More Microworkers Payment Problems

Some time ago I wrote a blog post about the Microworkers payment problems that I experienced when I first applied to get my online earnings from my Microworkers account paid into my PayPal.  It took a long time before I received my PIN number from them.  When the PIN number did eventually arrive however, after over two weeks, it obvious why - I live in the US and the letter had been sent from Slovenia. 

Anyway, after I posted about my experience, I received a comment from a reader called Simona who said that she was having problems getting paid as Microworkers had just withdrawn the PayPal option for payment.  Sure enough, she was right when I checked.  PayPal was the standard way for many of us to get our Microworkers earnings in the past, but now Microworkers are saying that workers have to open an account with Moneybookers, or Alertpay.

Ideally, I would prefer my money to be paid straight to my bank account, but I appreciate that can't always happen and PayPal is generally a reliable money site to use and one of the most common methods used to pay out online earnings by websites.  I don’t really relish the idea of setting up another account with a new website just to pay myself the $9 or $10 that I earn intermittently on Microworkers.  The Microworkers Support page states that more payment options (including presumably Microworkers?) would be available soon, but I have waited around for ages in the hope that PayPal would return as an option with no joy and there is still no sign of it happening at the time of writing.

I like earning money online with Microworkers - they are a smaller operation than MTurk but that is okay, I accept that they don’t have as many jobs and I don’t expect to build up my online earnings quickly - but sometimes they can be frustrating.  I emailed Microworkers a few days ago to ask them what is happening but haven’t heard anything back, as yet.  I will post their answer when they reply.

My Best and Worst Amazon MTurk Experiences

Looking back over my time earning money online with the make money at home site, Amazon Mechanical Turk, also known as MTurk, I thought it might be fun to contrast my best MTurk experience with my worst.  Those familiar with MTurk are aware that  when things are going well, it can be great fun and a more than decent earner, but when it goes badly it can be extraordinarily frustrating.  Sometimes things go wrong because of your own mistakes, but other times you can lose money or get your hit rejection rate dented through no fault of your own.  Life certainly isn’t always easy or fair for a turker!

Anyway, before I head off to mturk.com to look for new hits to do today, here are my best and worst Amazon MTurk experiences from the past.

My Best Amazon MTurk Experience

I had a great run when I found an MTurk requester who paid just under 2 dollars for a writing task that took 15-20 minutes and there were lots of hits too!  For a month I was making $15-$20 per day for just 2 or 3 hours work.  It was all going very well.  The only problem was that I was playing fair, but there were other turkers who were defrauding the requester using dodgy software to do their hits.  So the requester introduced their own dodgy software in an effort to weed out the fraudsters, the only problem was that the MTurk requester’s dodgy software started rejecting everyone, including legitimate turkers like myself.  My best Amazon MTurk experience ended badly with a reduced hit rejection rate, an easy money supply effectively terminated and a sense of annoyance that I still haven’t quite recovered from, but it was good while it lasted!

My Worst Amazon MTurk Experience

Early on when I was new to Amazon Mechanical Turk and I didn’t know any better, I did lots of MTurk hits for a requester.  They were poorly paid and I didn’t really read the instructions closely, as I didn’t think it was terribly important if they were rejected.  Guess what, the MTurk requester rejected them!  But I still didn’t think it mattered much.  Then, after a while, I suddenly noticed that there were lots of MTurk hits that I was no longer qualified for.  When I pieced it all together, I realized that it was the rejected poorly paid hits that had caused my problems by hitting my hit rejection rate.  It took forever and a hell of a lot of grafting to get my hit rejection rate back up.  Needless to say, I paid a lot more attention after that, even if the hits were badly paid.

MTurk Requester Payment Problems

Earning money online can be frustrating sometimes.  Most turkers who have worked on Amazon Mechanical Turk for any length of time has experienced MTurk requester payment problems.  There are times when you know why you have not been paid sometimes, for instance, you had a computer glitch, or an interuption happened, like you were phoned up, and you ran out of time to finish doing the MTurk hit.  Another time, you might have been unsure what you were supposed to be doing on the hit and so not surprised when your work was rejected by the MTurk requester.

Late Payments

It is frustrating when you complete a job and then you are checking your account every day expecting to see your earnings and nothing happens.  In my experience, most MTurk requesters pay up within a couple of days.  Some pay quicker than that, within a matter of hours sometimes.  The annoying thing is where is takes over a week before you receive your MTurk payment.  You can email the MTurk requester in this situation, but be aware that Amazon allows them up to 30 days to either pay or reject your work.  That is way too, long in my opinion, and Microworkers have got a better idea by giving MTurk employers a one week cut off period to resolve outstanding jobs.

Non-payment by MTurk requester because of hits rejected

Occasionally you can get hits rejected by an MTurk requester and it seems unfair.  As well as losing the money you felt you earned, getting hits rejected can also damage your hit rejection rate and effect which hits you are able to do in future.  So even if the amounts of money involved are small, it can still be annoying and upsetting.

If there were technical problems at the time of doing the hit, then you should report the hit as broken using the link in the bottom right.  If you believe that the requester is breaching the Amazon Mechanical Turk policies, then you should click the “Violates the Amazon Mechanical Turk policies” link which is also at the bottom right.  

Sometimes you have no idea why you have had your hits rejected.  In this case it is best to contact the MTurk requester.  I would advise that the tone you adopt with them is polite but firm.  You should explain that you followed all the instructions and ask why your work was rejected.  In many cases the matter can be resolved this way and you will get your money (or they will explain to you your mistake).  Sometimes the MTurk requester will use stalling tactics and you have to write more than once before they pay up.  Note though, that an MTurk requester cannot themselves reverse a rejection decision without the help of Amazon.

If you still have no joy, then your options for complaint as an MTurk worker are very limited (one gripe of turkers is that MTurk requesters can ban certain MTurk workers, but not the other way around).  Though you can, of course, warn other MTurk workers about the bad requester and discuss your experiences either on Turkopticon, or on one of the MTurk forums.

10 Reasons Why I Hate Amazon MTurk!

Whether you like it or not, Amazon Mechanical Turk (aka MTurk) is one of the  commonest ways of earning money online at the moment.  Working from home is fine when it is going well, and awful when it is not.  This blog will give my  thoughts and ideas regarding MTurk as well as charting my progress, knowledge and experience.  (If you want to read some more of my earning money online articles, check out the links below and in the sidebar)

1.  Many of the hits on Amazon MTurk are just rubbish.  They either pay ridiculously well, because they are scams, or they are genuine jobs, but they’re paying you 10 cents/hour!

2.  It’s difficult to know who the good Amazon MTurk requesters are and who are the bad on MTurk.  You could spend hours working on there and then get ripped off.  Not only do you lose the money, but you get a bad rejection rate too!

3.  Amazon do not regulate the site enough.  That means that there are rip-off artists and scammers operating openly on MTurk.  Okay, the workers can flag bad requesters, but considering Amazon are making money from the site, you’d think they’d feel a bigger moral obligation to maintain it?

4.  When you do find an Amazon MTurk requester who offers decent jobs, pays at okay rate, pays on time, and doesn’t rip you off – they suddenly disappear, just when you’re getting used to the regular money!  You have no way of knowing if the requester will be back in a few hours, a few days, or never again!

5.  There’s lots of MTurk hits and requesters, but navigating around the Amazon Turk site can be a pain in the backside.  Why can’t you save your favorite requesters, or your favorite searches?  Have your own little My MTurk part of the site?  Wouldn’t that make it a lot easier for regular MTurk workers?

6.  There’s no effective comeback against the MTurk requesters who rip people off.  Okay, you can report them to Amazon.  But that doesn’t stop them in their tracks or get you your wages.  Eventually, I guess Amazon will ban them from the site, but by then they’ve made lots of money!

7.  It can be complicated working out what money’s where.  You have the total money earned section on your MTurk website dashboard, which is often not up to date because of late paying requesters.  Then you have the Account section of Amazon, which is often not up to date because the money takes time to be paid over from MTurk.  Then you have the money in your bank account which is always delayed by several days when it comes from the Amazon Account.

8.  MTurk can be very addictive.  There’s always a temptation to just do one more job.  The next thing you know, it’s 3am in the morning and you have to get up at 7!  Or your wife is getting fierce because you haven’t spoken to her for 2 days!

9.  You can lose all perspective with MTurk.  Before you know it, you’re ranting and raving and your day/week has been completely ruined, all because a requester has failed to pay you some measly sum like 10 cents!

10.  The number of jobs fluctuates wildly on Amazon MTurk.  One day there’s 150, 000 jobs on there, the next day there’s only 45,000.  Either there’s more jobs going than you can possibly handle, or there’s absolutely nothing on there that’s worth doing!


MTurk Links

Amazon Mechanical Turk Top Tricks and Tips

How to avoid MTurk scams

10 reasons why I love Amazon Mechanical Turk


Sites like MTurk

The Pros and Cons of Making Money with Microworkers

Other Work at Home Websites

How to Make Money with MyLot

Earning Money Online with Swagbucks – The Pros and Cons


Recommended Reading

Work at Home Now: The No-nonsense Guide to Finding Your Perfect Home-based Job, Avoiding Scams, and Making a Great Living
Work From Home Jobs Directory

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