I Was Suspended..

Discussion in 'General' started by Belligerent, Sep 6, 2012.

  1. bootybitch

    bootybitch Banned

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    Have you contacted Amazon to find out why you were suspended? It might take a couple of days (especially over the weekend), but I do believe they respond to such inquiries and if it's because of blocks, they'll let you know who blocked you so you can try to contact them and get them reversed. I've never been suspended so I'm not 100% sure on that, but I'm pretty sure they will at least tell you why you were suspended. I don't see why they would suspend over your approval rate, 96% is not that bad. However, not all blocks result in an email from Amazon and sometimes it takes awhile after getting blocked for them to suspend an account, so it's possible you got blocked and didn't know it and you're just now getting suspended. Seems like Amazon has jumped into spring cleaning mode lately.
     
  2. melissa71642

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    I've got a sneaky feeling that it's because of survey blocks that aren't supposed to hurt your credibility. When they first started using the "soft" block deal, a ton of people were suspended. They eventually got their accounts back, but I've steered clear of surveys just because of the potential for blocks. Amazon says they are harmless, but if you have a handful of those, I wonder does it trigger something in their system to kick you out.
     
  3. melissa71642

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    I've seen them actually encourage requesters on the requester forum to use blocks to keep duplication down, and that scares me.
     
  4. bootybitch

    bootybitch Banned

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    I'm thinking something along those lines is at least a good possibility. Soft blocks don't usually come with an email, so most workers don't even know they have one unless they try to do another HIT for the requester. But it makes you wonder how "soft" they really are.
     
  5. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    We should at least be notified even if it's a soft block so we know to avoid that requester. I mainly only do surveys. I keep a chart of all the requesters I've done so I don't repeat them again. It's working well. If I see a requester I am not sure I've done before, I use the 'find' feature to see if I have him/her on my list.
     
  6. PhobicTurk

    PhobicTurk User

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    I'm finding this all really scary, to read about long time Workers being suspended. Even though I don't make a ton on MTurk, I really need what I do make.

    I do remember seeing that Requester thread where an Amazon rep was telling Requesters to use blocks to prevent duplicates. Then more than one Requester who took this route posted about being bombarded with angry Worker emails. On the second page of the thread another Amazon rep contradicts the first, telling to use Quals instead of blocks... but it would be really nice if Amazon would take down that first advice. The full thread is here:

    forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=63786

    This is disturbing and scary. I'm so sorry for those of you who have had your accounts suspended. I ran into a problem two or three years ago where they temporarily suspended my account while verifying my tax info, but they fixed it in a little over a week. I really hope you write to them, because I remember reading on other threads in this forum that people who had been suspended were able to get their accounts reinstated after a time.

    I'm really, really sorry :(
     
  7. melissa71642

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    After re-reading that thread, I'll bet anything that this is what happened since Amazon, according to that thread, only recognizes a block as a block, no soft or hard, just a block, and I'd also be willing to bet that the three that lost accounts this week have done lots of surveys that went the blocking route instead of the qual route. I don't think it would be so bad if the requesters would unblock everyone once the survey is complete, but I'm guessing they don't do that.

    Needless to say, my fear of doing surveys and losing my account is much greater now and I will continue not doing them at all.
     
  8. naturegirl

    naturegirl User

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    Actually, that's not true for US Turkers. Or at least, I was approved in 2 days when I went to sign up at the end of August. So your husband may be in luck.
     
  9. Turkalicious

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    This is definitely making me rethink the surveys I do. I don't think I'll be bothering with them any longer. I don't do dozens but I definitely do a few bucks worth just about every day and honestly I can't afford to have my account suspended.
     
  10. Belligerent

    Belligerent Active Member

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    Yes I did contact them.. I guess since it is the weekend, I am figuring I will get a response Monday or Tuesday. We'll see if it is because of blocks.. I can't imagine why I would have any blocks (the one I have is from ProductRnR who blocks most people for no reason), but you never know. The only reason I have 96% approval rate is because of a 500 hit mass rejection from Lighting Buff (my fault for taking such a big risk) and I also love doing hits from Classify AdImages and they seem to reject tons, but they pay nicely. I am hoping I can get my account back.. I really need this.
     
  11. Belligerent

    Belligerent Active Member

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    I do tons of surveys (the pay on many surveys is well above minimum wage) so this could be the case. I would think this means that they would unsuspend my account since soft blocks aren't supposed to count. I'll let you guys know.
     
  12. Flora

    Flora Admin
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    I mainly do only surveys. I hardly ever do working HITS where they ask you to do jobs for them because I am scared to make mistakes and get rejected. I get the feeling that surveys get less rejections because surveys are mainly your opinions and they can't criticize you for that. But I've gotten 2 rejections from surveys surprisingly. So far I haven't gotten any emails letting me know of any blocks.
     
  13. Belligerent

    Belligerent Active Member

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    I just received this response:

    I can't imagine what I could have possibly done wrong. I am 24 years old (over 18).. I do not share accounts, don't have multiple accounts, etc. I did recently move so perhaps because I have had 2 IPs? That would be silly though. I can't see how I violated the agreement at all. It irritates me because they said they will not get back to me if they think I did something wrong.. I would like to know why they suspended me, but I have a feeling they won't be getting back to me. Maybe I'm just being cynical.
     
  14. ohsostrange

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    "Our system detected activity on your account that we believe may have violated the participation agreement" could mean practically anything. What do they have against telling you the specifics?

    If I were you, I'd be foaming at the mouth with rage about now.
     
  15. Belligerent

    Belligerent Active Member

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    I'm trying not to be pissed off, but it's hard. I am going to attempt to message them again after a week if they haven't gotten back to me by then to see if they will give me a straight answer. It looks like a copy/paste answer to me, so maybe they sent it because it is the weekend? :-/
     
  16. melissa71642

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    It's going to be survey blocks. If it was a TOS violation, they would have already said so, but since it's going under review, that's likely to be the cause. Guys, do yourselves a favor and stay away from surveys until they tell these survey requesters to use quals and not blocks to prevent duplication.
     
  17. Belligerent

    Belligerent Active Member

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    So do you think there is a good chance that the suspension will be removed?

    Edit: they said the reason was that I violated the "participation agreement"
     
  18. Khalinov

    Khalinov User

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  19. Turkalicious

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    I don't know the whole 'have checked your account and confirmed that the account was suspended because our system detected activity on your account that we believe may have violated the participation agreement.' sounds more like blocks or something of that nature.

    I honestly can't think of what else it would be that would violate the participation agreement.. there's quite a few things in there that could be considered a 'violation'. If you've only got the one block I would sure be contacting them again and again until you get an answer.
     
  20. Crap I Did It Again

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    They aren't going to tell you what you did.

    If they did, and you WERE (not saying you were) cheating, you could find a way around their system. You may not know HOW they found you, but some part of the way in which they said it would give you a clue to fixing something. (or at least let you know that you need to be sneakier about your method of cheating)

    Were you doing any HITs that were posted that are against TOS? Perhaps they have started to not only ban requesters but the workers who do them now too? - Just a theory.
     
    #40 Crap I Did It Again, Sep 8, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 8, 2012

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