Amazon owes me royalties

Here’s what a month-long lockout looks like.

A while ago, at the start of this saga, I posted an email I had received from Amazon advising me to update some of my bank account details because certain Amazon stores were unable to pay me my earned royalties.

So I went to do that, and found myself locked out.

Since then? Endless to-and-fro with Amazon employees and auto-responses advising me politely that Amazon’s security system—2SV—was now disabled on my account so I could go in and change things and receive my royalties. But it didn’t work, and no matter how many times I told them this, they kept replying that it had been disabled. I posted videos showing it hadn’t been. Still kept receiving the same form emails from a series of different customer service folk who obviously had never read the long thread of communication about this particular issue. No ownership, no solution, just an endless parade of ‘2SV has been disabled on your account’.

No meaningful response from Amazon. No escalation. No resolution. And most importantly: no payment of the royalties I’ve already earned.

That’s the part no one should gloss over. Authors put in the time, the energy, the years of work. Amazon takes its cut instantly on every sale. But when it comes time to pay authors their share, suddenly the system “can’t” process it. For over a month now, I’ve been locked out of my account, unable to access funds that belong to me.

Call it what you like—bureaucratic incompetence, systemic negligence, corporate indifference. I’ll call it what it is: unconscionable.

This isn’t about me being frustrated with customer service. This is about the largest bookseller in the world withholding money from the very authors it claims to champion. If they’ll do this to one author, they’ll do it to thousands.

Amazon’s much-touted slogan is “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” But what happens when the customer is also the creator—the person whose books keep their store stocked? What happens is what you see in my video: a lockout, a month of unpaid royalties, and an endless carousel of form-letter replies.

I’ve emailed, escalated, copied in executives, even flagged this as a PTSD and accessibility issue. Amazon’s system simply shrugs and keeps my money.

So here’s the reality:

• Royalties earned, not paid.
• Accounts locked, no accountability.
• A company that profits instantly but pays slowly—if at all.

This is not just an author problem. It’s a governance problem. It’s a reputational problem. And it’s a systemic risk problem for every writer, publisher, and reader who depends on Amazon’s infrastructure.

Because if they can block me for a month—and counting—without consequence, they can do it to you too.

[Embed your 9 Sept video here]

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