Ask HN: Admob practices

I have been using admob ads in both ways: inserted into my android app and to advertise the app itself. After launching an update to my app, I wanted to run some ads again to drive traffic. I had noticed that people would actually download the app after clicking to it before, and I had wanted to drive the downloads up to over 500 from the 350 it was at now.

One of the things I had done in the update was to remove ads from the free version of the app and to stop feature updates to the free version. I was making no money on the ads ($1.47 in total) and as it was slowing down the loading of the screen, I decided to remove it altogether.

Funnily enough, the new ads never got approved. I suspect that this has to do with me removing the ads from the app and claiming as much in my "what's new" section, but of course I can't substantiate this. All ads were copied from an older ad that had successfully run and had itself been a copy of a previous one. None of the new ads were run and no info was given to me. The ads has at least 3 days notice (4 in one case). The approval time is said to be a max of two days.

None of my emails seem to be registering on the admob site, and I can't get in touch with anyone.

Does anyone have any recommendations or similar experiences with admob? I have had no problems in the past, but now I am irritated that the ads did not run and there is no way for me to get a refund or to get in touch with anyone there at all.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.