You think that somebody learns from past mistakes and does not repeat the same mistake over and over again. That does not seem to be true in the case of Google, specifically with their YouTube.com property.
After my very negative experience in January this year did one thing change to the better as a direct or indirect consequence of it. There is now a help page at the YouTube web page and a designated email address for related issues.
However, the general issue when it comes to responses in a timely fashion to time critical and multiple inquiry attempts remains the same. The help page regarding the previous issue is nice and good, but it is only the equivalent of fighting the symptoms of a viral disease instead of the cause of the disease itself, the virus.
While the consequences of my previous issue were very bad, the consequences of the current one are horrific in comparison, because of much more far reaching consequences.
I try to get a hold of somebody at YouTube for two weeks now, which is a long time by any reasonable standard. I contacted YouTube again today, the second time in writing instead of plain and simple email or contact form. I sent another fax, as I did two weeks ago, in addition to an email, due to the significance of the problem.
I will not only repeat what I sent to YouTube, but publish the exact copy of the fax that I sent to them instead.
To: YouTube, LLC Fresno, June 22, 2008
901 Cherry Ave.
San Bruno, CA 94066
USAFrom: Carsten Cumbrowski
7625 N 1st Street #154
Fresno, CA 93720
USASubject: Suspension of YouTube Account “Cumbrowski”
My YouTube account with the user name “Cumbrowski” is to this day in status “suspended”. I did not receive any notification about the suspension nor a reason why my account was suspended in the first place. I became aware of this fact on Monday, June 9, 2008 and sent a fax to the number (1-650-253-0001) that is provided on your website at http://youtube.com/t/contact_us.
I received a confirmation that the fax to 1-650-253-0001 was successfully transmitted at 2008-06-09 17:58:11 (GMT). The Receiving Fax ID was 1-650-618-1499.
I sent an email to support@youtube.com on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 to follow up on my fax and to determine the reason for the account suspension.
I received on June 17, 2008 a response from YouTube support regarding another inquiry that I made about a video conversion issue that I encountered with my second YouTube account (user name: sacreleases). The Case ID for this support request was: 292713019
I responded to the email, thanking for the provided information and with the request to determine the status of my inquiry regarding my YouTube account with user name “Cumbrowski”, because I did not hear anything back from you, despite my multiple contact attempts via different communication channels. I always provided multiple options to get in touch with me, including mailing address, phone number, email, fax number and other.
It is now almost 2 weeks since my initial attempt to contact you.
My account that used to be accessible via https://www.youtube.com/carstensvlog still shows the message “This account is suspended.” Instead of my user-page, none of my over 160 videos under this account are accessible, instead of a video appears the message: “This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.”.
The account was created on June 22, 2008 and today exactly two years old. I have over 200 subscribers to my channel and was in active communication with several people. My videos were watched several hundred thousand times and received hundreds of comments.
That I did not receive any notification about the suspension is bad enough, but I am more appalled by your ignorance or failure to respond to my official inquires about the account. I am not an anonymous user nor tried to hide my identity, quite the contrary. I have been very open and forthcoming to get the situation resolved in a professional manner.
I hope that this longer inquiry of mine will yield in some response from your part. I do not plan to walk away from two years of work to establish some sort of community; because somebody does not feel like that he has to answer my questions.
Regards,
__________________________________
Carsten Cumbrowski
Carsten@Cumbrowski.com
For additional contact option visit http://www.cumbrowski.com/contact
I have some ideas, why they suspended the account, assuming that they did not look into things a bit more carefully. The issues related to that are an entirely different story and something where I plan to write in more detail about soon. It is a complicated issue and somewhat “hot” as well, so I need to make sure that I make my homework well enough, before I jump onto it and open some closets to pull old and dirty laundry out into the open.
On a side note: There is a page at YouTube.com regarding the reason for my inquiry that states
“Users with suspended or terminated accounts are prohibited from creating new accounts or accessing YouTube’s community features.”
What about accounts, which I created before the suspension of one of my accounts? They serve different purposes anyway. A YouTube channel is like a blog. You do not want to mix too many non-related subjects, because it makes it harder to establish an identity and following.
Mmh… I guess becoming a partner is also out of the question now.
Considering the fact how professional YouTube handles serious issues and responsive they are to official inquiries regarding things that affect the user dramatically, I don’t think that I even would consider becoming a YouTube partner.
I could never entrust my livelihood and means to make a living to a partner who gives a damn about your problems that are a direct consequence of the partner’s actions. Would you?
Carsten Cumbrowski
Internet Marketer, Entrepreneur, Blogger and Internet Marketing Strategy Consultant
