You should check out these posts and perhaps PM the posters that were in your situation…

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/search?q=Payability

The titles to me say enough about the company,
Beware, screwed, blackmailed, discrepancy, regret not t mention lien.

I suggest that you will need to involve a lawyer.

The big problem with Payability is that when you use their services, you give them control (ownership) of your seller account. They can do whatever they like including getting your account closed.

You will need to involve an accountant (possibly a forensic accountant) in collaboration with your lawyer to properly identify the fees owed, and take legal actions to prevent Payability from harming your account. It is likely to cost you more than you owe, so you may need to first accept dealing with the payment and once they have had their access removed, take legal action to recover the overpayment amount plus legal/accounting fees.

Dave

Dave, the real head-scratcher here is that I DID have Payability’s access removed back in November by explaining the situation to Amazon and compelling Amazon to remove Payability’s access. In fact, ONLY Amazon can remove this access because of new “security” measures recently added that involve giving a full account number to an account that you’ve never been given full details on set up at a bank in the Midwest by Payability that nonetheless has your name (or mine, in this case) on it. I lobbied for a week with Amazon every day to remove Payability’s access and finally, after 7 full days, they did.

But they have essentially given full back-door access back to Payability by aceeeding to this UCC lien. The disappointing part is that Amazon accepts the passive position in this case, letting Payability dominate the process and directing all questions and disputes through Payability, taking an entirely hands-off approach, even when it comes to total amount owed (which, again, is way way off in my case).

So this situation is actually even a bit more nefarious
than the one you envision in your apply. Why Amazon would allow Payability to dominate them like this is beyond me.

You signed a contract with Payability… Then you removed their access… Sounds like you did not fulfill your side of the contract. Payability has legal documents that say you granted them full control over your Amazon account. That document holds more weight then your word in Amazon’s Eyes.

I agree with others, time to hire a lawyer. This is what happens when you deal with loan sharks/Payday Loans…

Sorry, I don’t have any answers for you! I appreciate that you and other sellers have taken the time to post about your experiences with them. I decided to bite the bullet and pay cash for more inventory… So thanks!

Unfortunately, this is in Payability’s favor. Legally, because they overpaid you, they have a right to immediately get the funds back. When this overpayment occurred, you should have arranged to get the funds back immediately.

It sounds like your sales were not sufficient to cover the costs but that doesn’t reduce your responsibility to repay them immediately. You should have arranged to transfer the funds to them.

Once, when Amazon had problems with payments, they overpaid me by about $3000. When it was figured out, they took it out of my next disbursement. Had I closed my account before that amount was repaid, they would have taken legal action against me just like happened to you.

Because there is a discrepancy between what you think you owe and what they think you owe, you have to decide if legal action against them is in your best interest. I would hope that, after payment, they would arrange to give you any excess amounts paid. However, they may not and may have been charging their fees since November to justify the extra amount you owe.

I can prove I owe them $1,000 less at very least than they are requesting–both from the disbursement receipt from Amazon which went directly to Payability’s bank account and also by an email sent to me by their Comptroller affirming exactly this.

I wasn’t asking for lectures about my actions in responding to their overpayment. I was looking for help in dealing with their mistaken demand amount in the lien. If you only wish to lecture a fellow Seller, please keep your comments to yourself. If you wish to offer constructive advice like the other responders, I’d very much appreciate it.

Have you found out how long they will restrict your account any use your funds to pay payability ?

Well, for me, once I paid off the balance that Payability claimed that I owed (check on this btw, because at first they said I owed far more than I really did, which I was able to prove to them with emails written by their own employees to me), there was still about a 3-4 week lag before my account was free and clear of the lien and unfrozen for disbursements. Here’s what happens: Payability informs Amazon Legal (AL) in Washington State that the lien amount has been paid in full, and then AL begins to draft indemnification agreements for you to sign in anticipation of any future legal claims you may have against Payability: basically they are trying to remove themselves as a named party from any such future suits, and if they are involved, after you sign this, you will have to cover (indemnify) any of their losses from such a suit. Once they draft this, they email to you for review and signature. Then, once they are satisfied with that, AL will then contact the Amazon Performance Team I believe to formally remove the lien, thus unfreezing your funds so they can be disbursed once again. For me, once AL became involved after I paid off Payability, there were still 3-4 more weeks where my account languished in purgatory and I saw absolutely no disbursements of any kind. All told, 5 pay cycles were missed because of Payabilty’s heavy-handed approach to collection. And all through this process, Amazon acts merely as a third-party who does not take sides. You would think Amazon would have your best interests as a Seller at heart and would thereby advocate on your behalf against the real third-party here, Payability, but such is not the case. All departments of Amazon are totally passive in any disputes you may have with Payability, and no doubt this is written in to their business contact with Payability. So no one will ever tell you about the process I’m describing here, no one on either side. I had to learn all this for myself, during the agonizing months over which it very slowly played out.

One thing you may want to do is to contact AL directly by email and confirm that your account is in their records and moving forward as soon as possible. I did this and it didn’t hurt at all. It made me feel a little better actually, knowing that I at least could communicate with someone important in this process and could confirm at least that my account was moving forward. I can provide you with that email address privately if you wish to call them yourself. They were pretty good about responding promptly, unlike everyone else in this process.

What Payability is doing here is ridiculous, and it’s made even more so by Amazon’s giving them carte blanche to do it. The Payabilty lien effectively destroyed my longstanding Amazon Seller business because of how it made payments to my Amazon Loan impossible during the frozen period mandated by the Payability lien. No one at Amazon will have sympathy for any such business catastrophes that befall you from this soul-crushing process. If anyone ever wants to organize a class action against Payability (which would NOT name Amazon as a co-party, don’t worry, mods), then count me in on that. I won’t get into the various ways they skirted the law here for fear their omnipresent web presence might gain wind, but there is no doubt in my mind there are multiple colorable claims against Payability that could be made that the would survive a Summary Judgment motion in court. If anyone ever has the gumption to organize similarly situated parties like us who were burned by Payabilty’s unscrupulous tactics, a decent sized little class could be formed. And some enterprising law firm might then take interest once it’s made clear how much the class settlement payout from Payability would be. I feel confident such a day is coming. But will Payability be solvent enough at that future time for it to even matter? Based on how I’ve seen that they run their payday loan for the digital age business on a day to day basis, I’d say it’s doubtful they’ll be around a decade from now. But what they are doing to Amazon Sellers is both legally and morally wrong, and they need to be held accountable for it. And Amazon really needs to stop doing business with them and in effect feeding loyal Sellers to the ravenous Payability money machine. Whatever Amazon itself gets from such an alliance is surely mitigated by the bad will generated from the growing class of loyal Sellers who have sustained provable and often catastrophic business losses to this unholy alliance.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any further questions. Know you are absolutely not alone and there are more and more like us being created every day by Payability’s sleazy business practices. I wish you all the best moving forward.

Yet another reason not to use “pay day loans” in essence Payability. Now you will lose any benefit you received by using them to begin with as well as lawyer fees and court costs. Even when you win you come out a loser. Just proves some education is expensive.