I just signed up for mechanical turk today (those of you that are waiting it took about a week for me to get accepted), did I miss the part where they take money out of your bank account? I have a $1 (pending) charge from amazon.com on my bank account, I can't find anything about it when searching... Just a little concerned... Thanks in advance for answers
It might be a temporary charge to verify your account. If it doesn't get credited back to your account you might want to try customer service.
Just found out it took $1 out of each bank account on my amazon account not just one (they are both still pending) which does make me think it might be a verify thing, but I wasn't expecting it, I wish I would have seen, where, when I signed up, that they were going verify my account or take money out (like I said I could have just missed it)... Did this happen to anyone else?
Pending doesnt mean they took it out- may be a verify. That is how paypal verified at one time.. 2 charges of say 35 cents and one 78 cents and you had to tell them the 2 charges. They are probably verifying you have a bank account for Amazon Payments. I have had an account so long I don't remember what they did - or if it is even linked. I only used the $$ to buy items on Amazon as I am a book whore. lol
I never went through the process of adding a bank account to my amazon or mturk today though, all I did was sign up and this happened (to both bank accounts that where already on my amazon account, that I have made purchases with in the past)
When I added a debit card (via banking info included with the card), they deposited money twice and I had to log in and state how much was deposited. This was a couple of months ago. They may have changed their practices in the past few weeks. I am not one to doubt that at all, with the waiting to confirm new members and then their crack-down on verifying identities. I'm sure you'll get your money back =) And hopefully that's the only issue you have regarding your Amazon Payments account.
You're not signed up for a seller account, are you? I remember finding out they were charging me $1/month for not cancelling my free trial. Seems strange that they would take it out of more than 1 account though -- glitch maybe? I think whoever said they make deposits is right. I know that's what they do for PayPal (2 small temporary <$1 deposits), I just can't for the life of me remember what Amazon did when I signed up.
No, i check, i'm not signed up for a seller account. My husband looked up some stuff and found some stuff saying that periodically amazon itself (not m turk) confirms cards on file to make sure they are still active and not reported stolen (don't completely understand this)(its also funny it happened the same day I signed up for m turk but I guess?? it was just a coincidence) but I'm less stressed about it for now and hopefully its back to normal tomorrow .
Keep us updated -- this might help someone in the future. Hope the hubby is right! It does happen sometimes
You're right. Amazon Payments makes 2 small deposits to your bank account, which you then confirm with Amazon Payments. Paypal does the same thing. The amusing thing is that Paypal later reverses the two deposits, while Amazon hasn't done so yet. I vaguely remember that what was happening is some group was creating literally thousands of bank accounts with small amounts in them, then linking them to thousands of newly-created Paypal accounts and closing the accounts out once the Paypal verification deposits credited. Vacuuming up nickels, as it were. Amazon also debits your credit card $1 when you sign up as a requester, which I've also done. If your credit card is also a debit card, then you'll see the $1 charge in your bank account.
Ha! Must have been a lot of accounts to be profitable. I remember getting between 10-20 cents for each deposit.
Yeah, it was literally thousands or tens of thousands of accounts. If you have some skill with computing it's not hard to set up a bot to create thousands of fake E-mail accounts, then create thousands of fake bank accounts, then thousands of fake PayPal accounts. I vaguely remember it was a group out of Eastern Europe somewhere, where if you steal a couple grand it's like stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the US because the cost of living is so much lower there. I tried to find the original story on this, but only found a post about the idea on Digital Gangster.
I just verified a new PayPal account and one of my deposits was 43 eurocents. Last time I did this in the UK the deposit was under 10p so I was quite surprised. Didn't realise they take it back again though! I remember thinking I was earning more from that than from years of adsense
I had one of those a while back.($1) I sent an email and they said they were just checking to see if my account was valid. I don't think it had anything to do with Mechanical Turk. It was just because I ordered from Amazon with my debit card. She said they would eventually take it off and they did. When I signed up for direct deposit, they took 2 small amounts out of my account to verify my bank account.
Welcome Crystal! As you can see, this forum is so helpful when you have questions. I can't remember how mturk verified my account, but I hope that didn't mess up your account. There have been times when I had pennies in my bank account and a $1 charge would've screwed me, lol. Here's hoping you don't have that issue. Good luck and happy turking.