Many visitors, mainly from India, are asking me to help them get started to work on Mechanical Turk, although they are from outside of the US. I have asked my main Virtual Assistant (who is from Pakistan) to research a solution for them.
In addition to the only way we can imagine how to get a Mechanical Turk worker worker ID outside from the US, you’ll learn the best alternative crowdsourcing sites to earn money from.
Over to my VA…
Overview
Mechanical Turk has not been accepting users outside the US anymore… Before 2012, the service was available worldwide. Only due to some undisclosed reasons, they are now limited exclusively to US citizens.
I have tried to investigate that why they have abandoned their services to other users, but did not find out any official statement on their behalf. However, some of the valid speculations suggest that there were high rate of complaints/frauds/scams against those users who mostly lived outside the US.
Also, if you already have a worker ID with Amazon Mechanical Turk and live outside the US, you can still work using the same ID. However, they are really observing such IDs closely and have zero-patience in the case of a misuse. They are rapidly blocking existing IDs that were allocated to users outside the US.
The only Legal Working Solution
According to my research, the only working solution (Which is somehow legal) to get a verified Mechanical Turk ID is that if you have a friend or relative residing in the US and verify the account on your behalf. In short, they will create an account for themselves, verify it and pass the ID to you.
If you’re lucky enough to find a friend or relative, who provides you a verified ID, you will still need their support in order to withdraw your earnings. Besides, you will have to use a USA IP and a VPN while working on the Mechanical Turk site, other than they may freeze your account, if they found you working outside the US.
Other Working Solutions (At your own risk!)
My Virtual Assistant has researched 3 services that claim to provide working Mechanical Turk accounts for money. We have not tested them but researched thoroughly to find the best-looking services.
If you are interested in knowing more, please fill out the form below.