Re: Amazon Corporate Line of Credit

We have been using an Amazon Corporate Line of Credit for our Law Library,
PCL, since about 2008 and it has worked out pretty well.  There have been a
few wrinkles to iron out here and there. Amazon has come a long way in
developing their Corporate accounts, so the following points might now be
moot. However there are a few things that I would advise to keep in mind:

   - Be sure that you learn your Credit Representative's name.  The
   financial side of the Corporate account, as of this writing, is run through
   GE Money.  It's essential that you establish a good rapport with your
   Representative.  Ours has been fantastic and he has helped us through
   confusing situations, helping us keep open communication between GE Money
   and Amazon.
   - With that in mind, work with your Credit Representative to tailor the
   monthly statement to your institution's needs.  The way the billing
   information was initially being listed on the statement was confusing and
   not in step with our internal processes. Through our Credit rep, we were
   able to alter what information was included on the monthly statement so
   that it accurately reflected what was due during the current billing period.
   - It has been my experience that the statements should be processed for
   payment asap.  GE doesn't seem to have a great history of working with
   overdue accounts.  Again, good communication with your GE Money credit rep
   is very important.
   - Should there be a change in personnel on your staff (i.e., someone
   leaves and someone else is assigned to handle the Corporate account),
   Amazon seems a little stiff to work with in terms of changing the name &
   contact info of the main representative from your organization. When I took
   over from my predecessor, Amazon was hard to work with in terms of getting
   them to understand that the Administrator of our Corporate Account had
   changed and passwords, etc. needed to be updated.  That was a long time
   ago--perhaps they have improved since then.  To be fair to Amazon, they
   cite their reluctance to change information as a "Security issue", but if
   the person has left the organization, then there's only so much you can do,
   short of setting up a whole new account.  And, that is obviously not very
   practical.
   - Also, be aware of any changes that are made to your
   account--particularly, in writing--by Amazon and/or GE Money.  Make sure
   the mailing address that they have on file for all correspondence is
   correct and open any mail that you receive from Amazon and GE Money through
   US Post office immediately.  Don't assume that anything with their return
   address is junk mail: open and deal with promptly.  Amazon's financial
   services could shift from GE Money to someone else, and your organization
   needs to know that information right away.
   - And finally:* I think it is important to make one person responsible
   for handling your Amazon Corporate Line of Credit.  If for no other reason,
   Amazon's system seems to demand it.  While there can be several authorized
   buyers for your account, everyone involved needs to be on the same page
   with one person as the Administrator in charge of the account.
   Unfortunately, our Library management initially attempted to divide
   authorization (Administrator duties) among several people in our
   organization, and it was a disaster. *


I apologize for the length of this post, but I think it's important to
share my observations from having worked with the AMAZON Corporate Line of
Credit for a number of years.  Overall, they are great to work with, and we
do a lot of business with them.  Any major problems that we've had seemed
to result from a change in either Amazon's policies, or a change in our
staff.  But, while there have not been many problems, the ones that we have
had have been rather tricky to resolve when they occurred.

If anyone has any questions about any of this, please feel free to contact
me and I can try to provide more detail.
Gina J.
-- 

Gina L. Jarrett

Acquisitions Coordinator

Professional Center Library

Wake Forest University

jarretgl_at_wfu.edu

336.758.5067 (phone)

336.758.4508 (fax)


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