This is what happened:
3 weeks ago I asked a client of mine that is an Adwords user himself, to look into my account. I needed some help with sdome stupid setting/bidding issue.
He logged in from California ( where he lives ) and looked around for 5 minutes.
Well, last week I get an email from Google saying I canoot advertise anymore with them becasue I violated their TOS. They say my account is associated with another Adwords account that was trying to advertise drugs and drug paraphernalia.
Needless to say I was shocked and outraged. I called them many times demanding an investigation. They didnt bother to investigate firther. I was compltely cluless as to what could have happened.
I have a pearl jewlery site and software site and have NEVER been related to drugs in any way shape or form.
Everytime I call they tell me they want me to call again, that there is nothing they can do and won't show me any evidence to support their accusation.
I have been destroyed financially and emotionally by this.
Finally I, after calling the client I mentioned before he told me that he was running an Adwords account for one of his clients that had a legal Medicinal Marihuana clinic in California and that his Adwords account had been shut down before.
So this is the only explanation. Google thinks I sell drugs becasue somebody they had banned already logged into my account for 5 minutes ...( I didnt even know his account had been closed before ).
Way to go Google, after 5 years of being a loyal customer you are treating me now like a criminal for no reason whatsoever. There are no possible explanations for you, you refure to listen to me and you refuse to help me solve this error.
Everytime I call nobody wants to put me with a supervisor and they tell me not to call again.
Do you guys think this is fair? I know this forum has a lot of Google users so I am asking for your opinion on what to do.
I have contacted aa ttorney and I am thinking of acting legally.
Any help is appreciated.
Hello Franco,
Thank you for your email. After careful consideration, we have reactivated your Account 33333333333333.
Please provide us with the customer account numbers for your other accounts so that we can evaluate them.
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They have realized they made a mistake. The only way I could force them to look at the evidence was through a legal letter from my lawyer.
Yes, I am happy but it shouldnt have never happened in the first place.
Trouble is with both, that when people get caugt, however innocent their actions (not understanding TOS etc), they never seem to be able to confess in public - this bloke won't confess here, his mate (who dropped him right in it), didn't admit until too late.
"Adsense - The Last Tabboo" - coming soon to a screen near you!
You could always torture them first, I suppose, to be certain ;)
I dont know what you mean by "confess"
I explained the situation here with details since day 1. That was the whole case.
I think is clear that Google reactivated my account, because, like I have said from the beginning, I was innocent.
what i do in those cases now is I run an IP hide/masker if I am not in my computer, everytime i try to login to my account.
after this i cant never be too sure.
Because of this story ... I went on Holiday on my parents place and was afraid to go into my own account using my fathers computer.
I too have become scared of accessing my account from another computer that I don't have full control over.
It seems to me that fvaldes could have gone to visit his friend in Cali and while staying there for a week logged into his account from his friend's computer and the same result would have happened.
To me that is scary.. imagine your Internet goes out... you head down to the local cafe to complete your work... you log in do your stuff and leave.... only to find you have be banned because that computer was the same place some scammer sat at and has had accounts banned on.
Can that be right?
Can that be right?
Not nice, but what's the alternative? As an adsense publisher, I lose out, as Google does, from scammers and cheats.
I'm very glad that Google does their best to weed them out, and I wish they'd do more, in fact.
Granted, this does - occasionally - make my life a little difficult, but that's show business; I'd rather a little inconvenience, if that's going to help remove the scammers who syphon off income from all of us.
Avoiding shared computers, knowing who my friends are, and protecting my passwords are not even an inconvenience, just a fact of life.
Won't have any issues this way.
heyday
