"Your account violated the Circumventing systems policy."

[goodoldweb]

Anyone else had their account flagged/suspended with the dreadful "Your account violated the Circumventing systems policy." ?

Perfectly clean brand new site. Registered business. No clocking. Doing a quick search I noticed many other small advertiser reporting the same issue in the last 24 hours.

WTF's going on?

[RhinoFish]

Good stuff here, especially about closing suspended accounts:
[delvedeeper.com...]

More here:
[support.google.com...]

I've also seen old credit cards and / or incorrect / mismatched billing profiles and / or long overdue unpaid balances at the MCC level within your MCC trigger this flag for new accounts opened under that MCC. New accounts can inherit the credit card from the MCC above it, and MCC suspensions are rare (the child is usually flagged), so do everything you can, ethically, to keep your MCC clean. This includes making sure no old debt in any child is unresolved.

Most circumventing cases relayed to me have been about somebody unknowingly opening a second account (after the first one was suspended). Like an advertiser gets suspended, and they get the idea to hire an agency and start over, and you go build what you think is a brand new account...

My input here is not wonderful, it can be so difficult to get a straight answer. Be patient, and do not (knowingly) open a new account as a measure to get going while any issue is unresolved. Better to wait 2 months than to get stamped with the circumventing stamp.

I have not heard reports of this issue being widespread, but hey, I'm not chatting with my peers as much these days.

[goodoldweb]

Thanks RhinoFish.

The account was unsuspended after I sent a request for review. No explanations, or even a reply to my support request(s). What a crappy company to work with Google has become.

[bcc1234]

New accounts can inherit the credit card from the MCC above it

I remember there was a separate "payment method" and a billing profile for the MCC itself. Just went to look for it, and I can't see it.
In the MCC, under billing it only seems to have profiles for child accounts, not for the MCC itself.

I'm in the same situation with "circumventing systems" on a brand new account, and trying to make sure it's not because of a billing problem in the MCC.

[RhinoFish]

Using the Manager account (aka MCC) for billing is called Consolidated Billing, more here:
[support.google.com...]
[support.google.com...]

When this is used, the child inherits the billing details from the parent.
I have seen times when a child that had parental billing, was moved from one parent to another, and this triggered billing fraud flags.
And I have seen new accounts created under a consolidated billing MCC fire off fraud warnings as well, and these have been cases where the identity of the new child (newly created or newly transferred in) has billing entity info in the child, they inherit the parent card, but now there's a mismatch between the card and the entity.

If this happens DO NOT TRY TO CREATE new accounts to try and get past the fraud flag, wait for resolution.
When you get spazzy and start creating new accounts to try and resolve a fraud flag, this often makes things far worse.

If the MCC has consol billing OR if the child has previously had consol billing, I try and get the Google people to move / create the child.

[bcc1234]

I'm not even sure if this has to do with billing or not. They aren't talking. I wish they would just say what the problem is so I could fix it.

[RhinoFish]

They seem to have a stance like... "in case it's a scammer, do not engage, it will make policing and compliance much harder if they know our processes".

What this really does is make the MANY well-behaving, well-meaning people who get flagged on accident, very bitter.

Google Ads is a $150 billion dollar company, and the service you get as a customer is VERIFIABLY worse than the post office or the cable company.
Ironically, they collect reviews about my companies, and let the world know how my customer service is.

They stay busy trying to use automation to block scammers, but they just can't seem to get ahead of it:
[bbc.com...]
[adguard.com...]

They automate everything, including support, fraud detection, fraud processes, fraud appeals, and so much more.
Beyond nauseating when you've been flagged by some automated process and they refuse to let you appeal or even discuss the issue.

They are the poster child for what's wrong with excessive automation.
[nytimes.com...]
[theguardian.com...]

While you're waiting in Google Compliance Purgatory, try and figure out how to use other ad platforms, it'll pay off for you in the long run.
:-)