Account Disabled. 5 Strikes. 100 Appeals. No Response.

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YTPunchingBag

YTPunchingBag

Member
More Success. More Problems.

I don't even know where to begin!

I unbelievably have a total of 5 strikes (3 copyright, 2 community) on my account. As soon as my channel started growing authentically fast, competitors, copyright trolls, and some undesirable users began to target my channel, claim my videos, and flag my videos as spam.

The 2 copyright strikes were already retracted by one company a few days ago, but YouTube never processed the retractions! And to make matters worse, a copyright troll named TravelVideoStore.com got my video taken down, my account got disabled yesterday, and my appeal for a community strike was rejected.

I did everything that I was supposed to do. I submitted counter notifications, appeals, letters to YouTube, and evidence to YouTube.

In the meantime, my thousands of subscribers are upset that my channel disappeared. I am losing a ton of views, subscribers, engagement, and revenue over this. My channel cannot afford to remain down this long. All I ask is for my case to be escalated to management and someone from YouTube to hear about it and repair this. Both the copyright system and report abuse tools are terribly broken and have been exploited for too long.
 
Was it a specific video, or were the strikes spread out of different videos?

It´s a big shame that it happens to you!
 
TheSwedishTraveler said:
Was it a specific video, or were the strikes spread out of different videos?

It´s a big shame that it happens to you!
Click to expand...

The 5 strikes were spread out on 5 different videos, so 5 videos were taken down!
  • 2 copyright strikes were retracted, but YouTube did not process the claimant's retraction.
  • 1 copyright strike came from TravelVideoStore, who does not own any content of mine.
  • 2 community strikes from "spam." At least 2 videos of mine were flagged as spam. Many of the appeals have been rejected.
My channel has been disabled for over an entire day! YouTube, along with the YouTube Help Forums, won't help me.
 
Within the last 45 days, my channel went from getting typically 200,000 views each month to 7,000,000 views per month. I was getting a lot of revenue for YouTube. My channel had well over 30,000 subscribers. Why would YouTube allow this to happen to their content creators, especially those ranking beautifully within top 50%? It sickens me as I feel completely betrayed and hurt. Even as of late, YouTube's subreddit got sick of hearing about my constant issues because right now they are focusing on BS issues like "redundant jokes and drama in the YT comment section." The only time that subreddit cares is when a huge YouTuber speaks out, gets targeted, or gets banned. Thus, I had to take drastic measures.

Contacting Google's Support Team:
This week, I contacted Google customer support on several occasions at 650-253-0000, but they will not help you or resolve your problems. They give you canned responses, sorry excuses, and redirect you to the YouTube Help Forum along with a page that starts with "support[dot]google[dot]com." And if you speak with them "too long", they will abruptly hang up on you and/or say they "have to take other calls," and redirect you to an answering machine, which will also cut you off if your message is over 1 minute long.

Ironically, the customer representatives are quite knowledgeable about YouTube, but they are trained not to help you. And when you ask to speak to a supervisor, they will tell you no and that "our supervisors do not speak to the public." Why can't the public speak to the supervisors? Why can't the public get in touch with the humans who work for Google and YouTube? What do they have to hide?

Google's argument
"YouTube is a free service anyway and you don't pay for it, so any support is exclusively online."

My argument
YouTube Red is a paid service, but there isn't any direct customer support for that either. Take notes from Amazon if you want to continue being successful YouTube. Also, YouTube Partners do pay Google 45% when they earn ad revenue. Therefore, Google's argument is completely moot and contradictory. The company, Alphabet Inc., is simply too cheap and greedy to invest in reasonable, human support for YouTube & Google. There needs to be a class action lawsuit against companies and individuals who notoriously false claims, and YouTube for failing to act. This situation is like calling police and informing them that a murderer is in house, but the police decide to show up at your house 2 weeks after you've already been murdered.
 
You didn't ask this, but I'm going to mention it just in case there has been some confusion: the staff at YTtalk do not work for YouTube, so we cannot help with any YouTube-related issues. The best I can advise is to keep sending YouTube messages.

I've seen similar take-down trolling happening with big channels with over a million subscribers. Their channel would be fine for a day, and be flagged and taken offline for a week or two, and then pop up for a day..be taken down again..repeat. It went on for a good 2 months before the channel stopped being taken down. I think these kinds of situations indicate a loophole in YouTube's current system, unfortunately.. =( From watching that ordeal unfold, it seems like it might take around 10-14 days for the strike repeal to be processed at YouTube.

BTW, as someone who used to be a customer service representative, I have a little tip. ^^ Customer Service is a very rough job. You may be super upset and angry, but always always always be as nice and pleasant and calm to the person you are talking to as you can possibly be. People call customers service when they are fuming with anger, and the representatives are always dealing with raging fits, pervs, and folks cussing them out all day long. The CSR that you called didn't cause your problem, someone else/YouTube did, and YouTube's setup is out of their control. When someone pleasant called up, I tried to have them stay on the phone for as long as I could get away with and often helped them waaaaay more than someone who was angry and asking for a supervisor. Supervisors aren't that different than the CSR's tbh... We all had the same tools and powers. ^^
 
Hey man..I am really sorry to hear this.I can tell you similar story and the only way I managed to return one of my channels that in that time had 130k+ subscribers and over 30.000.000 views monthly at the time.So basically similar thing happen to me ,i got few false strikes on my channel one day and my channel was taken down immediately. Anyway,I started to try to return my channel just like you now,and I dint have success at all.I called them,similar answers like they said to you.And yes I was calm and I didnt raged at all.But anyway.I done it multiply times over and over again.I emailed them to many times.I filled forms many times,called them many times.And I done that for over 5 months,nothing.5 months passed I didnt give up. But finally I decided to give up,cuz I though it my head,this is it,this channel is done,and its long gone by now.And like I said,I stressed a little,but not to much cuz I have multiply other channels,that few of them doing great also. The channel i talk about here was actually my seccond best channel at the time.So i lost quite a bit revnue,but I can move on,thats what I thought at the time. Anyway back to a story. So when i gave up on that channel it was already 5 months offline.So times forward to 1 year in total for that channel offline time. So suddenly I receive on my all others channels a notification for YouTube Partner Summit 2015 Belgrade,letting me know,that I am one of the top creators from my Country (even though i dont make videos for my country,I do it for English speaking countries) and asking me if I can show up on summit,to learn some new things and maybe give some advice to smaller creators. So I decided to go,I let them know.They answered back that when I show up on that time I will receive VIP card,with my channel names bla bla,and that I will talk to smaller creators there in 5:00 pm,about How to make successful channels that generate alot of views. So when that day came,I showed up there,learned new things,talked to creators bla bla...So when Summit was almoust over,I suddenly started to think " WAIT There are Few Youtube representatives that came on the summit (directly from USA or UK I wasnt sure,but they where not from my country i knew that much) Why I dont try to ask THEM in person about my channel" So grabbed my balls,and also keep in mind,on all my channels I dont show up my face nor my voice,I can only say that much about that.So I came to them and I asked politely to talk to them about serious matter ,if they can spare few minutes with me.So one dude said "No problem dude,you were great today,Lets talk,Is something bothering you?" So I procced in told him my story about that channel exactly what happend ,that all was false,and that my channel is taken down for nothing,I also mentioned that system need to be fixed cuz this is taking out for control. So he was there hearing me out not speaking at while I was speaking.When I finished he said " Thank you for letting me know about all this,I am very sorry that this happend,Can you please write me a url of that channel,I will give quick look,and if everything you said is true,you will see your channel up and running tonight" And I was like "WOW,thanks dude,this really means alot" Anyway He also said,that they are working to fix this abuse in system,and it will take some time. So later that day I came home,started to record some videos.and then I received email telling me that my channel is Running again. AFTER 1 year. I couldnt beleive that dude actually helped me. Everything was back online all videos and such. But yea thats the only way how I managed to bring it back,talking to a REAL person. Also I will jsut tell you that,if you channel stays down longer than month or more,your channel will be removed from youtube search engine,suggested videos and algorithm for that time.So when you return it back it will be hard again for some video to ranks at old places,just to know that,on that channel like I said I had 30.000.000 mil a month and after return It only returned to have about 1-2 mills a month ever since. And that sucks,but thats just how it is and I think thats logical when your videos dissapear form engine,they cant just magically appear at the same places again. But anyway Sorry for the long story,I jsut wanted to share my experience with you,and with someone who run at the same problem in future.I am not good writer :) But smart person can learn few things from my story. And If you go on some YouTube Summit or Something related where there could be some Youtube Representatives hit them up in person,and tell them exactly what happend and if you are in the right,I am sure they will help,just like helped me.

Peace
 
Aleksandar Blagojevic said:
Hey man..I am really sorry to hear this.I can tell you similar story and the only way I managed to return one of my channels that in that time had 130k+ subscribers and over 30.000.000 views monthly at the time.So basically similar thing happen to me ,i got few false strikes on my channel one day and my channel was taken down immediately. Anyway,I started to try to return my channel just like you now,and I dint have success at all.I called them,similar answers like they said to you.And yes I was calm and I didnt raged at all.But anyway.I done it multiply times over and over again.I emailed them to many times.I filled forms many times,called them many times.And I done that for over 5 months,nothing.5 months passed I didnt give up. But finally I decided to give up,cuz I though it my head,this is it,this channel is done,and its long gone by now.And like I said,I stressed a little,but not to much cuz I have multiply other channels,that few of them doing great also. The channel i talk about here was actually my seccond best channel at the time.So i lost quite a bit revnue,but I can move on,thats what I thought at the time. Anyway back to a story. So when i gave up on that channel it was already 5 months offline.So times forward to 1 year in total for that channel offline time. So suddenly I receive on my all others channels a notification for YouTube Partner Summit 2015 Belgrade,letting me know,that I am one of the top creators from my Country (even though i dont make videos for my country,I do it for English speaking countries) and asking me if I can show up on summit,to learn some new things and maybe give some advice to smaller creators. So I decided to go,I let them know.They answered back that when I show up on that time I will receive VIP card,with my channel names bla bla,and that I will talk to smaller creators there in 5:00 pm,about How to make successful channels that generate alot of views. So when that day came,I showed up there,learned new things,talked to creators bla bla...So when Summit was almoust over,I suddenly started to think " WAIT There are Few Youtube representatives that came on the summit (directly from USA or UK I wasnt sure,but they where not from my country i knew that much) Why I dont try to ask THEM in person about my channel" So grabbed my balls,and also keep in mind,on all my channels I dont show up my face nor my voice,I can only say that much about that.So I came to them and I asked politely to talk to them about serious matter ,if they can spare few minutes with me.So one dude said "No problem dude,you were great today,Lets talk,Is something bothering you?" So I procced in told him my story about that channel exactly what happend ,that all was false,and that my channel is taken down for nothing,I also mentioned that system need to be fixed cuz this is taking out for control. So he was there hearing me out not speaking at while I was speaking.When I finished he said " Thank you for letting me know about all this,I am very sorry that this happend,Can you please write me a url of that channel,I will give quick look,and if everything you said is true,you will see your channel up and running tonight" And I was like "WOW,thanks dude,this really means alot" Anyway He also said,that they are working to fix this abuse in system,and it will take some time. So later that day I came home,started to record some videos.and then I received email telling me that my channel is Running again. AFTER 1 year. I couldnt beleive that dude actually helped me. Everything was back online all videos and such. But yea thats the only way how I managed to bring it back,talking to a REAL person. Also I will jsut tell you that,if you channel stays down longer than month or more,your channel will be removed from youtube search engine,suggested videos and algorithm for that time.So when you return it back it will be hard again for some video to ranks at old places,just to know that,on that channel like I said I had 30.000.000 mil a month and after return It only returned to have about 1-2 mills a month ever since. And that sucks,but thats just how it is and I think thats logical when your videos dissapear form engine,they cant just magically appear at the same places again. But anyway Sorry for the long story,I jsut wanted to share my experience with you,and with someone who run at the same problem in future.I am not good writer :) But smart person can learn few things from my story. And If you go on some YouTube Summit or Something related where there could be some Youtube Representatives hit them up in person,and tell them exactly what happend and if you are in the right,I am sure they will help,just like helped me.

Peace
Click to expand...

Hello. Thanks a ton for your story. Not everyone is that lucky and I currently do not have any successful channels outside of the one I lost. When I was on the phone with Google's customer "support", I was also calm, polite, somewhat assertive, and descriptive to the representative, but they still didn't help me. Also, there's isn't an upcoming YouTube summit or event near me. YouTube only picks a few select places on the map to travel to. If any upcoming events are ever scheduled and outside of LA, then one of them might take place in NYC. Although, I live pretty far away from the Big Apple. I'm thinking about contacting YouTube employees via LinkedIn, but I don't know exactly who to look for since that info is almost not publicly available. Do you know the name of the gentleman whom you've spoken to about your problem? I'm also trying to reach out to bigger YouTubers, but they won't return my messages either. Would you please keep me mind and forward my situation to someone from YouTube or a big YouTuber if you ever get the chance? I would be forever grateful.[DOUBLEPOST=1474064400,1474029325][/DOUBLEPOST]Update: A claimant with an email of "claims@slash.org" posed as TravelVideoStore.com and actually took down 2 videos!

Copyright Fraud at its Finest!

InXWKPJ.png


Proof that YouTube's copyright claim system is broken beyond repair.

And check this out. Slash.org isn't even a functional site:
ho1OrVU.jpg


It's official. Competitors and hateful groups are definitely targeting me. They are trying their absolute hardest to get my channel taken down permanently. Karma needs to reveal itself to these pile of scum.
 
Update:

So far YouTube helped resolve nearly all of my copyright issues caused by copyfraud. However, I'm still having issues with Community Guidelines.

I was finally able to reach YouTube customer support and they sent me the following message:


"Hello,

I’m sorry to hear about the issues you’re having. It looks like your account has been suspended for violation of YouTube’s Community Guidelines, specifically TOU #4 Section H.

This section states that "You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, ‘robots,’ ‘spiders,’ or ‘offline readers,’ that accesses the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the YouTube servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser."

Unfortunately, repeated violations of this guideline, or other Community Guidelines, may result in exclusion from the partnership program and termination of your YouTube account.

If you feel your account was suspended in error, you can submit an appeal directly to our Policy team using this form" - Representative




I am totally being accused of something that I didn't do. And to make matters worse, they denied my appeal:

"Hello,
Thank you for your account suspension appeal. We have decided to keep your account suspended based on our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service. Please visit [this site] for more information.


Sincerely,
The YouTube Team"



I did not send views or malicious activity to any of my videos! I don't even use robots, spiders, or whatever illegal tools they are talking about. I am being wrongfully accused without real evidence! What specific information did they use to make a determination that I broke the rules? I never bought likes, views, subscribers, or anything else for my channel. Either at least one of my competitors sent robots and artificial traffic to my channel to get me terminated, and/or a group of schoolkids false reported my videos out of sheer dislike and boredom. This is angering me completely. I don't know what the heck is really going on. A competitor or troublesome group of users had to have done this because I would never do anything to foolishly jeopardize my channel. Someone please help me out with this.
 
Aleksandar Blagojevic said:
Hey man..I am really sorry to hear this.I can tell you similar story and the only way I managed to return one of my channels that in that time had 130k+ subscribers and over 30.000.000 views monthly at the time.So basically similar thing happen to me ,i got few false strikes on my channel one day and my channel was taken down immediately. Anyway,I started to try to return my channel just like you now,and I dint have success at all.I called them,similar answers like they said to you.And yes I was calm and I didnt raged at all.But anyway.I done it multiply times over and over again.I emailed them to many times.I filled forms many times,called them many times.And I done that for over 5 months,nothing.5 months passed I didnt give up. But finally I decided to give up,cuz I though it my head,this is it,this channel is done,and its long gone by now.And like I said,I stressed a little,but not to much cuz I have multiply other channels,that few of them doing great also. The channel i talk about here was actually my seccond best channel at the time.So i lost quite a bit revnue,but I can move on,thats what I thought at the time. Anyway back to a story. So when i gave up on that channel it was already 5 months offline.So times forward to 1 year in total for that channel offline time. So suddenly I receive on my all others channels a notification for YouTube Partner Summit 2015 Belgrade,letting me know,that I am one of the top creators from my Country (even though i dont make videos for my country,I do it for English speaking countries) and asking me if I can show up on summit,to learn some new things and maybe give some advice to smaller creators. So I decided to go,I let them know.They answered back that when I show up on that time I will receive VIP card,with my channel names bla bla,and that I will talk to smaller creators there in 5:00 pm,about How to make successful channels that generate alot of views. So when that day came,I showed up there,learned new things,talked to creators bla bla...So when Summit was almoust over,I suddenly started to think " WAIT There are Few Youtube representatives that came on the summit (directly from USA or UK I wasnt sure,but they where not from my country i knew that much) Why I dont try to ask THEM in person about my channel" So grabbed my balls,and also keep in mind,on all my channels I dont show up my face nor my voice,I can only say that much about that.So I came to them and I asked politely to talk to them about serious matter ,if they can spare few minutes with me.So one dude said "No problem dude,you were great today,Lets talk,Is something bothering you?" So I procced in told him my story about that channel exactly what happend ,that all was false,and that my channel is taken down for nothing,I also mentioned that system need to be fixed cuz this is taking out for control. So he was there hearing me out not speaking at while I was speaking.When I finished he said " Thank you for letting me know about all this,I am very sorry that this happend,Can you please write me a url of that channel,I will give quick look,and if everything you said is true,you will see your channel up and running tonight" And I was like "WOW,thanks dude,this really means alot" Anyway He also said,that they are working to fix this abuse in system,and it will take some time. So later that day I came home,started to record some videos.and then I received email telling me that my channel is Running again. AFTER 1 year. I couldnt beleive that dude actually helped me. Everything was back online all videos and such. But yea thats the only way how I managed to bring it back,talking to a REAL person. Also I will jsut tell you that,if you channel stays down longer than month or more,your channel will be removed from youtube search engine,suggested videos and algorithm for that time.So when you return it back it will be hard again for some video to ranks at old places,just to know that,on that channel like I said I had 30.000.000 mil a month and after return It only returned to have about 1-2 mills a month ever since. And that sucks,but thats just how it is and I think thats logical when your videos dissapear form engine,they cant just magically appear at the same places again. But anyway Sorry for the long story,I jsut wanted to share my experience with you,and with someone who run at the same problem in future.I am not good writer :) But smart person can learn few things from my story. And If you go on some YouTube Summit or Something related where there could be some Youtube Representatives hit them up in person,and tell them exactly what happend and if you are in the right,I am sure they will help,just like helped me.

Peace
Click to expand...
That's a crazy story, however again it hits back home that talking with a real person will help the situation. To OP, I'd honestly try as much as possible to get in touch with people at YouTube through social media and try and get something in person as well. To be quite honest, even if my channel would go down right now I'd drop everything and fly out to California and I wouldn't leave Google's office until I had my problem resolved. I've been through similar situations as I've worked with multiple large channels before which have been falsely flagged. Very tough when you're losing thousands of dollars. Before going to events and stuff like that though, reach out to as many employees as you can working on LinkedIn and other social media networks. 30K subs is a big deal.
 
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