The W8Ben and Zazzle

The fact only people outside of USA have to send the w8ben has given Zazzle the opportunity to avoid paying any royalty’s to those contributors.

I can only assume they think that since most of us only make relatively small amounts of money, we will not be able to get justice in an American court of law.

Today in the news I noticed that it seems as if 60 000 claims against YouTube in Germany will be handled legally. With punitive fines the estimation on how expensive it will become for YouTube is huge - even for a company that large.

This means that people acting outside the law can get punished even if they are large company’s stealing from ordinary people. I also believe Zazzle has a smaller wallet than YouTube...

I have filled in the form twice. But I haven’t been paid since January 3 in 2011.
That’s more than 14 months of stalling.
The amount of money Zazzle owes me is small. Only about 150 usd. But keep in mind I stopped contributing in any serious manner as soon as I noticed the lack of monthly payments. 14 months of adding images comes to around 5000 new designs. I wonder how much money I would have made, if zazzle would have come clean.

I have spent money calling to Zazzle from the other side of the earth trying to solve this issue.

I have given them several variations on how to solve the problem, including currier male, so that it can be proven that they have gotten the w8ban. (As you all know, the form will never leave the zazzle office. It will not be sent to the IRS).

I have sent them several e-mails asking them politely to solve the issue. I’ve always received the same answer basically saying we will look into it. But they have never given any real answer, or returned any mail except a bundle of prewritten/semi prewritten answers.

I have sent them my home phone number, so that they can call me - since one of the e-mail auto generated answers said they would gladly phone me. Needless to say I have not received any phone call.

I have been contributing to micro stock agencies since 2008. They also have the w8ben. But most of them are serious about their business so you just fill in the form, press the send button and everything is solved (including a date when you have to redo the process, I believe it is every 3rd year).

It is technically very easy to solve the w8ben problem.

But then, where is the incentive for Zazzle to solve the issue?

As long as they claim not to have received it, or that that there was some problem with the content, they feel they can keep the money from all foreign contributors.

Good for Zazzle. At least until some American law firm figures out that there is a huge amount of money to be made if it can be proven that Zazzle systematically makes it hard for their contributors to successfully get their w8ban into the office of Zazzle.

As I previously mentioned; YouTube will probably have to pay for their actions. Royalty and copyright issues are serious business. In more than one way.

It’s time for Zazzle to give up on this stalling tactic.