About a year ago when I started my blog I was determined to earn some money with it by helping out people in different ways by blogging constantly about things that interest me bringing visitors to my website as per what I’ve learned from many different professional problogger like Darren Rowse from Problogger.net, John Chow from JohnChow.com, Yaro Starak, and many others.
Everything started going the way I thought it will and I started earning money from them which was great. On January 7th, I got approved for Google Adsense account and I’ve started earning money right away. By the middle of February I had everything set up and I was just waiting for them to start paying me.
I had to wait for the first paycheck when the amount reached specific amount and when I reached it I was so happy and I was enjoying my website. Just when I was expecting my paycheck from Google, I’ve got this email
Hello,
While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense
account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since
keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our
advertisers in the future, we’ve decided to disable your account.Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the
interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We
realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in advance
for your understanding and cooperation.If you have any questions about your account or the actions we’ve taken,
please do not reply to this email. You can find more information by
visiting https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153
I was furious my friends, FURIOUS !! I mean, come on. $30 for a multi-billioner company is ” significant risk “. Really, seriously ? Try making some better excuse Google.
This email was sent on March 9th. Two months after they approved my account and after I started earning money. Go figure !
On March 10th, I sent them an email request which says this
From: **email hidden for security purposes**
Subject: Захтев у вези са неважећим активностима ( I did it in Serbian but it says Invalid Activity Appeal )
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:04:58 +000011_ExampleUrl: http://bojan-online.com/blog/
12_DisablingMonth: Mar
13_DisablingDay: 9
14_DisablingYear: 2010
15_AlreadyAppealed: no
16_OtherAccount: no
17_OtherAccountList:
18_WebAudience: I am the only member but people come from all over the world
19_UserGeography: all over the world
20_UserAccessMode: internet cafe, DSL, mobile devices, university computers
21_ScrapedContent: some of the content with the source listed
22_ContentSources: I write most of the content myself
23_NumAdmins: one-myself
24_UpdateFrequency: 3-5 times a week
25_BoughtTraffic: no
26_UsePayTo: no
27_TrafficSources: direct links, postings through facebook and twitter,
commenting on other websites, forums
28_AdvertiserValue: they find some useful links for them to see
29_UserIncentive: not that I know of. my visitors come from all over the
world and some of them are my family members and friend but they are just
visitors
30_ViolatedTerms: No. I have never violated Google’s terms of use.
31_InvalidActivity: I am not sure what could have caused the illegal clicks
on my ads.
From all I know it could be someone that has already used your program and
does not want me to earn money for my website so what they decided to do
was just keep clicking until my account gets disabled/removed.
Also, it could be someone just not understanding the fact that clicking on
my links could cause me losing my account so all they do is just keep
clicking.
I have kept my part of not breaking Terms of Use by not clicking on the
links myself but I am unsure on what has happened with the other computers
in the world that come on my website from all the places that I have put my
website on.
32_SuspiciousData: I don’t have any suspicious ip address that i would say is ” dangerous ” or that was providing illegal clicks.
You try and tell me if there was anything wrong with this and if I violated terms of use. That same day I got an email saying:
Поштовани/а,
овом поруком потврђујемо пријем Ваше жалбе.
Прегледаћемо Вашу жалбу што је пре могуће. Међутим, због великог броја примљених порука е-поште, за обраду жалбе ће нам можда бити потребно недељу дана или више. Ако сте раније већ послали жалбу у вези са овим налогом, можда нећете примити одговор на ову жалбу или оне које пошаљете у наредном периоду.
Имајте на уму и да подношење жалбе у вези са онемогућавањем AdSense налога не гарантује његову поновну активацију.
Уколико имате било каква питања или недоумице о налозима који су онемогућени због неважеће активности, посетите страницу: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.
Хвала Вам на стрпљењу и разумевању.
С поштовањем,
Google AdSense тим
… which is pretty much English version of ….
Hello,
This message confirms that we’ve received your appeal submission.
We’ll get to your appeal as soon as we can, though due to the high volume
of emails we receive, it may take us up to a week or more to process it.
If you’ve previously submitted an appeal for this account, you might not
receive a response to this or future appeals.Also, please be aware that appealing the disabling of your AdSense account
does not guarantee that it will be reinstated.If you have any questions or concerns about accounts disabled for invalid
activity, please visit
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
So I was fine with that. I thought they will be responding quickly since it took them only couple hours to respond back.
I was waiting and waiting and I just had enough of it so on August 25th I decided to go on a forum a post thread about it to see if someone might be able to help me.
Thread is still active and you can view it here.
As you can see from thread, someone has answered right away and I was able to give them the answer they asked for but they have never decided to answer back.
Well, by this time I just had it. I mean this is suppose to be Google Adsense team not some third-party God-knows-from-where team.
After I just had about enough of madness, I have decided to respond back to the same thread I have opened and on December 15th I have decided to respond with
It’s been almost 4 months now and I still have not received any answer back.Can someone, please, help me ?
As you can see, I was not rude or anything. I just wanted answers on my concern because if I did anything wrong, I’d be ok. However, I have not done anything wrong and yet they have suspended me.
As customer service representative, I know that if anything ticks companies off, that’s the fact if you tell them that they are slacking and are not doing their job properly, hence why I have decided to put 4 months on there for a good purpose.
Also, I have made another appeal just to see if this time they will respond quicker with their respond and I’ve got exactly the same answer. Are you surprised ? I was certainly not. I mean come on. Everyone in this world knows that most of these rich companies use automatic scripts and they just make you feel welcomed while on the other hand they don’t care at all.
As if I knew, I have received an answer 9 hours later ( this morning ) stating:
Hello,
Thank you for your appeal. We appreciate the additional information you’ve
provided, as well as your continued interest in the AdSense program.
However, after thoroughly re-reviewing your account data and taking your
feedback into consideration, our specialists have confirmed that we’re
unable to reinstate your AdSense account.As a reminder, if you have any questions or concerns about your account,
the actions we’ve taken, or invalid activity in general, you can find more
information by visiting
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.
Well, my friends, this has overfilled my ” respect-for-Google glass “. I mean, come on, are you serious ? Just because someone has told you off and said that you guys are slackers who don’t do their job properly this is how you treat people by responding back within 24 hours while first time when I was good and patient customer you decided to have me ” on hold ” for almost a whole year ? Seriously ?
I can promise you guys this. I will never in my life applied for Google Adsense nor will I suggest it to anyone that asks me how to earn money online. If this is the way they are going to treat people, so be it.
I realize that this is probably one of thousands if not millions of rants on the internet about how bad Google’s services are but I just had vent it out and write another one of those rants on the internet in hopes that someone somewhere in this world will eventually see this and learn from this.
As for Google Adsense, thank you for your appreciative customer service but as of today, December 16th 2010, Bojan Cvjetkovic will not be using your service anymore.
