Adsense Nonsense - by the numbers
Two days have passed since I tried to cash my Google Adsense check. Two days ago, I tried to call someone, anyone at Google to find out what to do.
I’ve replied to the email address from which Brian the Adsense payments operations guy wrote to me. Who knows where that thing goes as it’s a generic address, adsense-support@google.com. One day has passed since I phoned Google’s main inbound number to leave a message for Brian the Adsense payments operations guy. Twenty-eight total communications between me and someone at Google.
A week has passed since the generous offer from Matt Cutts to help get attention to my plight. Two weeks have passed since I wrote to Google’s email bot for help.
Two months have passed since a technical glitch prevented me from updating my address at Adsense. One month has passed since Adsense actually updated my adress. One week has passed since Brian tried to provide excellent assistance by FedEx’ing a check to me.
Apologies and homage to Jason Shellen
The question that continues to remain unanswered and hangs in the air. “Why has no one from Google responded to my request for help with the NSF check they sent 6 days ago?”
UPDATE: Several bloggers have expressed concern to me privately that they fear blogging about or commenting on this topic would put their participation in the Adsense program in jeopardy. Is ad revenue the price of free speech? Now, that’s scary. This concern is fueled by the numerous reports from bloggers that their Adsense participation has been terminated by Google with little to zero explanation.
Related Posts:
Adsense Nonsense 2.0, Google writes a bad check
Adsense Dollars and Cents, not Nonsense
Hi Mobile Jones
First, the way you told the story with the re-enactment and all is priceless. It is very funny.
Secondly, obviously, we all are appalled. How can Google not have money to cover a check, and if they don’t, why don’t they resolve it immediately with you.
I blogged about it of course as I promised, at Communities-dominate.blogs.com and urged people to come and read your story.
I hope and trust you’ll get your money soon, and that this must really be a rare exception in their system.
Best of luck
Tomi T Ahonen
Why did you have to bother with being paid via check? Google have wired over $1000 in total to my bank account now, no problems with any of the payments…
Mobilejones? Are we related?
That is some story! I can’t believe that there are people willing to pay for that check also! tell us if you get a very lucrative offer.
And you simply must stop by my site and leave a comment. With a name like that! I’m glad I found you!
Wicked funny story, I’m sure everything will work out eventually though.
But I’m curious, do you have another site where you display adsense ads? Because I don’t see any on this blog (was wondering how you’d integrate them with your nice theme)…
[…] Jones has one of the funniest yet familiar sounding posts (and an update) regarding Google sending her a bad […]
Now that’s not right! But it is funny.
I won’t mention it to my wife. I can hear her now, “And the reason we’re not switched over to electronic payments is…?
Best of luck on getting a valid check.
I guess you can always turn the matter over to law enforcement.
This isn’t the first time that this has happened, and going EFT isn’t necessarily the answer:
See the Plenty of Fish story. It happened over a year ago, and it was subsequently sorted, but seeing that it can still happen is a little unsettling.
Was wondering how come it takes that long to get your new check..Hmmm but i think big companies have big procedure and less money
“This concern is fueled by the numerous reports from bloggers that their Adsense participation has been terminated by Google with little to zero explanation.”
I feel your pain. I find it really annoying when trying to communicate with a company and the only response you get is a copy-n-paste answer that doesn’t even answer the question being asked.
I know that companies do this to cut down on costs by increasing the response time, but it comes as a major cost to the customer.
It’s different if I was asking a general question which could be answered by a copy-n-paste answer. When I ask a specific question or need specific help, I expect the company to read and provide a personal response. Not just a copy and pasted answer.
Although my experience in the past with Google was positive, I recently ran into a similar situation. With the increased reports of people getting shut down by Google with little/no warning. I emailed Google directly to get clarification from them on if indeed they would shut you down with little or no warning.
The answer I received was less than useful.
Check out both posts on my site:
http://www.s-cole.com/2007/07/11/an-email-to-google/
http://www.s-cole.com/2007/07/12/a-reponse-from-google/
Have a great day,
Shannon
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I was banned by AdSense with no explanation when they’d only been on my blog for about a month. I emailed them and never received a reply. After reading literally hundreds of accounts from other bloggers who had been likewise summarily terminated, I became convinced that (at least for small-time bloggers) AdSense is a scam.
Like so many others, I had never clicked on an ad on my own blog and had also never encouraged anyone else to click on one. Also I couldn’t find anything in my logs that looked like fraud–but then I’m no self proclaimed expert as are the Google employees.
I submitted an appeal, but never heard a reply to it either. Oh well, I think I can survive without the $1.23 that AdSense would have earned me in that initial month if I hadn’t been banned.