08/26 - Money Monday!

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cassius

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I agree completely. However, the issue was with Amazon Payments not Mturk. It affected others besides Mturk workers (at least according to one of the reps I spoke with). It had nothing to do with Mturk. And for all we know they could still make us pay back the balances which is why I am not touching the additional money in my account. It is possible though, that they just write it off as a mistake and call it a loss (which they apparently have done before when this has happened), or they could come up with some way for people to pay it back. At this point it is unclear. What Amazon wants to do about the loss is completely up to them. They can either decide to take the loss if it is more beneficial for them, or they can decide to ask for the money back. All I know is that they are finally communicating with us and I am happy about that.
When I saw it was happening, I stopped transferring money and so far haven't had problems. Through experience I've learned over the years that these problems occur with Amazon occasionally and it's best to check sites like Reddit to see what's going on. Then just stop doing whatever I'm doing until the problem clears.
Yes, Amazon probably can take a tax loss depending on how much money is involved in this. But recipients will have to pay taxes on this extra income if Amazon doesn't reclaim it. I'm wondering too, if Amazon asks for the money back, do some bank charge fees to return it to the accounts involved or to Amazon for the return? Those costs might get expensive if they add up. But I don't know if that occurs, only that banks will charge for whatever they can.
But my real fear would be that Amazon will look on any members who don't at least ask how to return the money as untrustworthy and shut their worker account. Many people here need the work. It's not worth that chance to me.
 

lil queen trashmouth

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What I don't understand here is how anyone can think that over payments are to their own benefit ? Why not just return the money? I've returned money through PayPal before. It wasn't difficult. Amazon will do what it needs to do to protect itself as a company. And who's to say that if the money isn't voluntarily returned, Amazon might look at those workers as unreliable and close their work accounts? And we don't know why this problem occurred. It was more problematic than this problem has been in the past. It could very well be that Amazon was hacked for whatever nefarious reason/s. Probably best just to wait and see what Amazon really does as its actions usually speak louder than its emails.
The mental image of people PayPalling Jeff Bezos $21.73 has me like this:

 

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When I saw it was happening, I stopped transferring money and so far haven't had problems. Through experience I've learned over the years that these problems occur with Amazon occasionally and it's best to check sites like Reddit to see what's going on. Then just stop doing whatever I'm doing until the problem clears.
Yes, Amazon probably can take a tax loss depending on how much money is involved in this. But recipients will have to pay taxes on this extra income if Amazon doesn't reclaim it. I'm wondering too, if Amazon asks for the money back, do some bank charge fees to return it to the accounts involved or to Amazon for the return? Those costs might get expensive if they add up. But I don't know if that occurs, only that banks will charge for whatever they can.
But my real fear would be that Amazon will look on any members who don't at least ask how to return the money as untrustworthy and shut their worker account. Many people here need the work. It's not worth that chance to me.
I'll GLADLY pay taxes on free money.

And I hope I get the chance to, but the most likely scenario is the account will stay negative and will only be paid back through a reload from your bank or mturk work transferred in. Either way it doesn't matter to me. I just am going to wait the 24-48 hours they said and see if my payments balance magically turns to 0... if it does, I will promptly get the amazon logo emblazoned across my chest.
 

jan

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Title: Rate a startup's idea(~ 2 minutes) | Accept
Requester: Benedikt Schnurr [A1IS9R06USPB5N] Contact
TV: [Hrly=$15.00] [Pay=Good] [Approval=~24 hrs] [Comm=Good] [Rej=0] [Blk=0]
TO: [Pay=4.55] [Fast=4.58] [Comm=0.00] [Fair=4.85] [Reviews=35] [ToS=0]
TO2: No Reviews
Reward: 0.15
Duration: 10:00
Available: 1
Description: Tell us what you think about this idea
Qualifications: Exc: [5347523-167020] DoesNotExist ; HIT approval rate (%) GreaterThanOrEqualTo 95; Location In US
 

LucyO

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When I saw it was happening, I stopped transferring money and so far haven't had problems. Through experience I've learned over the years that these problems occur with Amazon occasionally and it's best to check sites like Reddit to see what's going on. Then just stop doing whatever I'm doing until the problem clears.
Yes, Amazon probably can take a tax loss depending on how much money is involved in this. But recipients will have to pay taxes on this extra income if Amazon doesn't reclaim it. I'm wondering too, if Amazon asks for the money back, do some bank charge fees to return it to the accounts involved or to Amazon for the return? Those costs might get expensive if they add up. But I don't know if that occurs, only that banks will charge for whatever they can.
But my real fear would be that Amazon will look on any members who don't at least ask how to return the money as untrustworthy and shut their worker account. Many people here need the work. It's not worth that chance to me.
I don't think after all the phone calls and people worrying over it the past several days, that they will see anyone as untrustworthy. And it didn't just affect Mturk workers. Also, I don't think they can charge any fees on the negative balances since it was their error and since they have already stated that they won't reverse the charges and they will stay in the customer's accounts, then there shouldn't be any bank fees. If they do find out a way for us to pay it back then it would be just like paying a bill, only they would have to find out a way in which no interest could be accrued no matter how long it took the person to pay it back. Ultimately, it would probably cost them more money to try and get the money back than it would for them to just call it a loss. There have been cases of overpayment by employers in which the employer just had to call it a loss because by paying the additional amount to the employee, they had an unwritten agreement in which the employee thought the money was rightfully theirs and spent it. In those cases (called estoppel) the employer could not cause any retribution to fall on the employee because the mistake had been theirs. That example probably doesn't apply in this case, but it shows that this kind of thing does happen on occasion. I really need to work here too...I work on Mturk almost everyday and I'm sure they know that it wasn't our fault that this happened.❤
 

jan

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MORNING
Log in or register now. to view Spoiler content!
next week the carpool gig starts.
and the guy who helps me coordinate this (he does admissions)
said 'there are some who don't want to count carpool as your volunteer hours'

which is......pretty disappointing. Here I thought my carpool was valued by the school :(.

ETA: LOL - this is just my Monday brain thinking! I'm already thinking about all the coming Mondays!!
 
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Despairagus

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I've been trying to catch this for days ?
WILD! It has no rating when I look at it in my queue! Guess I'll go check Turkerview if it's been around days
 
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LucyO

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Does anyone on here use Overwatch? And if so, is it like something that alerts you when a requester you like posts something?
 
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Pugmom

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I did email Amazon Friday and ask them how to put the money back. I Didn't see a way to transfer the money from my bank back to the account. They didn't respond.
 
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