Banned- Google owes me over $25,000

Screwed. My friend got that email, he didn't do anything, appealing is pointless.

 

I always think that Google doesnt want people to succeed under "legal" terms of following TOS.

Away from that, im not sure of it then.

Sorry to hear.

 

Me neither...there has to be some better way to handle these violations.

It reminds me back to the AOL Tos violation days....dl yourself a good TOS program and get any AOL member banned.

 

you've spent $20K to make $25K... that doesn't sound like a good business model

 

I'm sorry to say but 1 person is NOT going to beat a multi billion dollar company. Please remember OJ Simpsons lawyer got away with obvious murder because OJ had money to pay him.

 

Would've been good money if he got paid.

$5k profit for not doing much? Sounds good to me!

Hope you find a way out of this mess. Best of luck.

 

Doesn't should good at first but in the long run it may be good.

 

Google SUX these days .. better you go for a good lawyer to make them disclose reason of ban (proof) .. this way you'll get your money with honor. Otherwise its gone.

 

it's never "not doing much"
it takes lots of time and knowledge and with margins this tight, I think it's just not worth it. Same as with promoting directories, or any web business. You invest some and gain some, but it's not passive investment

 

unless you were banned for click fraud and adsense wrote you in the email that you won't be paid - you should get your money.

 

Michael, the email actually does NOT state that I will not receive the money. Does that mean I should be ok?

 

If Michael is correct, then I'd wait until about the time you SHOULD receive payment. Actually, I would reply and ask if you are going to receive payment or not. Of course though, they banned you for fraud, so I would think that they would return the money to advertisers.

 

Or you could hire a professional killer for 20k who will set the things up with some of the goggles staff; Now seriously i don t understand much of this google pack, but i would never spend 20k to advertise a site.sorry for you and good luck

 

I appreciate everyone's input and suggestions.

Is there any way a moderator can close and delete this thread? Now that it appears I will be contacting a lawyer, I want to make sure that this becomes between me and Google in private.

With that said, be careful people- never assume that your Adsense or Adwords accounts are safe.

 

Arbitrage is risky, you should have waited for your big check/wire. I agree with someone, your money is gone and for good. According to Google, you broke their TOS, and according to the same TOS, you cant get your money. Sorry

 

I remember seeing an ad on adbrite for this (I manually approve each ad) and I said to myself, this guy is looking for trouble.

Looks like he did get in trouble.

For me this ad directly went to the google-pack website, it did not go to his website first.

This could be considered as:

A) Modifying the code
B) Not displaying the Ad "As is" without modification

Which could lead to invalid clicks. I know it sucks espically as each user has to install the google pack, before you get your money.

BUT, saying that, the ad you clicked on could of been miss leading (I cant remember what it was originally, or how it was advertised) and people could of thought they were downloading and installing other type of software.

This is why I believe you were banned from AdSense.

Pierce

 

I don't know the full story behind your banning Bradical and what you said later that Google had reasons to not like you makes me wonder what the whole story is, but let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you did nothing wrong to violate Google's TOS. If you fully believe that you are the wronged party I would suggest the following things:

- first thing, get all your details in order. Write down what happened and any irregularities that you believe happened. Write down the details of why it cost you $20K, all the ins and outs of your costs of doing business.

- next, appeal to Google and ask to speak to an account manager on the phone. Record the call (but inform the person on the phone that you are). Present the information you have written down outlining why you are out $20K and with no way to pay off your bills. Ask for specifics as to why your account was banned. $25 K is a large enough amount that you should receive extra attention from Google.

- if Google fails to re-assess their decision to your satisfaction, do a search for a lawyer that specializes in new media. There may also be a class action lawsuit out there that you can join.

- Contact the media online. Do some research and find out what the email addresses are for the new media/internet business editors working at CNET, Yahoo, Business 2.0, Wired, Techweb, Reuters, Netnews, etc. All of the major newspapers (The LA Times, Financial Times, WSJ, Guardian, etc.) have IT/internet editors. Their email addresses can be found by spending 30 minutes online. Write up a short paragraph explaining your predicament, that you are a victim of the new business economy model, that you are given no detailed explanation as to why your monies earned can be held back at any moment and no recourse to appeal. Underdog stories are loved by the news media and this is shaping up to be a juicy one. A big billion dollar software titan wipes out a new business owner and doesn't offer an explanation why? A lot of editors will sink their teeth into that story and the resulting press won't be favorable to Google if they chose to ignore the problem.

- Finally, write up your story and publish it online at article directory websites. If you don't like writing it out, go pay a content writer the DP content forums to do it. Spend some money on a few articles describing your experience, maybe even pay for a press release about what happened and sned it out on the PR newswite for hundreds of news editors to see. If it were me in your position, based on the amount of money that you're about to be out, the cost of hiring a good PR person with deep contacts and a content writer to make a couple of 500 word articles telling your story for Google bots to crawl and index those stories would be worth it. You never know what the tipping point is and whether the publicity will be enough to get Google to reconsider their position and reinstate your account and the money that they owe you.

Google can't be right all the time and sooner or later they will (or have already) make the wrong decision and cut off an honest person that was following the rules of their TOS. People have to know that they aren't powerless. Google is making money from our hard work just as much as we are making money from their hard work. Don't give up!

 

This is one of the few bans i've seen that happened just a couple of days before payment time.

Anybody knew somebody who got banned during "PIP"?

 

Pierce- No, that's not even close to related to my situation. I'm not that stupid, and I didn't violate their TOS.

Chant- thanks for your post. I have an incredibly interesting story to tell about Google, that goes back to 2002 when I was a Google employee.

I think I will write up a story about my Google experience.

 

You have no case.

https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/LocalizedTerms.html?gsessionid=XRO_lhXGktE

You're out 20K in advertising expenses and you're just going to be out more in lawyer fees.

It sounds like you were paying for cheap ads to get people to go to your site and click on AdSense ads. My guess is that your traffic sucked at converting. AdSense advertisers paid a lot more than $25K for all the ads your visitors clicked on. I can imagine they were none too happy to not get a reasonable return on their investment.