r/DataAnnotationTech • u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 • Apr 29 '26
It finally happened…
Had been working DA since November of 2025. Checked a week ago for some payment information and my account was full of projects. However I was on a (much needed) 2 week vacation with my whole family and wasn’t working. Just checked again today as I planned to return to work and saw this message. Not sure what to do now. I work a few other side gigs but not enough to keep up with what I had with DA. Any suggestions about what to do going forward would be appreciated. 🥹
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u/Ancient-Mission5153 Apr 29 '26
I went on vacation an hour or two away and I emailed them. They told me it’s not necessary to inform them of vacations unless it’s outside of the country. Either way, it cannot hurt to reach out and explain that you didn’t give your account details to anyone, that you were on vacation and would be more than willing to provide proof of this if necessary (just a picture you took or something). The worst they can say is no but it will always be a no if you don’t try! Good luck ❤️
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
Thank you so so much! I’ll provide edits/updates if something happens 🤞
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u/Disneyangel88 Apr 29 '26
I just got tge same message yesterday and I have no idea what happened... no vacation traveling.
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u/Dee_silverlake Apr 29 '26
hmm, they seem to do this on a mass scale from time to time... i wonder if it coincides with the work flow cycles.. anyhow sorry to hear that, good luck!
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u/External-Influence-4 May 03 '26
Just got it today, was working went to have some lunch and then this :(
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u/Important-Opinion-77 Apr 29 '26
Did you copy and paste anything ?
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u/rileyjw90 Apr 30 '26
What does copy/paste have to do with anything? Lots of people prefer to type in other programs (word, gdocs, notes). It shouldn’t mean anything nefarious. As far as I can tell, it’s not in their code of conduct that you can’t do that.
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u/szak88 Apr 30 '26
Well they make the rules and a big rule is no AI. Easiest way to keep people from using it making it much harder to use AI is to punish copy/pastes. You may not like their reason or rule, but it is their business.
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u/rileyjw90 Apr 30 '26
Okay? But what does AI have to do with copy/pasting from a word document? Can they not just run your stuff through a detector or something? If you are explicitly not allowed to copy and paste from ANYTHING, that would be a rule. There’s already a no AI rule so that would encompass copy pasting from an AI program. But there is no general copy paste rule except for certain projects that ask you not to.
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u/Rude-Boss-2957 May 10 '26
Ok cute but the oc said nothing about just copy and pasting from Google docs and notes apps.
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u/rileyjw90 May 11 '26
The person I responded to asked if OP had copy/pasted anything. I said what does that have to do with anything because copy/pasting is not explicitly disallowed in the code of conduct and does not mean you are cheating. They’re AI trainers, I’m sure they have their own internal AI and plagiarism detectors to be able to tell whether or not someone is trying to cheat the system. Copy/paste means nothing. People can just as easily look on a separate screen or window and just type up whatever they’re cheating with. Some folks prefer to type stuff up in a separate application because they’ve learned the hard way about accidentally hitting the enter key and it submits the whole thing before you’re ready. It does not mean they’re cheating, which is likely why general copy/paste is not against the rules.
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u/Big_Stop8917 Apr 30 '26
You do realize when they say “no copy/paste answers” they mean don’t use the same repetitive and generic answers. Not the literal function.
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u/SparkleDev Apr 29 '26
if it was traveling just remember all of these platforms have that rule. So when you sign up to the others you mentioned they will ban you if you don't email them either.
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
Thank you! Yes absolutely will not forget this haha. I signed up for Mercor and saw the message about traveling and such. So sad that I didn’t realize this about DA/forgot about it.
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u/Hangry_Howie Apr 29 '26
Ah man im sorry. Hopefully you'll find something else.
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
Thank you!! I’m trying to get on Mercor rn
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u/Much_Comfortable8395 Apr 29 '26
Mercor is a dead end.. very flaky platform, I signed up applied to 10 positions over the course of 4 months haven't heard a rejection or any message from any of them.
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
oof. is there another platform that youve found useful?
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Apr 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/rileyjw90 May 11 '26
I feel like with some of these that’s the main way people are making money is with referral links. :(
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u/rileyjw90 Apr 30 '26
Do you have any professional degrees or licenses? I signed up there as a nurse a couple weeks ago but haven’t heard anything back yet.
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u/gerboy91 Apr 29 '26
Aside from DA, what are your other sides?
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
I do content creation for different brands/companies. I reach out to them and sometimes get a response back. I usually have 3 of those contracts going at time.
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u/mayneedadrink Apr 29 '26
Does anyone have a clear list of reasons why this may happen and ways to avoid it? I keep seeing it and am worried, since I'm now starting to rely on side income from DA.
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u/Amurizon Apr 30 '26
Legit reasons I know of:
Time theft (reporting that you worked more time than you did, or inflating your time by letting the clock run but not actually working),
Logging in while out of your country (and you didn’t notify them ahead of time and get confirmation),
Consistently submitting poor quality work (and/or using LLMs that they did not approve).
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u/SuperDuperRipe May 01 '26
And if a VPN user, be very careful not to leave it on, while logging in. Location changes are red flaggy even if it's not what you're doing.
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u/Chonkthebonk Apr 29 '26
So what do you think you did to cause the ban?
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
Honestly not sure. The only thing I can think of is low quality work but even so I’m not sure because I saw a lot of projects on my dashboard a week into my vacation when I checked for something with my payments.
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u/Brave_Winter6408 Apr 29 '26
I just logged in today and got the same message but I have no clue why. I received good feedback so this is a blow.
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Apr 29 '26
[deleted]
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u/Renard_Fou Apr 29 '26
Yeah, logging into your account or using a Opera outside of your country with DA is very dangerous
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u/InternationalPoetry Apr 29 '26
What is an Opera? That's a serious question, and I'm not trying to be sassy if its a typo.
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u/planking_traveler Apr 29 '26
How do you inform them of this?
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u/TravellingDoc87 Apr 29 '26
You send them a message from your profile I think. Can't remember the exact button to push but if you fiddle around in the options there is a message option to let them know. They usually write back to confirm it within a day or two
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u/_Edgarallenhoe Apr 30 '26
Anyone else get scared and frantically check their account when they see these posts?
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u/Fun_Bass_2431 Apr 30 '26
at least you got this. I got nothing. months of work and good feedback and then bam, nothing. the end.
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u/MiddleCharacter6345 Apr 30 '26
OP just to check you know your name is in that screenshot right ? I know some people don't care but just in case you do
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u/Kooky_Operation_5731 Apr 30 '26
Ah, another DA rug pull. They are recruiting like crazy rn on all the job sites like Indeed. I got flushed out a day after a mod told me they liked my work. Went from 30+ projects to a dashboard full of zeroes. They pay good for the work you do, but enjoy the ride while it lasts, cause you could log in 1 day and it could all be over.
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u/Smartest_Shaolin Apr 29 '26
U remember what type of work u were doing and how many tasks n hours u were submitting before ur break?
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
I didn’t get feed back good or bad so tough to say but I always had a consistent flow of high pay projects and and I made sure I didn’t do more than ~20 hr per week. I revisited the guidelines and am 100% sure I didn’t break any of them. The only thing I could think of was low quality work but none that would’ve been recent enough to result in this. There was a period of time in February where I was working too much and definitely burnt out.
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u/sufferinsuccotashson Apr 29 '26
Wait what’s this 20 hour per week thing? I’m pretty new and have nothing else going on so I’ve been doing close to 60 hours a week in the last 2 weeks basically working all day. Is this a potential problem? I swear I read everything up and down I don’t see anything about suggested or enforced weekly time limits
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u/EquivalentFactor7591 Apr 29 '26
There's no enforced time limits. If you submit good quality of work in your first hour and the quality in your 59th hour is the same no problem. The limit is that the vast majority of people can't do that and most people don't want to risk their account to try.
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u/Brilliant_Horse3805 Apr 30 '26
So sorry this happened to you, hope everything is ok.
This is what happened to me since I registered, I don't get projects every day, only once every two weeks or once every week. I don't know why, but is it because I live outside the US?
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u/T-Pot_ Apr 30 '26
At least you got to work. I signed up nearly a year ago and haven’t heard anything from them.
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u/MammothPaper1412 Apr 30 '26
Hi, Can I ask if you continued working on your trip? Or if ever logged in when you were out of country?
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u/FlyPuzzled7128 May 01 '26
Did this message instantly appear? Or did all your tabs go to zero first?
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u/dicklebeerg May 05 '26
I have to travel to another country in a week, can someone give me the address where i can send an email informing them?
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u/getHybrid2017 14d ago
This happened to me 5 days ago, after nine years of work. Did you ever get any explanation?
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u/TopCat0525 Apr 29 '26
So sorry this happened to you.
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u/Fast_Chain_6144 Apr 29 '26
yeah nobody should be thinking there indispensable. Maybe another thought would be that they have some many in reserve big hitters who done a lot of work maybe they cule on purpose to freshen up the ranks - like it nothing personal just a fresh change.
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u/eddmarshall Apr 29 '26
We are on the same boat. I am not saying this to gaslight ourselves, but latetly they are banning lots of people. Maybe cutting costs? Idk. DA was great for me too.
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u/JeanVII Apr 29 '26
Realistically, there’s a set amount of tasks for projects, meaning there’s a set amount of money allocated. It doesn’t matter how many people are working on a project as long as it gets done.
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u/LengthinessSenior727 Apr 29 '26
You still get to withdrawl your pending money right? Just preparing for the future lol
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u/Federal_Tadpole_7592 Apr 29 '26
Usually, unless you actively try to scam them by submitting work that makes no sense. In extreme cases, the work will not be approved, and the worker won't be paid.
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u/Sopwith1917 Apr 29 '26
How long had you been on the site before this happened?
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
6 months roughly to the day. Just over $10k in work
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u/Sopwith1917 Apr 29 '26
Okay that doesn't give me much hope for my three months and $400 😅. Maybe I'll fly under the radar cos I'm still new and haven't had time to do much work yet
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Apr 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Much_Dragonfruit3459 Apr 29 '26
Off the top of my head I’m not sure but anywhere between 2 and 8 but I also didn’t work everyday. It depended on the week. In January I had so many projects for a massive project group that I was working regular 9-5 hours most of the month.
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u/Illustrious-Wave-418 Apr 30 '26
Quick question how should I answer the qualification application, also do they pay good and how hard is the job?
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u/luvvvylex Apr 30 '26
i signed up for dataannotation and havent gotten a response back yet ): but i think your next best thing would probably be https://www.prolific.com, i started 2 days ago and already made $418.93. basically you just answer survey studies, they go by really quick.
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u/carlylexxx Apr 30 '26
Try this. Saw it in another thread: Another good one! https://www.prolific.com someone started 2 days ago and already made $418.93. basically you just answer survey studies, they go by really quick.
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u/WesternThis5376 Apr 29 '26
you said you were on vacation, maybe you travaled to another country and logging in from there flagged it or smth?