AEBN - 1099 Issues

[derekt]

Last week, a 1099 was received. It said that we made well over $600,000 from them last year.
Haven't received a 1099 for affiliate.

The day before the oddball 1099 was received, an email came in from someone at AEBN claiming they had a 3rd party print off the 1099's and process them, they said the correct ones have already been sent out.

We haven't received the correct ones. We are all set to do our tax filings, just waiting on AEBN.

Phone calls, emails, etc. have been made to AEBN requesting an ETA on when the correct 1099's will be received.
No answer. Nobody is answering anything.

Has anyone else found out anything or heard anything more to this effect?

[Kushiel]

Unfortunately, you are correct - if JJ attempted to call, I was not by my desk phone as per usual on Mondays. However, he may not have informed you that we did in fact have a short coversation by IM yesterday, just as I was walking out the door to go to lunch.

While I had (and have, as I haven't even left the house for work yet) no immediate answers, I have apprised our accounting office of JJ's problem, and will be following up with it when I do get into the office. While I apologize that it does occasionally take more than half a day to get information from a third party, we would appreciate any understanding you may be able to give.

If there is anyone else who is also continueing to have difficulties with their 1099 from AEBN, please feel free to contact me, and I'll add it JJ's to be followed up on.

Kindest regards,

Kush
W. Trevor Marlin
ext. 254

[gaybucks_chip]

Derek,

I'd try to get assurance, assuming that the $600,000 number is high, that it has not already been supplied to the IRS, and that if it has, AEBN will document for you in writing that the 1099 is wrong and they have supplied you with a corrected one.

Otherwise, you could end up with the IRS getting TWO 1099s, one for a much larger amount, and you could end up with a bill for a huge discrepancy (along with penalties and so forth.)

This is one of those situations that isn't difficult to fix if handled correctly, but can easily be a nightmare if somebody drops a ball

[Kushiel]

After reviewing all of the 1099's that were issues, checking the incorrect information and updating what was reported with the IRS was actually the very first step that we took, before even to going back to our printing service.

We are aware of the gravity of the situation, and we've been coordinating with the printing service to have the reprinted statements issued as soon as possible.

[GayGeek]

I received a message from AMVC (who originally signed me up with AEBN back in... was it 2001?) saying that the 1099's where out of whack. I haven't opened my envelope to see what it says. I should do that now...

Nope, not $600,000. The number looks quite reasonable -- they might have gotten it correct. Drat. I was hoping they'd be sending me a six-figure check with belated 2008 money.

I love AEBN and have only had one payment issue with them in seven years. But they really screwed up this time in not notifying people that their 1099's might be messed. I wouldn't have known unless I had received a message from AMVC. I always wait until April 10 to do my taxes, but plenty of companies do theirs much earlier.

--Aaron

[Kushiel]

The day before the oddball 1099 was received, an email came in from someone at AEBN claiming they had a 3rd party print off the 1099's and process them, they said the correct ones have already been sent out.

Aaron, I'm thrilled that you've been so pleased with our service in the past - The reason that you didn't receive a notification from us, is mostly two fold. One, as your broker AMVC is responsible for disseminating the information to you as a studio, just like they provide us with your content.

Secondly, though we did not send notification directly to you, we did notify anyone whom the issue could have effected as promptly as possible, as Derek pointed out in his original post about the email he received.

IF, however; you do get that 600K check in the mail, I'll split it with ya!
:king:

~Kush

[derekt]

LOL!

Thanks Trevor, I found out that everything has been taken care of.

[derekt]

I received a message from AMVC (who originally signed me up with AEBN back in... was it 2001?) saying that the 1099's where out of whack. I haven't opened my envelope to see what it says. I should do that now...

Nope, not $600,000. The number looks quite reasonable -- they might have gotten it correct. Drat. I was hoping they'd be sending me a six-figure check with belated 2008 money.

I love AEBN and have only had one payment issue with them in seven years. But they really screwed up this time in not notifying people that their 1099's might be messed. I wouldn't have known unless I had received a message from AMVC. I always wait until April 10 to do my taxes, but plenty of companies do theirs much earlier.

--Aaron

Hey Aaron, are you aware that AMVC takes a HUGE chunk out of what you would really make from AEBN? When we first started producing, we went directly to AMVC. After finding out from other producers how much you lose from AEBN we went to only having them sell our product on AMVC's website. We eventually moved away from AMVC.

AEBN pays studios 20%.
AMVC takes out 20% from that payout and all others they submit your movies to. Your losing a nice chunk of money.

David and Jody are good people. I'm not speaking negative about them. They do take a good of chunk of money away from your VOD payouts. They are a broker... But you could do a lot of the VOD work yourself. It's like the same as sending your product to AMVC, except your packaging several shipments.

[GayGeek]

Hi,

Are you speaking of the royalty payouts for my own videos being watched? Frankly, my videos are getting old my modern standards and they don't make a great deal of money any more. I'd have to think a bit before breaking any sort of deal via AMVC with AEBN regarding this matter. It may not be worth the money.

Or are you speaking of referral commissions to me sending people to my online theater on AEBN and them joining up? That would concern me greatly, as the traffic I have sent them over the years has been entirely my doing and has absolutely nothing to do with AMVC. Their 20% would come to tens of thousands of dollars (waaaaayyyy over anything I've made from my videos from them) and I would be shocked to say the least if they were profiting at my work regarding this matter.

Does their 20% include referrals to my online theater with AEBN?

--Aaron

[derekt]

Are you speaking of the royalty payouts for my own videos being watched? Frankly, my videos are getting old my modern standards and they don't make a great deal of money any more. I'd have to think a bit before breaking any sort of deal via AMVC with AEBN regarding this matter. It may not be worth the money.

I was speaking in regards to your studio commission. I was just throwing that out to ya. Not meaning to create any harm.

[GayGeek]

Kush -- I actually have two accounts on AEBN (three, technically, as one is an obsolete Naked Sword account). One is for Geek Enterprises, my company that runs GayGeek, my current project (and name here on GWW). The second is for Aaron Lawrence Enterprises, my old video production company.

So while I understand if AMVC is getting the word out to me because of my ALE manufacturing account, I am surprised I didn't hear from AEBN because of my GayGeek one. Especially because the referral commissions paid out in 2008 (Ie; Dec '07 to Nov '08 sales dates) didn't add up to what was on the 1099. (Even when you tack on the single payment from an obsolete Naked Sword account in GayGeek's name that continues to trickle in money and pays out on rare occasions).


Derek ---You're not starting any feuds, never fear. I needed to whip off a message to my AEBN account manager anyway (they have my zip code wrong on my 1099 forms), so I asked him about the 20%.

If AMVC has earned 20% via my videos being shown, so be it. My videos have earned 95% of what they're ever going to earn on AEBN anyway, and what's remaining isn't worth fighting about.

But I am curious to know if they benefit from my referral commissions to my custom theater. That is a significant amount of money, both past and future earnings. I have no problem of AMVC making money if it doesn't come out of my cut (like a 2nd-tier webmaster program), but I would be very concerned if it was coming out of my income.

I'll let you know what I hear back.

--Aaron

[derekt]

But I am curious to know if they benefit from my referral commissions to my custom theater.

I understand that your affiliate is paid to you. AMVC only gets paid from brokering your media. I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am.

[derekt]

But I am curious to know if they benefit from my referral commissions to my custom theater.

I understand that your affiliate is paid to you. AMVC only gets paid from brokering your media. I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am.

[derekt]

I apologize for my double post. I received an error message, so I went back to my post and it ended up posting twice.

[GayGeek]

I got the error message too, but it wouldn't let me post because it said I had just posted in the past 10 seconds. Apparently GWW is having server issues today.