I am a Turker who have completed more than 75k hits in Mturk. When I tried to log in to my account today, I wasn't able to, as it was hacked and the email and the password has been reset. I am not sure how this was possible, as I did not receive any intimation in my email about resetting the password or changing the email address. I also received a email from Amazon payments, stating that the my balance had been withdrawn to an Amazon Gift Certificate, which I did not authorize. Has anyone here faced a similar problem before and if you have please let me know how you handled it and were able to restore your account. I have already contacted Mturk about this problem and I am yet to receive a reply. I also contacted Amazon.com to ask them to temporarily suspend my account to prevent any misuse, as my balance had been converted into Amazon GC and I already have some balance in my Gift Certificate account, but they replied that they weren't able to find an Amazon.com account with the e-mail address that I wrote from (which is because it has been changed). I would be glad if anyone here has a solution to the issue that I am facing. Thank You
If you use the board's search function and type in "account hacked" you'll see that you aren't the only one this has happened to. I wish you luck in a speedy resolution, though from what I have seen it is unlikely that you will get your money back.
Did you have your cell linked to your account? I am sure Amazon may have already asked, but perhaps your hackers may have overlooked it and it can help you identify your account. Or maybe you might have an old invoice from Amazon or an old email in your trash with order information. Be careful of some of these HIT's. I only follow outside links to those I trust. In addition I update my virus protection before Turking and clean out my Adobe Flash often.
Thanks for the reply Josh. Amazon was able to restore my account immediately. They did act on my concerns immediately and I should be grateful to them for it. I had provided them with a couple of proofs (old emails and invoices as you said) and they were able to track my account based on this and restore it. Luckily, I had withdrawn my Mturk earnings just a few days back, so the damage was minimal. I have an updated software and do take all the precautions, while working on HITs, but in this case I might have given away my password mistakenly, in a HIT (it was within the HIT interface and embedded within it), without thinking about it twice. This HIT had a 'Masters only' restriction, which might have fooled me. Thinking back about this incident, I feel really stupid for giving away this information. I hope our fellow turkers would be more careful while working on such HITs in the future and I have learned a good lesson from this experience. Thanks again for you concern. Siva
Thanks for the reply Turkingal. I did find a speedy resolution to my issue and I should thank the Amazaon Customer Service for their swift response in this case. Thank You Siva
I wouldn't call myself a heavy turker. I never worked on too many HITs from a single requester and my 75k HITs were spread over a three and half year period. Anyway, I was able to get my account back and happy that the damage caused by this incident was minimal. My account balance was converted to GC and was used to purchase something in Amazon and I am in contact with Amazon to cancel the order. Thanks for your concern. Siva
Munawar was not a heavy turker as far as I can tell. He only had a dial-up connection and had achieved 20k HITs after 6 months of turking. I'm sure many other turkers here cross that number in half the time. So your theory of AMT targeting heavy turkers has no grounds. And I don't think Amazon might do such a cheap trick as to pull a cord and give fake reasons, they simply don't have enough employees under AMT division even for answering our queries, let alone scrutinizing every suspicious account.
Ask razorbacks, I'm certain he would do that in 1 month. And please go through the stats section of the forum. Once, there was an era here when many of the turkers did more than a ton in just 1 day. You'll see all those screen captures showing 1k, 2k hits in successive days of a week. I believe you got all the inspiration you need. Happy turking
How do you know it is hacked? Did you get an email from Amazon or are you just unable to log into your account? I would recommend contacting Amazon through this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=508510.
If you had a Yahoo email account congratulations, you were hacked and more than likely your information was stolen from that. Also I read that they are requesting password resets for all your accounts they are going through your emails and sent and deleted and getting this information.
My Mturk Account has been hacked Helli Siva A K, My Amazon Mturk Account has been hacked by some one. Actually working in m-Turk since last 5 years and more than 25000 hits I have done and got many bonuses from many requester. actually yesterday night I did a survey for $5 then some 15 cents work and today morning I accepted a survey which payment was $3 so I done sincerely and submitted the code and then checked my account page and I was shocked because there is no work submitted , I confused and I went to the assigned page there were more hits assigned [which is 15 cent hits of Turk experiment] but I did not accept any of those so I tried to change my password but I could not and my email which was associated with this Mturk account was also not accepted and I understood some one hacked my account ,so I reported by mail however i have not yet received any reply and even i have chat with a person in amazon about this issue and she is so nice and informed me that the platforms are different and now I don't understand what to do to take immediate action to prevent the hackers to steal my money which I earned by my hard-work . so please tell me what shall i do now .
Was that 3 dollar HIT the Attorney one? I hope that doesn't have anything to do with it...I don't remember giving any identifiable information with it that would allow for hacking. Good luck with your problem, I hope you get it back.