Yesterday evening I had a call with my contacts at Amazon and a person from the Accounts Payable department. Over the last two days they were able to work out the kinks in their accounting with regard to the MetaBrainz Foundation.
They verified that the outstanding invoices from our perspective were correct, including the now infamous invoice #144. Shortly after the call, a check for $22,500 was cut and will arrive in California by 10:30am today. I’ve also received a complete history of all of the payments made to the MetaBrainz Foundation and I’m happy to say that everything looks great to me.
Also, an issue surrounding this invoice was pointed out to me: If invoice #144 wasn’t outstanding, all of this would’ve been a bit drastic. I agree with that, but what I failed to mention in my last blog post was that if invoice #144 wasn’t paid, then invoice #200 (which is 3 months younger than #144) was outstanding. The matter at hand was that there was a 3 year, or a nearly 3 year, old invoice outstanding. Personally, I really wanted to gain clarity around what happened nearly 3 years ago and finally put the issue to bed.
Finally, I would like to commend Amazon on how they handled matters in the last week. When prodded hard enough, Amazon got their act together, got to work and figured out this mess and then swiftly cut a check. I’ll keep posting updates about this until the check is in the bank and has cleared, but it certainly looks like we’re heading to a complete resolution of this matter early next week.
Thanks Amazon!