Using MTurk as a state employee (professor) for work (gathering survey data)

Discussion in 'Requesters' started by ThePaulson, Oct 25, 2014.

  1. ThePaulson

    ThePaulson New Member

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    Hi Folks,
    I'm a professor at a pubilc American university, and I used MTurk to gather some research data over the summer. It worked brilliantly. Now, I'm trying to do the same thing, but my account got locked. Amazon tells me that they need personal mail (from my bank, for instance) sent to the address I have on MTurk. The problem is that I don't get personal mail at the work address I gave MTurk. Nor do I use my own personal money to pay for my MTurk data. Instead, in the past I've paid MTurk expenses using our accountant's University credit card.

    The only solution they are offering me is to link MTurk to my home address and personal bank account. But, this really makes no sense for a requester like me who is never going to use MTurk for personal income.

    Anyone have this problem? Any advice?

    Cheers,
    P
     
  2. boardwalkumpire

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    That seems really silly, and I'm sure that most requesters don't use MTurk under their personal information. Personally I don't have experience with it, but it seems like there has to be a better solution. Maybe contact them again and see if you can set up a business Amazon Payments account using your university's EIN? Usually they need that information in order to set up a personal Payments account in order to verify identity because of tax issues, but a business account with an EIN or TIN would work just as well. I know a lot of university departments share mturk accounts among different researchers using the Uni's EIN.
     
    #2 boardwalkumpire, Oct 27, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 27, 2014
  3. Tribune

    Tribune User

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    Amazon recently changed its rules. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

    boardwalkumpire is correct; you may need to "back out" of some of the options Amazon is trying to select. You want a Business Amazon Payments account, now an entirely different animal than a Personal Amazon Payments account, which is the kind of verification they are demanding.

    Here are their instructions for 'upgrading' to a business account. (Be prepared for additional frustrations since, even if that material is correct -- something I'm unwilling to vouch for -- the people at Amazon won't be acquainted with it yet).
     

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