About two months ago I discovered that I had become banned by a review network called Blogitive from logging in and taking review opportunities. I was baffled because I had received no prior warning or email notification telling me I had been banned.
I fired off a very polite email, then another, then another and another. In total I must have sent about half a dozen emails and each time I received no reply at all, not even an automated message.
It was just by chance that I saw a tweet on Twitter from the company and sent a reply saying “I wish you guys would reply to emails”. Within an hour I received a DM asking me to email the guy in question. His name is Ed Shull.
After swapping a couple of emails, furnishing him with my information, he said he would pass it on to the people who run the review network and they would contact me in a couple of days. Fast forward to today and after over a week later with no news I sent him another email.
A couple of hours ago I received the following email from them:
Hi Dean,
My name is Chelsea and I am one of the managers at Blogitive. You were banned from our system for posting duplicate content. It may have been duplicate content across multiple blogs or duplicated from elsewhere on the internet. Because this was your first offense we are going to lift the ban on your account and give you one more chance. Please be aware that posting duplicate content and submitting it to Blogitive is strictly prohibited and we have a zero tolerance policy for it. Please let me know if you have any other questions about Blogitive or your account.
Thank you,
Chelsea Parry
So it appears that they banned me because they suspect I have been submitting duplicate content that I have scrapped from another blog. I was furious, I make a living doing this why would I be stupid enough to risk being banned by submitting a review post that I grabbed from another site?
I sent the following reply:
Hello Chelsea,
Are you saying that I have posted duplicate reviews to Blogitive? I have NEVER submitted duplicate content to your (or any other) network. If you have found one of my reviews to be similar to another review then either that is an absolutely 100% freaky coincidence or the person has copied their review from me. I make my living by writing reviews and would never be foolish enough to try and cheat by posting a duplicate review to any network.
I hope this email does not come over as me being nasty. I’m just trying to prove my innocence.
Thank you for letting me back in,
Dean Saliba
The more I read their email, the more I think somebody might have grabbed one of my reviews and tried to pass it off as their own and Blogitive have come to the erroneous conclusion that I have stolen it.
I am now awaiting their reply.