Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Reasons Why Amazon Mechanical Turk No Longer Accepts International Turkers

As many of you may have heard, Amazon is not approving international Mturk accounts anymore. In 2012 Amazon put a hold on accepting new worker accounts for a couple of months. When they started accepting new workers again, it was only for workers in the United States.

There are three reasons for this:

Fraud - Amazon was having a difficult time verifying these accounts and a lot of fraud was occurring from outside the United States. Multiple accounts, sweatshops, money transfers and other Amazon TOS violations were occurring on these international accounts. Amazon would close the worker account and then they would simply open a new one. If you want to see some of this fraud, take a look at this forum- Romanian Mturk Forum. Over 300 pages long and 6000 posts. Almost every page of this forum has discussions on how to break Amazon's TOS. It is no longer active forum because of the halts on new international accounts.
 
Complaints - Requester complaints about the quality of work is the second reason. I personally know quite a few workers outside of the US that are excellent turkers and speak and write English better than many Americans. Because of the constant stream of complaints to Amazon about the poor quality of work from international IP addresses, something had to be done.  Since fraudulent workers outside of the US were not required to verify their accounts, they could just make a new account and get back to work under a different user ID.

Blocks - Blocks are a way Amazon to monitor worker accounts, although Amazon does not tell requesters this. When a worker account starts accumulating blocks from requesters, the workers account is suspended and reviewed by someone at Mturk. A requester could block a US worker and over time if that worker is not preforming well, they are removed completely from the worker pool and cannot make a new account. With the international accounts, a worker would simply change IP address and make a new account and set up a click script to automatically cheat HITs until blocked .  

Since Americans are verified using Social Security numbers, bank accounts, credit cards and addresses, American workers would protect and guard their accounts to ensure they are not suspended. This is NOT to say that international workers do not have a professional work ethic or are all out to cheat the system, it is just an additional restriction on American workers have to ensure that they can never make multiple accounts. 

Requesters are starting to take notice of this. The worker pool of cheap labor is getting smaller every day. Some requesters feel it is ethical to pay a worker $1-$2 for an hours worth of work. American workers, for the most part, will not work for this pay. New workers, international workers and naive turkers were the ones completing these tasks. Now, this substandard work is not being completed in a timely fashion anymore. 
For instance, CastingWords is now making their own interface because they need these international workers. 

So please, people in India, Pakistan and other foreign countries, please stop sending me emails asking me how to get your accounts verified. It is not going to happen. And to all the workers out there, protect your accounts no matter what country you are from.
 

114 comments:

  1. I got clarification from Sharon Chiarella, the Amazon VP who is in charge of Mechanical Turk. Her email is below. She implies that the speculation that MTurk is excluding international workers is not correct, and it is an inference that people are making because of it's new policy on confirming workers before allowing them to work.

    Chris,

    We made a change to our registration process a few months ago. We moved to an invitation-only registration. In the new process, we review a Worker's registration information prior to inviting them to work on Mturk. We're not providing details of this review process and some Workers (or would-be Workers) are trying to determine what our process is and this has started the speculation that we're excluding international Workers.

    That said, if you do notice a change in your ability to find the Workers you need on Mturk, please don't hesitate to reach out and let me know.

    Thanks,
    Sharon

    -----Original Message---
    From: Chris Callison-Burch
    Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2013 6:25 AM
    To: Chiarella, Sharon
    Subject: does mturk have a new policy excluding international workers?

    Dear Sharon,

    I have read several internet rumors saying that Mechanical Turk will no longer be accepting international workers, (Here is one such report: http://turkrequesters.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-reasons-why-amazon-mechanical-turk.html). Is this true?

    If it is true, it would be a shame. I have been doing research into crowdsourced translations and have been spending ~$100k per year to collect translations and other annotations for computational linguistics research. My research relies on having a diverse international speaker population to have a good representation of the world's languages. Typically, I have found the quality of the international workers who I hired to be very high.

    Best Regards,
    Chris Callison-Burch
    Center for Language and Speech Processing
    Johns Hopkins University

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chris,
      I really wish I could believe that to be true. I understand that a business should be able to keep some information private, but with Amazon Mechanical Turk, there are just too many secrets.
      How are "master" turkers chosen?
      Where does the money go from suspended Amazon Payments accounts?
      Why are some requesters given special privileges to work around Amazon's terms of service?

      I have not met a single new turker from outside the USA in the past 6 months on any of the international forums that I am a member of. I have actually seen the opposite with many of the international forums closing because new workers are not being accepted.
      For your HIT's, international workers are essential and you are one of the few requesters who pays a living wage to these workers. I guess time will tell if this is an honest letter from Sharon or not. Of course I will revise if I see anything that shows otherwise.

      Delete
    2. Slightly off topic, and will all due respect, but I have to disagree with your statement that ccb "pays a living wage to these workers". Translating 10 sentences for a meager dollar comes down to about 1c/word, way below the going rate for translations at about 5c+/word on average (depending on language and topic). I understand that probably most translations on MTurk are not done by professional translators, but 1c/word? C'mon! It's far below minimum wages, for any country. I have stayed clear of his assignments, although I speak two languages; there is better paid work on MTurk. This is possibly the reason why the Italian translations, mentioned elsewhere here, were not done. Sorry, just had to say something.

      Delete
    3. i am an indian, can anyone suggest me a reliable online job site please?

      Delete
    4. I know this was posted a while ago, but while CCB's wages might not be "living wages", I found them relatively good compared to most of the current available HIT's. I actually don't think any HIT will give someone living wages, but as a source of alternative income, CCB's were good.

      I did a lot of his "translate spanish to english" hits, and found that getting a dollar for work that could be done in minutes instead of hours was a good situation. I'm not a professional translator, and was not expecting to use this as primary income, so maybe my situation is not the same as MR's above.

      I'm actually hoping CCB will need English/Spanish translation soon.

      Delete
    5. I would like to distribute surveys for an academic research project using Mechanical Turk. However, I would like to restrict the survey respondents to Indian MTurkers. Has Amazon clarified its policy regarding international workers since this original blog post? Are international workers who were in the MTurk system before these changes took place still able to participate in HITs?

      Delete
    6. @Admin, i am Romanian and i work on mturk... and i enrolled without using a US SSN.. but just so you know, "international" actually involves the countries that are in nato because nato has a centralized database of all the SSNs.. for countries outside nato, some of them use different kind of SSN, others don't have a centralized database, others don't use them at all,etc. so basically they accept people that they can initially or eventually run a background on, the sole purpose of this being the capability and obligativity of paying tax for every worker..

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  2. I'm Italian, and three days ago I registered to become a MTurk Worker.
    This morning I received an email stating that "We regret to inform you that you will not be permitted to
    work on Mechanical Turk.".
    I sent an email asking for clarification, and if there was some kind of international block at the moment.
    The answer was that "New Worker accounts are accepted based on our marketplace needs. [...] All new account registrations will undergo the same review process regardless of the country of residence.".
    And in this moment I can see that there are two HITs requesting english to italian translation that are expiring. So the marketplace may need somebody like me!
    I don't think that their answers are sincere, and moreover the fact that you can't re-apply for the service drives me crazy!
    They say that if the criteria changes I may be contacted in the future... I'm quite confident that my record will be lost between thousands of rejected Workers, even if in the future something changes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are saying exactly what I have heard from hundreds of international workers. Amazon may tell requesters that they are still accepting international accounts, but they are not.

      Delete
    2. I am in the US and I just got the rejection letter so it's not just foreigners. The letter stated to me that they do not let people know their criteria for being accepted but that if the criteria changes, in the future I could be accepted. I suspect that maybe they only want people who spend a lot of money on Amazon and I don't. They probably hope all workers will end up giving back to Amazon what they what they earned and if you are someone they see doesn't shop there much then, maybe that affects if you are accepted or not. I'm guessing. I don't know. I just know that I have had a lot of working online experience and I am the last person they should have turned down. Makes no sense.

      Delete
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  3. Is any possibility for accepting new International accounts in near FUTURE?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Amazon "SAYS" they are accepting international workers by invitation only.

    I do not believe this. Who are they inviting? As Chris Callison-Burch indicates in his comment, he needs international workers for his hits, yet there is still not a way for Amazon to verify international accounts. If a worker is not completing work properly or uses false information to make an account, then what is to stop them from making more accounts?

    Try using microworkers or clickworker or one of the other platforms available.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, I too tried to register on Mturk, and as predicted failed, could you please suggest me some sites which provide tasks to Indians, I am already registered on clickworker and get-paid.com, clickworker pays pretty decent which is not the same with other sites, also please let me know if any site pays Indians in cash to complete surveys, pls suggest authentic ones

      Delete
  5. I am an Indian.I am new to this Mturk which was advised by my friend to do this.But when I try to create an account the reply I got is like this "We regret to inform you that you will not be permitted to work on Mechanical Turk." Will I get any chance to work in this Mturk or not?.I am so confused whether I will get this chance to work as an International worker in future. please help me with some clear answers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes this people are not at all believe in Indians , I was also waiting for review process to complete from last 48 hours and getting same message like you got. I f you have any alternative to Mturk please suggest.

      Delete
  6. I agree that there is a general "block". The only information that is required on sign-up is a full name and address. How do you "assess" a persons skillset based on that? The account I used is my Amazon Affiliate account - which is in good standing and has never received any complaints. It has to be your country of residence.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  7. I am from India and tried to create an account on MTurk. There was no mention of international workers not being accepted. With great enthusiasm I waited for my account to be reviewed, only to receive a message which siad 'We have completed our review of your Amazon Mechanical Turk Worker Account. We regret to inform you that you will not be permitted to work on Mechanical Turk'.

    I came across this blog which said international workers won't be accepted. It is all right if we are not accepted, but it needs to be clearly mentioned as many other crowd sourcing sites do mention.

    Why the hypocrisy. I would not have wasted my time creating an account with them.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. They are not accepting international workers? There are other platforms but amazon is the best. I'm from Venezuela.

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  9. hi....i was working in amazon(mturk).i made around $1000 they paid one time but the next time when i requested for 2nd payment and i had balance of $240 then they suspended my account they didnt pay any amount ,my account approval rate was 98% .they took all the money ..they are thief ...dnt trust them any time they can suspend your account without any reason .my amazon worker id-A2LG0SJYIUIRNC..I lost total 400+240=640$

    ReplyDelete
  10. How can one international work commit fraud by changing their ip address because every worker has to submit their id card like pan card or passport...Do amazon think that every country other than US issue multiple pan card and passport with different number?

    actually this is an easy way to cheat mturk worker outside US.
    if they are not cheater then why the hell on earth they took all the money from mturk worker account...I lost 640$.. $400 they already sent to me and it was on the way but after 2moonth i did not receive that also..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am currently dealing with a very similar situation. I was working in my Amazon account, and I accumulated a small amount of money. I went to the process of verifying my account, entering my Social Security number, and then a few days later I received notice that my account had been suspended. The money that is in my account is still there. What will Amazon do with the money that I earned? Will they return it to the requester? Or will they keep it? If they keep the money are they violating US law in any way? If so, do I have any recourse against them?

      I think that it is very sad that a company like Amazon would set up a system where American citizens can work for them, but at Amazon's discretion, the money that they make can be taken from them. This type of garnishment of wages would not work with any other company. The simply the fact that they are online that makes them feel as if they have this type of authority.

      Apparently, the suspension of my account is under review. They say that I will only receive information if they choose to reverse the suspension. If, my suspension is not reversed I think I will seriously look into what legal recourse I may have.

      Delete
  11. this is surya from India. they rejected my request for worker simply not givin any reason ihavn't applied earlier or done work earlier I strongly back that international workers specially asians are not allowed to work in mturk. this is reality this is 100% true

    ReplyDelete
  12. Amazon Uses Buffer
    As soon as they have a international registration they put the message stating it is declined and put in queue to be delivered after two days
    when paypal can verify why not amazon.
    if they are not so reliable about the security with payment or verification,
    why sell in international markets ???

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  13. Im so disappointed with this online jobs,plz do give chance for asian people.

    ReplyDelete
  14. A talk from Amazon in Australia suggested people should sign up for Mechanical Turk. Unfortunately even though the registration allows you to specify a non-US address and phone number, it neglects to tell you that you're wasting your time until after you try to find a task.

    Very poor UI design with respect to sign up process, and poor thought given by Amazon staff speaking outside of USA.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Yep that is still true in 2014. Am Australian and just got the standard rejection letter....

    ReplyDelete
  16. is mturk excluding internation works these days ? i am not from the USA . does this mean i cant work in mturk ? any answers?

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  17. Would be nice if it just said united states residents only somewhere, then I wouldn't have bothered clicking apply, saving us all time.

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  18. Hellow any chance for future work Indian People allowed for Mturk. Already iam registered but not accept my account so request

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  19. AMAZON mturk is not direct paying, requester only pay the amount to worker through their website so Mturk is the third party site. More over while verification worker have to submit PAN, PASSPORT scanned copy how mturk says international user specially india not allowed to work though we have unique identifications? Indian also have AADHAR CARD which is equal to SSN of U.S. why don't they consider this??? Amazon want to do business across international and in INDIA they want to make money with Indians but don't allow to work in mturk, think about it all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      There is an option for PAN card, which is easily available after giving valid proof's. So try that, I also got payments from MTurk by validating using PAN card for a huge number of time.

      Delete
    2. Can any one help me to get mturk ID,

      Delete
  20. After reading this post (and hearing about this issue from others), I decided to try my luck and register as a mechanical Turk just to investigate this issue. Surprisingly, I got accepted! (I am living in the middle east and I listed a middle eastern country as my country of residence). This is very confusing and it is unfair of them that they aren't declaring clear rules of getting accepted. Here is the e-mail I got from them

    From: Mechanical Turk
    Date: Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 9:20 AM
    Subject: Registration Invitation from Amazon Mechanical Turk
    To:


    Greetings from Amazon Mechanical Turk,

    Congratulations, your Mechanical Turk account has been approved.
    Please follow this link to complete the registration process.
    https://www.mturk.com/mturk/beginsignin

    Here's some important information about working on Mechanical Turk.

    1) Requesters approve or reject your work within 30 days.
    Requesters determine whether to pay you within 30 days of submitting
    your HITs. Amazon Mechanical Turk does not determine when to approve
    or reject and does not estimate when your HITs will be approved. In
    the event you have questions about the content of a HIT or the approval
    status you can contact the Requester directly:
    https://www.mturk.com/mturk/help?helpPage=worker#work_rejected

    2) Your work quality is important.
    Completing HITs accurately will ensure that Requesters will want you to
    continue to work for them. Read instructions thoroughly, answer HITs
    accurately, and return HITs you are unable to complete correctly, to
    build a positive reputation as a Worker. Keep in mind that returned or
    abandoned HITs will not affect your rating.

    3) Report HITs that violate the Mechanical Turk policies:
    You should not provide personal information in the HIT or register for
    another website while working HITs on Mechanical Turk. Please report
    any violating HITs using the "violates Amazon Mechanical Turk policies"
    link at the bottom right of the HIT. To see examples of HITs that
    violate the policies, visit this link:
    https://www.mturk.com/mturk/help?helpPage=policies#violation_examples

    4) Keep your computer secure:
    When you complete HITs on Mechanical Turk, you are accessing the
    internet to perform work for Requesters that are not Amazon. We
    recommend that you secure your computer with the latest operating
    system security updates and virus protection software, update your
    browser and plug-ins with the latest versions, and use caution when
    directed to other websites.

    5) Payment delays and daily HIT limit for new Workers:
    For quality assurance purposes, new Workers can only complete a limited
    number of HITs (Human Intelligent Tasks) each day. Payments from
    Requesters are delayed for 10 days until you have submitted at least
    one HIT a day for at least 10 days. Your payments will show the
    "Approved Pending Payment" status in your dashboard during this delay
    period.

    Additional information can be found within our FAQ,
    https://www.mturk.com/mturk/help?helpPage=worker
    We're excited to have you join the Amazon Mechanical Turk Worker
    Community!

    Sincerely,
    Amazon Mechanical Turk
    https://www.mturk.com
    410 Terry Avenue North
    SEATTLE, WA 98109-5210 USA

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting, that is great to hear. Maybe they have changed or opened it up to certain countries?

      Delete
    2. Hi,

      Ok, I think there might be a reason (as silly one perhaps!) to why they approved my account. I use my Amazon account with "shop and ship" service for shipment. With that service, I get a US shipment address (I live in the middle east) that I use. When I wanted to register as a MTurker, I used the same e-mail I am using with my Amazon main account. They asked me first to sign in with my Amazon account and then I was asked about my address (country of residence, street address etc.). Later on after getting accepted, I noticed that in my Amazon account I now have two addresses, the US one and my local one I provided when registering as MTurker and of course these address are linked to my MTurk account. It might be the case that they considered that I have a "US" address and approved my account based on that.

      Anyone got into a similar situation?

      Delete
    3. How can i have shop and ship service when i live in Egypt

      Delete
    4. How can I get shop and ship service

      Delete
  21. I'm from Canada and received my rejection this morning . . .

    ReplyDelete
  22. I'm another one from outside the US who have just got rejected. What a waste of time.

    Regards from Spain.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Its not a waste of time buddy, I think they will change their restrictions towards international workers in future. At that time you will be mailed with their invitation.

      Delete
  23. Amazon should also restrict their sells to US residents too. Amazon sucks.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I am another one who disappointed when amazon not accepted my registration, but hope so they will start accepting outsiders.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I'm English and just got my rejection email despite just listening to a talk given by Amazon in the UK about this. Why not just state that they currently don't want international workers?

    ReplyDelete
  26. I have always had high regards of Amazon for their professionalism and clear rules. However, having had received the unfortunate rejection email from AMT I am confused and disappointed. This is definitely not a good PR for Amazon. Yes, I get it there are a lot of scammers who ruin it for all the honest international workers out there. But how about making the verifying system a little bit more efficient to weed the scammers and hold on tight to the dedicated ones...? I come from Europe and honestly, US$ means something here and I would definitely be willing to work for it. Shame...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is unfortunate. Although even if they accepted you, you would only receive payment in Amazon gift cards. The only countries that receive payment in cash are India and the United States.

      Delete

    2. I'm sorry to hear that your account registration with us was declined. New Worker accounts are accepted based on our marketplace needs. Unfortunately, our criteria for account review are proprietary and I'm not able to disclose a reason as to why your account was not approved.

      We appreciate your interest in Amazon Mechanical Turk and want you to know that our criteria for acceptance may be subject to change in the future. Even though your account was declined now, your interest has been noted and you may be contacted in the future to see if you are still interested in joining the platform.

      Delete
  27. Well it is November 2014 and International Turkers are still being rejected. I am from Australia and just received my rejection letter today. Like everyone else on here it seems I am disappointed. I can't help feeling that there are better ways of solving whatever the problems are that means only US citizens living in the US can be a part of the system. As others have described above many of the work tasks require translation, for example, which a native speaker from the country of origin of that language would surely be able to do just as adequately as someone from the US. Another example is that many of the tasks require expert levels of knowledge in a particular field in order to say write an article about a field of interest. Believe it or not there are experts in various fields that live in countries other than the US who would be perfectly capable to writing articles on a whole host of topics, so again it is unclear why international workers must be limited. If it is a matter of adequately identifying workers there are online companies that also have to verify the identity of individuals adequately for legal reasons, eg PayPal, anything requiring adult content, applying for various visas, applying for insurance, applying for international investment schemes etc On the internet in particular where anyone can pretend to be whoever they want you would expect that some method for adequately identifying someone would have by now become routine, eg making a small initial payment with a credit card to demonstrate identity and that you are over 18, or leaving identification to a standard, trusted 3rd party such as PayPal (who could also then take care of international payments). Given that I have been a customer for many years and that Amazon has received many thousands of dollars of money from me, it is somewhat insulting that all of a sudden I am not good enough for them, and rather than simply solving what ever imagined problem is associated with international Turkers they just reject us. In fact why not turn the problem around? They have this vast database of workers willing to perform Human Intelligence Tasks for virtually slave wages. Why not put what ever the problem is out to the masses to come up with a solution. Let us solve the problem, we could probably work that out by lunch time, then we can all get back to work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haydn,
      I understand your frustration. With all of the side projects that Amazon has launched recently, they have scaled back to almost a skeleton crew working on Mturk. The standard workforce of "Non-Master" workers is relatively unregulated and they do not even police requesters anymore.
      They have also essentially banned international requesters on Amazon Mechanical Turk by requiring a "verified" Amazon Payments account. You cannot have a "verified" Amazon Payments account without having a Tax ID or a Social Security number. So not only is their workforce being depleted, but the amount of work available is being depleted as well.
      If you are an international academic requester who has been locked out of Amazon Mechanical Turk, please contact us at design@mturkdata.com and we can get your hits published for you.

      Delete
    2. I was also rejected as a worker.

      Greetings from Amazon Mechanical Turk,

      We have completed our review of your Amazon Mechanical Turk Worker
      Account. We regret to inform you that you will not be permitted to
      work on Mechanical Turk. Thank you for your interest in Mechanical
      Turk.

      and then I found and registered with A-buck.com. I made some money and posted a lot of requests. If you are looking for an alternative platform be sure to check A-buck.com.

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

      Delete
  28. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  29. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  30. I was rejected from mturk tooo ..... What can I do to work at mturk??

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  31. For anyone that can still get access I definitely recommend they check it out.If you are still having doubts you can read an in-depth evaluation of Amazon Mechanical Turk.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I got approval from amazon turks but can i udpate indian bank details to transfer the payment

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. do you have amazon account before?? how did you got? can you please tell the procedure?

      Delete
  33. Your Amazon Mechanical Turk Account has been reviewed

    Your registration with Amazon Mechanical Turk has been declined. Unfortunately, you are not permitted to work on Mechanical Turk. Our account review criteria are proprietary and we cannot disclose the reason why an invitation to complete registration has been denied. If our criteria for invitation changes, you may be invited to complete registration in the future. Thank you for your interest in Mechanical Turk.



    PLEASE HELP

    ReplyDelete
  34. I just got rejection mail... if they don't want international worker they should not allow to register

    ReplyDelete
  35. Refused from France with the same message as usual

    ReplyDelete
  36. amazon should give international workers a chance. we spend on amazon too. i waited to days anxiously for what? for rejection?

    ReplyDelete
  37. As an Amazon Seller I always bump to this issue. Amazon should get a fix on this.

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  38. I have been rejected also this morning and I am from Toronto, Canada. Thought Canada, UK and US were able to apply now? What a waist of time.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I just have been rejected, the funny thing is I applied because there were a lot of HIT's for brazilians, but brazilians arent allowed? Thats weird

    ReplyDelete
  40. Rejected, from Germany... I would have worked on the specific German requests and started right ahead...

    What a scam and waste of time. The site says it employs an international workforce but apparently Germany is a third world country.

    If they only accept people from the US or India they should add that info to the site. What a load of bollocks.

    ReplyDelete
  41. It's a SCAM.

    If they don't accept any international workers they should say so on the website and not waste my time. I'm from Germany and was just denied entry. I'd not expect behaviour like this from a respectable company like Amazon.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Has anyone thought of making their own alternative to MTurk and publishing the URL here? There is obviously supply-side demand for this kind of platform, judging from all the comments here. Would there be sufficient demand for it?

    ReplyDelete
  43. Such a waste of time. When i registered through my account, they clearly knew what country I was from. They could've just told me that I'm not eligible for this, instead of letting me register and then mailing me next day that it's not possible. I'm just tired of amazon and their problems with other countries. I wanted to sell my music on Amazon, came to know even that's not available in India yet. Just decide whether you want to be in our country or not!

    ReplyDelete
  44. Worth noting, I "applied" likely 2 years ago for mTurk (Note: I am canadian, and got the same rejection). Just last week, I received an email in my inbox from mTurk saying that my account was approved and I have started working now. To be quite honest, I forgot all about mTurk and was quite surprised to see the email. Just noting this for those that applied a LOOONNNGGG time ago. Keep that same email address, and you may be surprised one day.

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  45. Really needed the job...was hopeful that this would be a great opportunity for me to work. I was excited and was willing to work hard. Unfortunately i got the reject email this morning. I feel that the verification process has to be strong and all should be given an opportunity.Still looking forward to work with Mturk. I think it is great opportunity for all. Sad that just because of few all have to suffer. looking forward.

    ReplyDelete
  46. I'm English, living in the UK, and have just been declined by MTurk. Strange thing is that Amazon.co.uk were happy enough to allow me to buy from them over the last many years; to allow me to sign up for Prime at £79 per year and to take thousands of GBP from me in purchases over time. Now suddenly I'm not good enough??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The same happened to me, when I registered October 2015. I was declined.
      Then, out of the blue I received an email inviting me to join in April 2016.
      Beware though, as outside of USA Mturk will not let you have funds paid into a bank account,(you don't have a USA SSNumber) you can only have it added to an Amazon.com account gift card. This balance doesn't transfer to your amazon.co.uk account, even though my email and password for .co.uk gets me straight in to .com account, knows exactly who I am etc. To use your gift card balance, you'll find many suppliers don't ship to my address. I hoping to order some digital music. If this doesn't work, I'll stop using mturk, as if you find a supplier who actually does ship to UK then costs are exhorbitant, wiping out those extra $$$$$ you've earnt!

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  47. If Amazon is preventing international workers from mTurk, why should we go to Amazon to buy their products in India? Can't we do it from an Indian e-commerce site? If they can do this to us because of their hypocrisy, we too can set our our standards. Stop buying from Amazon.

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  48. Your registration with Amazon Mechanical Turk has been declined. Unfortunately, you are not permitted to work on Mechanical Turk. Our account review criteria are proprietary and we cannot disclose the reason why an invitation to complete registration has been denied. If our criteria for invitation changes, you may be invited to complete registration in the future. Thank you for your interest in Mechanical Turk.
    please tell me how to solve the issu

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  49. I am in and have always been in the US and I have also received a denial letter. It kind of hurt my feelings so I googled why I may have got denied. After reading these comments it may have been a good things!

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  50. Rejected from USA �� Not sure why

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  51. Im in the UK and after a 2 week wait I've also been rejected.
    I contacted them last week to chase the application and got a standard automated response saying it hadn't been looked at yet. Not sure why they didn't just tell me there and then that it would be rejected.

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  52. I am native to the U.S. and have resided here since the day I was born, and I just also received my denial letter. As a long-time Amazon Prime customer, I have surely provided thousands of dollars to Amazon by this point through both my purchases and rather costly membership fees that I pay monthly. My account has only ever been in great standing, payment has always gone through with no problems (from U.S. credit and debit cards) and every single one of the probably close to 100 things I have purchased from Amazon over the years has been shipped to one of two U.S. street addresses at which I have resided. I can think of literally not one reason why I could have possibly logically been denied - clearly it's not just international customers that they're deceiving anymore! So very wrong that what I have always known as a highly reputable company has been engaging in such shady practices for years. It is abundantly clear that they obviously have not been accepting international workers for years (aside from those in the U.K. and India here that have been fortunate enough to gain access in more recent years), and yet they still claim to be an international workforce? What even is their motive behind this? A lot less people would be upset if they would actually at the very least just be honest, much less FIX THE PROBLEM perhaps! Very annoyed and disappointed. They don't even provide any means of contacting them in the denial letter, either. Shameful. The only reason I even applied to this site is because I have always trusted Amazon greatly - does anyone here know of any similar sites to mturk that are definitely SAFE and perhaps not requiring of too much sensitive info? Really disappointed in mturk just as most of you on this forum have every right to be.

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    1. I know this is a few months old, but I was rejected today as well. I feel the same way as you. I've been a loyal customer for many years. I have addresses in my account from time served in the military. My account has had no issues and I have US based bank and address information in it. I do work overseas, but I was looking to make a few extra dollars to spend on their website. Such a shame, I'm seriously considering canceling my Prime and not doing business with them anymore.

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  53. ITS MY PROBLEM



    Unable to extend an invitation at this time
    To effectively maintain and administer the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) marketplace, we are not always in a position to extend an invitation to complete tasks and earn rewards to every newly registered Worker. Should conditions change in the future, we will notify you with an invitation.

    Thank you for your interest in working on MTurk.

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  60. I had 600 dollar in my account and I was working with mturk since 2008. All of sudden, they suspended my account without any reason and upon asking several times they said for specific reason we did suspended your account and we can't tell you the insights. That was not a reason to suspend my account, even they suspended my account, why they didn't transfered my money to my account? I hope, mturk is now making too much scam and looting millions like me and making a huge profit from it. I had mailed then 200 times but they replied me twice. The last mail was our investigation team is looking isat thissue and will reply you soon. Now it's 4 years passed....no reply...totally unprofessional. I suggest don't use any of the amzon service whether it is mturk or Amazon e-commerce site, don't use them.

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  73. Been a worker for five years and was proud to say that I cared very much about the work that I did and was very careful. 99.87 approval rating (not higher only because of mistakes I made with the interface when I first started...my bad) and this morning out of the blue my account has been suspended. I have never had another account and I am the only person in my household. I feel at a loss and this just breaks my heart. They had asked for ID to be faxed to them and I sent that but haven't heard back. I feel after reading so many threads about account suspensions that I have no hope. This is brutal and cruel but as we have always known; we don't have hardly any rights. This is fundamentally wrong. Even not the suspension so much but our lack of power to even have discourse over what is done to us.

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  80. Nice post thank you Taylor

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