Settings"-"Account Information" in the upper right corner, and select "Deposit Method".

4. Add a deposit method. If you are adding a payment account for the first time, please click "Assign" to fill in the form; if you have already set a deposit method and need to change it, please click "Replace deposit method" and then click "Add new deposit method" to fill in the form.

5. Fill in the receiving account information. Taking the United States as an example, select the bank location, fill in the account holder's name, 9-digit bank identification code, bank account number, and finally click "Set deposit method".

It should be noted that the account type for both Canada and Mexico is “Regular Checking Account”.    

If any seller is concerned about security, they can follow the safe version of the operating procedures provided by their peers: open a case on the background help page to indicate that they want to change the account. The system will automatically send an account change confirmation message to your registration number. At this time, you can copy the link to the browser to open it, select approve, and finally change the account information.

But even so, sellers still encounter problems in the process of updating their accounts.

Sellers encounter numerous problems when updating their Amazon payment accounts

Since receiving notification from Amazon that the payment account is unavailable and needs to be updated, sellers have been busy updating their accounts, but various sudden problems caught the sellers off guard.

According to feedback, a seller triggered the consumer law again when adding a new account. When uploading the bank statement, it was found that the bank address was filled in incorrectly. It is currently under review and there are concerns that the account will be deactivated.

Many sellers can relate to this, as they encounter many problems when updating their payment accounts ↓

After verification, the payment policy will appear and funds will be reserved;

After updating the payment account, it will show "Bank Verification in Progress";

I changed my bank account, but the backend kept showing that the deposit method was missing and the verification status was in progress.

After a seller added a deposit method, it triggered the Consumer Law and required the seller to submit a transaction slip for verification;

Some people also replaced the payment and received a virtual identity video;

Update the solution for receiving payment but not receiving verification SMS;

Update the payment display without permission;

One thing to note is that the time for this review to pass is generally 48 to 72 hours, and there are many sellers being verified recently, so the waiting time for verification is longer, so sellers don’t have to worry. For sellers who trigger the Consumer Act, they need to submit bank statements (within 180 days).

A problem that more sellers encounter is that when adding a new account for verification, a text message verification is required, but the phone never receives the verification code. "I tried to contact the SIM card operator to ask for the restriction to be lifted, but it didn't work," one seller complained, adding that opening a case also didn't answer the question.

In this case, you can first use the main account to cancel the two-step verification (in Settings-Login Settings), and then enter the "Two-Step Verification" and click on the option to remove the primary mobile phone number. Then go to the Update Deposit Account page and the verification SMS will be sent to the account mailbox.

As for the issue of "sellers using the same payment account on multiple sites", if the US site shows missing deposits, but the Canadian site does not show missing deposits, the latest US dollar account needs to be directly allocated.

For sellers who have or do not need to transfer funds, a senior seller in the industry gave advice: "Those who have funds to transfer can directly bind the previous payment account. Those who do not have funds to transfer can wait until after the 10th to re-bind a new payment account."

The withdrawal of Wells Fargo Bank not only affected the payment institutions that cooperated with it, but also affected a large number of cross-border e-commerce sellers, and exposed the fragility of the cross-border payment chain. This undoubtedly sounded the alarm for the cross-border industry. When choosing a cross-border payment service provider, it is necessary not only to consider the cost and convenience, but also to pay attention to the compliance and stability of the payment institution, so as not to be unable to cope with possible risks and challenges.

Receiving account invalid

PingPong

Wells Fargo Bank