Reports of an unresponsive dedicated, recently added, help desk at YouTube are coming in. According to a problem stated by one of the users, although the help desk is now available, getting a timely response from it is still a major problem. The user says that he was facing a problem where his account has been suspended and he has been trying to get someone from YouTube to solve the problem for two weeks now. He also contacted them in writing, instead of a contact form, by sending a fax along with an email.

Regarding the issue why the account was suspended, the user has said he may have an idea but will write of that later after he has done his “homework well enough”.

The problem, till YouTube responds, is that he can’t use YouTube not even by creating a new account since it is written: “Users with suspended or terminated accounts are prohibited from creating new accounts or accessing YouTube’s community features.”

Here is the elaborate letter that he sent:

“To: YouTube, LLC      Fresno, June 22, 2008
 901 Cherry Ave.
 San Bruno, CA 94066
 USA

From: Carsten Cumbrowski
7625 N 1st Street #154
Fresno, CA 93720
USA

Subject: 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 http://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”