So I made a post other night about my account being suspended due to needing to "verify identity" and said I'd respond yesterday with some information about the situation for others to reference back on. However, yesterday I got busy and was not able to do so. So here we go.
My account was suspended (with a masters qualification) after turking for 8+ years. I took several years off and recently started again. I relocated from one state to another, and I think this could have triggered the suspension, being that I hadn't changed my address to the new state.
I emailed Amazon Mturk for days and only got generic responses that were computer generated. I called Amazon repeatedly and got the same response each time. "Someone will contact you within 24 to 48 hours." The only response I ever got was the computer generated emails. I was repeatedly told to "fax documents" despite already missing a few hours from work to fax this information and also emailing right behind sending the fax. I felt ignored for over a week and became extremely upset with Amazon and felt I was being ignored as a worker.
I read a lot of helpful articles on this forum and various others. The most important thing I read was being "consistent." I came to realization, Amazon M-Turk is only a small portion of a big AMAZON world and they have only a handful of employees to handle the hundreds of thousands of workers.
The method I used for getting my account back was based on what I had read in previous post, staying "CONSISTENT and PERSISTENT." I went to the Mturk Contact page, and addressed every person listed on the contact page, including the requester support email. I also addressed
jeff@amazon.com at the beginning of every email, to draw interest.
I also came to realization that Amazon isn't our employer, but they as if more of a "bank or financial institution" than an employer. I then wrote a legal letter to Amazon requesting that I get the hundreds of dollars in my account "returned" and would like it within the 180 days that financial institutions have to legally hold my money and made it clear that if my money was kept longer, I'd have to file legal charges as I respectively earned that money and it wasn't up for negotiation. If I earned it, I believe I should be entitled to my money, correct or wrong?
Shortly after that email went out, I received an email from an Operations Manager of M-Turk noting that my account had been reversed and he placed an extra $50.00 credit into my account to be spent at my pleasure.
I have to be in bed early tonight as I have a long day, but I wanted anyone that goes through this in the future to be able to reference back to my issues and understand it's possible to get it reversed.
If I could give any solid advice, my advice would be to stay PERSISTENT in getting your account back if you've done nothing wrong. Contact Amazon over and over. Email them every single day. Call them every single day. Remember they are a small department in a big world. But if you continue to stay persistent, eventually someone will open your email. Not only does multiple emails and multiple phone calls a day cost them money $$$ because someone has to read and respond to those emails, but someone also has to answer all those phone calls. It cost them money. Stay at it, and there's the chance you can get your account back. (Not saying this is the truth if you've violated policy and did something wrong), just for someone whom was un-fairly kicked off of Amazon M-Turk. Stay consistent.
For the respect of the employee that emailed me back and helped out, I will not release his email address because I know Amazon has strict policies in which many people do violate. These policies are in place to keep things fair for the requesters and also us workers. We don't want people "trashing the system" by violating rules, and these same policy violators harassing the people that can truly help us out in the future when a problem like this does arrive. It will unlikely our chances of saving our account. So for that reason and out of respect, I won't post the email out to the world.
However, if someone references back to this post and your going through the same issue, stay consistent, and things will likely work out. I feel if I wouldn't have emailed and called daily, it could have been over-turned, but the chances would have been less likely or longer down the road. If someone see's this months down the road and messages me with the same issue, I plan to be around for the long-haul. I'll see your message and direct you towards the person that can help you out, but again, please respect that it would be best for all of us if we didn't go plastering his email all over the internet.
Hope I could at least help and give someone else down the road something to reference back on!
At the same time, I have an alarm set to remind me to make lunch for my fiance, and to get some other things done around the house lol. After that I can shop for my birthday cake. ;P