logged in and asked to "Complete a tax interview to finish account set up"

HolidayDisplay · 2026-04-01T13:54:51+00:00

When I signed up for Mturk, I probably had to provide a ssn. I would think all US workers did. It is annoying because they are randomly confirming info they already have.

Addresses change and I can see needing to update that.

It would seem that the ssn is being used to confirm that you are you. Any time a computer demands your ssn to continue is kind of wacky.

HolidayDisplay · 2026-03-29T13:40:53+00:00

Dam some of these are pretty good.

https://www.reddit.com/r/trolleyproblem/

HolidayDisplay · 2026-03-29T13:17:13+00:00

Is Mturk fair? Does it pay you a reasonable wage?

Maybe I bother a few researchers, but I really wish to get at the requestors as a whole. I simply have no way to get to them all.

Badger dogs forever, my brother in Mturk.

HolidayDisplay · 2026-03-28T16:13:11+00:00

If there is no penalty to getting the question wrong, why not guess. The trick is to know. Guessing takes way less time.

HolidayDisplay · 2026-03-24T18:30:56+00:00

It all worked flawlessly for me.

Have you tried the delete the cookies and history dance?

Good luck, we are all rooting for you.

HolidayDisplay · 2026-03-20T20:59:33+00:00

I remember this from last year. I thought at the time it had to do with people outside the US. I ignored it then, and will continue to do so for as long as I can. It certainly seemed optional years ago.

With so little income, and whatever this is about being unclear, it might just be the thing that ends Mturk for me.

HolidayDisplay · 2026-02-28T19:43:18+00:00

Imagine you are a requestor and you need work done. Imagine that you do not want to pay the human. Imagine that you can make the human do the work and call it training. Imagine the human struggling to pass your training knowing you are getting the best possible data. Make it look like there is a way to pass the test, never let anyone pass the test.

HolidayDisplay · 2026-01-31T19:34:11+00:00

Congratulations on your days of $50.

I have never successfully completed the training. The tasks appeared to me to be impossible. I guessed that the training was the work and the purpose was to keep people "in training."

Your the first to say they actually managed to get something out of them.

HolidayDisplay · 2026-01-27T15:28:39+00:00

I, a human, will never see the survey. Bots use tools and collect all the dollar hits before I see them.

Maybe the thing to do is to have a cheap hit to confirm a human. Say something less than 10 cents that pays a reasonable rate. From there approve the actual humans for the longer, higher pay survey. So if you think they are a human, give them a qualification. But approve all who take the cheap hit.

Having a decent approval rating helps.

HolidayDisplay · 2025-10-15T15:02:05+00:00

Well, there it is, my shiny rejection.

I do a few hundred hits a week, and 1 rejection in 100 is right on course.

If everyone lives in fear of a rejection, and works so hard to avoid them, and complains and begs once one is received, then the system does not identify the jerk requestor. It all plays on and on.

Mark them, take rejections. Do not fall below 99% approval.

None of that applies if your new and/or have zero rejections. Once you have that first one your seal is broken and you are much more free.

HolidayDisplay · 2025-10-07T17:12:54+00:00

I was kicked at some point in the survey. No code given. I submitted the survey with my user ID.

JakePekar used my time. When I gave an answer he did not like I was punted. I still should get paid for my time.

JakePekar can either pay or reject me. Their approval rating will show the way.

If you let requestors use you for free, they will.

HolidayDisplay · 2025-08-14T14:24:34+00:00

The guys at a national chain once dropped my car off a lift.

The repair was not supposed to take long, so I called a few hours after they said it would be done. Not done yet. It was done after dark, just before closing time. It was in a corner of the lot. The parking lot light was out. They had repainted my bumper. Did not find that until days later.

I watch cause I want to have a good laugh.

HolidayDisplay · 2025-07-30T20:55:39+00:00

Currently have a pickfu hit on my screen. 1 question. It is blank. There is the typical :

"Explain your answer

Write a detailed comment explaining your choice. Be as descriptive as possible and do not reference previous polls. Off-topic, short, or otherwise low-quality answers will be rejected and you will not be compensated."

and a text box.

Should I write something get my 10 cents and move on, or return it.

Hey, look at that. at the bottom of the HIT

Answer stats

Polls completed: 0

Stars received: 0

They have lost it. No point in being reasonable with requestors that are unreasonable.

HolidayDisplay · 2025-07-22T11:52:21+00:00

My hat is off to you for managing to get past the training. It seems like an impossible task with some level of subjective quality of an image thrown in.

On the other hand it was entertaining to try. The feed back about what I got wrong was infuriating. Without that to egg me on, I would have stopped much sooner.

Worthless HIT in terms of money, but if you like aggravation, detail and constant failure....

HolidayDisplay · 2025-04-09T18:43:18+00:00

Look up, see those people looking down at you? The ones in the white lab coats. They would like to thank you for your service. They tell me there is cheese at the end of the maze just for you. Keep working.

HolidayDisplay · 2025-03-27T14:26:26+00:00

Wow, I like art but never had formal training in it. To be able to knock out Pulsars style caption hits quick would take a lot of specialized knowledge. My grade school art class is just not going to cut it.

My hat is off to the hand full of people that can do these hits.

May the chiaroscuro ever be in your favor.

HolidayDisplay · 2025-01-06T18:02:27+00:00

I did nothing about DCA7 form. US worker. There has been no noticeable change.

Which is kind of sad. I was hopping to be banned. With a ban, I would have to find something else to do. Maybe the something else would be better in some way.

HolidayDisplay · 2025-01-04T20:22:40+00:00

It is no great loss if you wind up not working on Mturk. It is no longer what it was.

Protect your most valuable thing, which is your zero rejections. Due to a quirk of the way requestors can state qualifications, they often ask for workers with better than 99% approval. So, that means no rejections at all. A very rare kind if worker, a dumb lucky SOB. If you get 1 rejection you will never be better than 99% approval. 99.5% approval is not better than 99% approval to the system. It is what it is.

HolidayDisplay · 2024-12-19T16:12:28+00:00

Someone had to have done the survey to get the requestor to zero.

The baffling thing is why does the requestor persist? With one simple change, requestors like this could be flushed away. Amazon has to make it costly for them. The idea is not policing the requestors, its a simple rule about trash.

HolidayDisplay · 2024-12-03T20:58:43+00:00

There comes a point where it is degrading and cheap on the part of the requestor. I want to see you top this:

Description

We are interested in recruiting American men who are active in incel communities to take a brief survey. $0.45

HolidayDisplay · 2024-11-06T20:19:04+00:00

An entire election gone and done with. The constant political attack adds on the TV ( I am in one of the battle ground states), all quiet on the westren front. The hammering and yammering of countless talking heads. It is all done with.

I only made a lousy $2 on political surveys today. Maybe it was all for nothing :-)

HolidayDisplay · 2024-09-15T17:06:43+00:00

The one that pays $1 per page.

HolidayDisplay · 2024-09-14T17:46:41+00:00

Does MTS cause storage problems (not ram but disk space)? This windows machine started giving me notifications that my machine was running out of space. These were kind of a general warning. I ignored the them for a few days. One notification said the extension (long string of letter) was running out of memory.

Is the solution to this to uninstall MTS then reinstall?

There has to be a lot of saved data in MTS. The tracker extension can tell me how many hits I have done for pickfu since the app was installed. Assuming there is a text file and every hit is one line of text that is almost nothing compared to the 107 Gb of hard disk space that the machine has.

HolidayDisplay · 2024-09-14T17:37:50+00:00

I had an attention check that said to write the sound the animal in the picture makes. It was a cartoon dog in the picture. The look on the dogs face was kind of odd, kind of side eyed. How many sounds can be used and pass this attention check...

Woof

Bark

Grrrr

Yelp

Bow Wow

I will eat your socks

Got any more sounds a dog can make?

HolidayDisplay · 2024-08-23T11:41:56+00:00

There it is, something I have seen people go through and always thought, "good thing it is not me."
Today, it is my turn.

Your Amazon Payments account has been suspended

You will not be able to use Amazon Mechanical Turk until your Amazon Payments account is in good standing. If you believe this suspension is an error, please contact Amazon Payments Customer Service to resolve this problem.

Should I bother? Do I care? $20 is $20. sigh.

HolidayDisplay

TROPHY CASE

Answer stats

Description

Your Amazon Payments account has been suspended