Indian Google Advertisers Require Special Form For Reserve Bank of India

Over the past month or so, there have been wide-spread complaints from advertisers in India with issues on their credit cards not being processed. I am not sure exactly what the issue is, but it seems to be related to some type of verification process.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) seems to be requiring Google to have these advertisers fill out a special authorization form (PDF) and email or fax it to Google India Pvt. Ltd.

A Google AdWords Help thread has a Googler detailing these instructions:

1. Please download the authorization form here: http://www.google.com/adwords/newsletters/pdf/authorization_form_in.pdf
2. Print and fill out this form in its entirety
3. Attach a copy of the front and back of your credit card
4. Courier the original form and the copy of your credit card to the following address:

ATTN: Billing & Payments team Google India Pvt. Ltd. Block 1, DivyaSree Omega Survey No. 13, Kondapur Village, Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh, India

That is a lot of work to become an advertiser with Google. Clearly, some advertisers are not happy and want a way to do this electronically, via the AdWords billing system.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.