Experienced Mechanical Turk workers know who these unknown
entities are and avoid them like the plague. The
copy business cards under the guise of Oscar Smith is for an app called
CardMunch which is owned by LinkedIn. Yes,
a multi-million dollar corporation is the one behind paying workers less than
$1 per hour.
The other one, copy receipts is Jon Brelig. This is a
startup who chooses to use the CEO’s name as their requester name for the
company InfoScout. They operate two apps Receipt Hog and Shoparoo.
These two companies undermine and devalue the entire
workplace and are highly visible because of the apps they use. When a customer inputs a new receipt or
business card, their hits refresh and show up on the top of the newest hit
list. So they are always visible like a herpes sore. I have personally spoken
with representatives from both companies in the past and would gladly punch them
in the face if I met them in person. The standard response when questioned
about these payment practices is “You do not have to work on them, it is your
choice”.
There is a huge learning curve on Mturk and it can take
upwards of 6 mo to a year before you can earn a reasonable wage. For someone just
looking in from the outside, it can seem like it is not worth the time, but
with experience you build up a list of the right people to work for and you can
make it work. I average $320 a week on mturk working maybe 4 hours per day. It
is not a huge amount of money, but it really helps out and I do not work for shitheads like Oscar Smith and Jon Brelig.
New non-usa
accounts have not been accepted on Mturk for close to a year. They are
gradually eliminating these foreign accounts because of low quality work.
And yes, Indians and
new turkers are primarily the ones working for LinkedIn aka Oscar Smith and Jon
Brelig because not a single American with even a shred of self esteem or self
worth would work for these scumbags. .
