Explainer: Understanding the ins and outs of Remotasks
Earlier this week, President William Ruto was in Kitale town where he officially launched the Trans-Nzoia Community ICT Hub.
This was in aim of “ensuring Kenya’s youth have the requisite skills to take advantage of online opportunities.”
Remote online jobs continue to be popular because they allow everyone and anyone to work from the comfort of their locations without having to spend money going to physical job sites, paying for food or any other bills associated with working from the office. They also do not pay as much tax as those in formal employment, hence increased capacity in saving and investing in their own lives at faster rates.
While interacting with youth at the hub, President William met with Mr Brian Kipchumba, an ICT student who showcased his success on Remotasks, an online micro tasking website- claiming to have earned Sh 45,000 since he opened an account on the platform on December 26, 2023.
Remotask, hence, became a trending topic online as people engaged on the pros and cons of this website; and the dark side of it. Nairobi News now explores what Remotasks is all about.
Remotasks promotes itself as a platform that allows Remotaskers to remotely do tasks and get paid in dollars. These tasks are handed over to the Remotasks platform by various companies, and in turn, are helped to outsource Remostaskers to help the company complete these jobs. According to the platform’s official website, tasks are classified under 6 categories:
Image Analysis to help artificial intelligence identify things in various locations, 3D Content Analysis where one identifies, labels and annotates data on 3D environments, Categorization where by one identifies keywords that describe what people see in texts and images and Comparison where one helps identify the differences between similar objects.
Other categories include Data Collection whereby one searches the internet and collects various kinds of information about anything and everything; and Transcription whereby one transcribes content from various text-based material such as menus, images of signs and images of documents. All one needs is a computer and steady internet to complete the tasks in these categories; and then get paid weekly.
To become a Remotasker, one has to create an account and then start taking courses in the Remotasks Training Center. Once you pass and are enabled, you can begin earning from completing tasks. Each project has a specific number of tasks available and if one takes more courses and are enabled, they can work on more projects- sort of like unlocking another task by completing a previous task/course.
“You’re paid per accepted task. The amount paid will vary depending on task complexity. We’ll pay you via PayPal on Thursdays, so please be sure to have a valid PayPal email in your account before Monday 12:00 AM UTC to be eligible to receive payout the following Thursday!” says Remostasks on its official website.
However enticing the platform is, it is not accessible to everyone globally. Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria are currently prohibited from operating Remotasks Systems because they are not subject to American export restrictions. Additionally, as the platform has hundreds of thousands of users, it periodically stops the registration of new accounts as witnessed by this writer on Thursday, January 18, 2024, at 10:50am.
Kenyans online continue to talk about Remotasks, with many of them posting on TikTok showing their earnings on the platform, some as high as $1050.91 in Kimani capital’s instance and his furnished home from Remotasks earnings while others lamented of no earning opportunities despite having accounts.
A survey of online conversations by this writer found that several people complained of accounts either being suddenly being deactivated, especially just before payday, being disqualified by Remotasks for breaking their rules and regulations or not getting tasks all together.
The most common complaint is being conned into buying lucrative Remotasks accounts based on geographical location and the ‘user level’ at which it allows a Remotasker to earn in dollars. Consistent account holders with more tasks completed earn more than beginners.
American accounts are the hotcakes in terms of sales, with several sellers online hawking their accounts for large sums of money, or looking for assistnt Remotaskers to help them complete tasks for a cut, often along the lines of 60-40 or 70-30 in favor of the original account holder.
“”You buy an account then find that the person you bought the account from does not have a 2FA (Two factor authentication). Every week, they keep telling you the Caucasian hasn’t woken up, or they are busy at work. I want to solve that issue. What we are doing is, come to me and buy a Remotask, or buy one linked to America and make sure you are given the American mobile number linked to the account, and you will be sure of receiving the codes. This week I have met with many people telling me they have been conned and I told them it was because they bought accounts with no 2FA. They were lied to because they bought accounts from cons,” explained Joskalitoh on TikTok.
He claims to sell legitimate Remostasks accounts and the accompanying mobile phone numbers linked to the account for easier use and great earnings.
Some buyers complained of buying accounts only to find that they are disqualified accounts, and have no way of seeking recourse because they participated in breaking the platform’s rules and regulations.
Remotasks bans the sharing of account credentials with another person, creation of multiple accounts and falsely changing account information, location and experience, selling or purchasing of accounts and manipulating or exploiting the platform to gain advantage or artificially inflate pay.
“I am not done with these people who sell Remostasks accounts. I am just beginning. I will expose all of them. I want you to ask yourself. Someone has a well paying Remotasks account, why would they sell you this account? Just ask yourself this for a second. Right now, people are telling me Remotasks is legit. No one has said it is fake? They (scammers) are taking this out of context to confuse unsuspecting buyers so that you can continue buying. Who would sell such accounts? They say their work is making those accounts so that they can sell them. Listen here, there is no way someone can make these accounts and not have the brains to carry out those tasks to earn that money. There is no one. These people are taking advantage of naïve buyers.
If you don’t know anything, take your time and learn. Short cuts- someone telling you they have an account earning Sh 50,000 to Sh 80,000 and they are selling it, and you are buying that story, you are being stupid. You will be conned and you will lose all your money. Don’t play with these people, they are here to hunt for money. They already handed their lives over to money and don’t care what they will do to get money- they will steal from you. That is why after every one week you will see people complaining their accounts were closed on Wednesday, or deactivated after a month of use- and people are being paid peanuts here in Kenya. You are all being lied to. If they are selling accounts that earn this kind of money, why don’t they use the same accounts to make that money they hope to get from you,” cautioned Watchdog Official.
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