Have you been denied by Amazon’s Mechanical Turk?  I feel your pain; I was also denied by Mturk when I applied.  It is difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why you may have been denied, but it may have something to do with an overwhelming number of applicants and not enough openings.

Of course, there could be other reasons, such as location, or something they saw when checking out who you are.

None-the-less, you have been denied.

This article will go over what do if you are denied by Amazon Mechanical Turk ( MTurk ).  I will share my story about how I was denied, then invited to join.  I will also go over what I believe to be a viable option for you as you wait for an approval.

I was denied, then invited to join

I was denied by Amazon Mechanical Turk when I initially applied to use their platform.  I had no idea why I was denied; I was perplexed and a felt a little slighted.

I applied for Mturk in December of 2016, and by January 22, 2017, I received my denial letter.

This is how it read:

Greetings from Amazon Mechanical Turk.  We have completed our review of your Amazon Mechanical Turk Work Account.  We regret to inform you that you will not be 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,

Sincerely,

Amazon Mechanical Turk

As you can see, they don’t give you a reason for the denial.  The part that I was irked by was the sentence stating, “We regret to inform you that you will not be permitted to work on Mechanical Turk”.

The way this sentence reads made me believe I would not be permitted to work on the platform at any time in the future.  For this reason, I had written off Mturk.

Then, on May 24, 2017 (a little over 4 months later) I was invited to join!

I received an email saying this in the opening:

Greetings from Amazon Mechanical Turk,

Congratulations, your Mechanical Turk account has been approved.

 So, if you are someone who has had a similar experience being denied, don’t completely write it off.  I also found multiple people on Reddit who had been denied, and some of them were eventually invited to join.

Alternatives to Mturk

If you are denied by Mturk, I suggest trying Spare5, Clickworker, survey companies, and Swagbucks. 

Spare 5

Spare 5 is an app paying a little for completing small tasks.  Although it does not have the potential of Mturk, there is room to make money with the app.

You can also use Spare 5 on your computer.

I suggest downloading the Spare 5 app and seeing how it works for you – you don’t have to be approved and you can start tasks within 5 minutes.

Clickworker

From the research I have done, Clickworker seems to be the second best platform after Mturk.  I applied for Clickworker after I was denied by Mturk, and I had absolutely no problem signing up with them.

Once you onboard with Clickworker, I would specifically sign up for the UHRS side of Clickworker.  This is where the majority of well-paying jobs seem to be.

Here is a link if you want to sign up for Clickworker: Clickworker Signup

Here is a link to my review of Clickworker which goes over UHRS: Clickworker – Is it a legitimate work from home job?

Surveys

I made about $25 last week just by doing surveys on MTurk.  If you have been denied by MTurk, you still have the option of accessing surveys to make some income.

These companies may not be available for those outside the US, but I know many countries have survey companies available for some extra income.  (Global Test Market below may be available for some outside the US.)

This is a list of companies I would suggest signing up with – they will start sending you surveys daily or weekly and you can immediately start earning some money from them:

1.  Pinecone Research
2. Global Test Market
3. Opinion Outpost 
4. Ipsos

I wrote an article about these sites which you an read here: Related article: Earn an Extra $2,000+ This Year with These 7 Free Survey Sites

Swagbucks

Swagbucks is also a preferred alternative to Mturk.  Swagbucks offers similar ways to make money (for example, it also offers surveys).  Swagbucks is also MUCH easier to signup for than Mturk.  You could have an account created in a couple minutes.

You can click here if you want to quickly signup for Swagbucks.

Here is a review I wrote about Swagbucks: How to Make Extra Income Today with Swagbucks!

If I were you, I would give it six months before completely writing off being accepted to Mturk.  In those six months, I would suggest you do work on the Clickworker platform via UHRS, and also Swagbucks.

If you do start doing jobs on Clickworker and Swagbucks, then end up being invited to Mturk, I would still suggest using all platforms going forward.  I would check Clickworker for high quality jobs in tandem with checking Mturk.  You can also use Swagbucks when it gets slow on Mturk and Clickworker.

With all three of these, you should be better off than with just one.

Thanks for reading!

Has anyone out there been denied by Mturk?  What did you do after denial?

Photo Credit: Designed by Freepik

Disclaimer: These are the ideas and opinions of the author.  The author is not responsible for the actions of those who read the posts on this blog.  Each individual reader has a unique situation and unique needs.  This blog is not intended to solve those unique situations of the readers.  This blog is not liable for decisions made by the readers of this blog.

You know how websites add a section at the bottom that says, “This post MAY contain affiliate links”?  Well, I am not going to be vague like those websites.  We all know if they write that sentence, the post includes affiliate links.  So, I will tell you straight up that this post DOES include affiliate links.  Use them, I will make a little dough (at no extra cost to you).  Here is my affiliate link disclaimer if you want to read more:  DISCLAIMER