W8-BEN Form - No response from Zazzle

[Liza]

Hello

I started my shop in April this year and I sent in my W8-BEN form on April 18th to zazzle-w8@zazzle.com

I received a "no reply" email confirming receipt and I have heard nothing since. I haven't heard if there is an issue with it - nothing. Now my payments are on hold because of the form and I have contacted zazzle about this but again, received no response. What am I supposed to do.....just wait? When I messaged it said only contact them once and basically not to bombard them with messages but this is ridiculous!

I see from other posts that this is clearly a common issue. Has anyone found a solution?

Liza

[Lisa-B]

Hi @Liza

Sorry that you have not received a response, I have contacted the Team directly to reach out. 

Lisa 🌺

[chrisstudio]

Hi, I also started my shop in June. I have sent the w8 form since then, but haven't gotten any replied until now.

I got some payment stuck on my Zazzle earnings because of that, I hope I can receive it before Christmas 😞

Please help as well! Thank you!

[SkullPilot]

It's only a guess, but I kinda decided they are snowed under, with a huge volume of requests to deal with W-8BEN/W-8 forms. I wasn't in a hurry for mine to get sorted out (a few yrs ago now). If I recall correctly, I think they eventually reached out to me after a few months of me submitting a form. (But I didn't log into that email address for ages, so it was months before I replied to their reply.)

In my case, it was a little complicated as there was a very particular wording Zazzle wanted me to use on the form, without actually being able to tell me what to write - I guess that would be against the law or something, perhaps counting as tax advice. They did tell me which part of the form was not acceptable though. So I ended up digging up the USA-UK Double Taxation Treaty and finally concocting something from that, which was accepted.

Took time, and a few emails between us to get it right. I imagine if there's even a hundred people lined up trying to get their forms sorted out, there will be delays. I don't know how many staff Zazzle has on the team. I suppose, with new people joining all the time, it might not even help to hire a bunch of temp staff to clear the backlog. The new people will eventually clog it up again. < shrugs >

[chrisstudio]

I hope they hire more people for this w8 form. I saw a lot of complaints about this matter. It's frustrating when you cannot get the money you earned. 😡

[Liza]

Hello Everyone,

Just to update you on my situation. After posting on here I received an email from Zazzle and I had to resubmit my form - basically when I originally sent it in my scanner wasn't working so I scanned it on my phone and emailed it to them but the form was included in the body of the email rather than as an attachment so I needed to resubmit the form as a PDF attachment. I did that then several weeks went by and I received another email saying there were errors and I had to reword some parts. I have just done that and resubmitted the form again so I'm hoping it is now correct!

So they are getting to it, they must have a backlog of forms and we just have to wait. I realise it is frustrating but they do eventually come back to you. I hope you get it sorted soon @chrisstudio 

[chrisstudio]

Thank you for your update! Glad to hear they really reply the email.

[Liza]

Hello

Hopefully this is my final update! I received an email from Zazzle today saying that my form was correct and it has been sent to the finance team for processing. The processing can take 2 - 4 weeks and after that I will be able to get paid!

So I first submitted my form on April 18th, I have had to resubmit it twice and it was accepted today on October 17th....so 6 months. Another 2 - 4 weeks for the finance team to process it and hopefully I'll get paid before Christmas. 

They do get there, it just takes a while @chrisstudio