Hostedmining.com [UPDATE]

[ranlo]

You never responded to my last email, :p.

[cptmooseinc]

Woot! First rig I purchased from zif is online and hashing! Just needs some tweaking to get the kH/s right. Thanks for all your hard work zif!!! Can't wait for the other 3 to have their parts arrive and be built!

[grobbes]

Just placed an order for a Mark II case. Great prices! Will update on my experience.

[Rycco]

I'm interested in buying.

[grobbes]

Just placed an order for a Mark II case. Great prices! Will update on my experience.

As promised, my experience with Hostedmining and zif was exceptional. Ordered a case from there and had a super quick turnaround. Thanks!

[ranlo]

My own review up to this point is still kind of iffy. I purchased two rigs back a week and a half ago, which were said to arrive on Wednesday (for him to host). One of them had problems with it, so its hash rate was diminished a bit, but it was put online on Thursday as promised (technically it was stated that it would be online on Wednesday but when he got it he said it would be until Thursday. One day isn't so bad so I figured it'd be alright). I was then given the information for logging in to it and everything was good on that part (aside from the issue with one of the cards). It was also insinuated that the second rig would be finished getting set up on the same day, and then he would work on figuring out what is wrong with the first one. The second rig, as far as I know, is still (almost a week later) not online.

Since last Thursday, the one rig has hashed around 48 hours or so total, due to being taken offline for multiple days. Zif said that he is dealing with heating issues and so had to take all the rigs offline and move them to another room while he tries to deal with that. Sadly, during this entire period he has been pretty hard to get a hold of. I usually wait 36 hours before sending him another ping to try and see what is going on with this, and even so it can still be many hours before he gets back to me (I ping via cell phone and email).

What makes issues worse than this for me is that he states the following:

06/28/13 - "Only getting hotter this week..need to fix this issue now"

06/28/13 - "yea..sorry..I will have it all locked down this weekend I promise...right now its been alot of other crap..havent got to sit wdown with it...once i have 2nd unit up i will go back and fix 1. probably just a bad setting. The heat is horrible...its 90 degrees inside hosting room. Lemme deal with this.     should not be to long."

06/29/13 - says he is still dealing with the heating problems and will update me "tonight" -- never did so I had to get a hold of him the next day

06/30/13 - still no contact

07/01/13 - "Yes...still having heat issues..and im really sorry. Its frustrating. I did take Sunday off to be with my kids and family. I am up and at em this morning and will have issues resolved by tonight." (so much for 24/7 monitoring and service?)

07/02/13 - Messages sent starting at the 36 hour mark and still have not heard anything back via cell or email.

What irritates me about this is that I thought before he started running the service he had everything locked down. I have so far lost a week of my hashing power, decreasing the ROI by a lot in the process (as I had spent days planning out everything prior to making the decision to purchase). Not only am I left in the dust still, pretty much, but it is hard to even figure out what is going on or when it will truly be fixed. At this point I am full of regret of even jumping in on this. It seemed like a great idea when I did the research, talked to him and jumped on it, but sadly this is not looking so great.

As a business owner myself, I make it a priority to:

1) Fulfill my obligations to my customers
2) Follow through with timelines I give out
3) Stay in contact consistently

I have never "taken a day off" when I had something to get finished. If I promised something would be finished on Saturday night, and it happened to not be finished that night, I would be up until I passed out working on it, and the first thing I would do Sunday is continue at it until I got it resolved. There is no way I would leave my customers in the dark because I decided to take a break; that is nothing but showing a lack of care.

I seriously hope some of you have had better luck with this.

[ranlo]

As an update, my last contact attempts were at 6 AM CST and 5:30 PM CST. Neither of them has been responded to and it is 9:30 PM CST.

I also just checked the pool I am on and found that the rig is off again and has been for who knows how long.

[ranlo]

Latest update from me. Still no contact but one of the rigs appears to be back up now. Based on the charts it was down for 14 hours this time.

Edit: also want to point out that according to the logs he was on the forums last night and today...

[ranlo]

Update: just sent off another contact attempt to Zif, as he has still yet to get back to me, one rig appears to be online now partially (it goes up and down throughout the day) and the other has still yet to be seen. I'll let you guys know where this contact leads...

[ranlo]

Update: he finally got back to me. I normally would not enclose an entire email like this but I think it's important for transparency, and it also shows what my issue is here:

====START====
I am so burnt..   I have your 2nd rig up...should be seeing it..but I am still having issues with more than 2 gpus running. Not sure wtf is going on. I need to unplug..I am making mistakes..and its not good. I have lost a couple of powered 1x to 16x riser cables...or the whole batch was bad..I cant tell.....bah,...im rambling.


I am working on your 2nd rig. the first rig keeps throwing that one gpu so i need to look at that as well. 2 power supplies, 2 motherboards and a dozen cables risers all gone bad since the weekend. Add the heat wave and I am telling you I am at the end of my rope.   I am doing the best I can. I am taking tommorrow off(the 4th) so what ever I get done tonight is going to be it till friday.

Please be patient...heh..more patient that you already have(appreciate that).

====END====

I'd also like to throw up some notes of my own. I am literally losing money every single day this isn't dealt with, and I am about to lose yet another day. The two rigs (running $5300 and supposed to be hashing at 6 MH/s total since last Wednesday as per our pre-purchase agreement) have earned less since last Wednesday than my single $400 rig that only hashes at 560 KH/s.

When I first started looking into doing this, I was also given different information than later on. For example:

"At 15% I can cover my overhead and still make a few percentage points in actual profit. This price is final and will not change for gpu hosting."

When I was told this had changed to 20%, I brought it up and got this response:

"dam...I lied I guess. I was crazy to even think of offering it at 10% and 15% seemed like a reasonable step. I decided that with the 24/7 monitoring and the remote access more than makes up for the rate hike to 20%. It is still way cheaper than most can host for themselves.

This price is final..I promise. It will be in the contract."

I am LOVING this 24/7 monitoring. It is doing so well that two days have been taken off working on the problem now and my issues still aren't resolved. Along with this, the total effect in 8 days now of two rigs capable of "3 MH/s+" each has been worth less than my single 560 KH/s rig. Not to mention at least with my local one, if something happens I can actually deal with the problem instead of claiming I give "24/7 monitoring" when that is completely false.

At this point our original agreement has already been defaulted on, he has fed incorrect information to me multiple times, and if I continue waiting this out I am getting screwed over in the deal. I am seriously debating just calling this off and either requesting a refund or disputing it. This is beyond ridiculous and I am losing my patience with this.

At this point I would not even continue with our original agreement. We would definitely have to make some amends to take up for the lost time and such that has been caused by all of this, as well as the lack of faith I now have in his business and the lost funds and the seriously delayed ROI that has occurred as a result of this stuff.

As a business owner myself, I never would have even considered putting one of my customers through what he has put me through. That is horrible business.

[zif33rs]

I apologize ranlo. I have been in contact with you but I have not been on the forums other than to check for PM's....I see that might have been a mistake.

I do appreciate transparency.  Thanks.

I am burnt.

I am sorry you are not satisfied. If you wish your rigs shipped back to you that was and is always an option. I have been busting my ass this last week to rewire, cut holes in the ceiling and roof and a ton of other stuff. It HAS impacted my ability to build, tune and monitor the rigs I do have up and working. There HAS been record temps in Seattle the last week. It crushed every attempt I made to fix the problem.

I have not really had anytime off, besides what was stated...in 60+ days...its taken a toll. I not only run this, but another business as well. I also care for my disabled father and have 3 teenage daughters. You want it out in the open..there you go. I have nothing to hide and am not trying to rip you or anyone else off.

I really was not prepared for how quickly this all blew up. Thats not your fault ranlo and I realize you have expectations. I have replied to every text or email sent within a reasonable amount of time. I have most of the issues solved and am now working on your 2nd rig...which has been hashing partially since last night.

As of today I have both your rigs up but the 2nd is only running 3 cards. I have x1 cables on order and I hope they show friday.


That pretty much sums it up I think. I have been able to keep the majority of my 12 customers up and hashing. Again I apologize your the one who slipped thru the crack.

You want resolution? You want to modify our agreement?  Fine..but I would appreciate an email or a phone call before you drag it all over the forum.

I am sorry you have not earned as much as you expected in the 9 days you have been a customer.

zif


p.s. Have a Safe and Happy 4th of July everyone.

[ranlo]

I'll send you an email in a few -- need to decide how to go about this and go from there. I didn't bring everything up until the lapse in communication happened, and that was not for fear of "ripping me off," but rather because it goes against everything that was stated in emails between each other prior to getting this going, as well as the selling point all over your site. When someone, and a site, makes a claim about something, it is generally expected that they follow through with said claim. Otherwise we in the business arena call this "false advertising." This is by far one of the worst things a business owner can do.

I want to add a public update for everyone on my experience as well.

The past 16 hours have gone pretty good with whatever is up right now. It appears to have had a few short drops but that is likely due to pool issues or something (they were pretty small drops and were not 0 hash rates, just lower than normal). I am pretty satisfied with this time period and I hope it continues!

I am all about being transparent. When I have issues with a business, I bring them to light. Why? Because all too often people don't take the time to do this and others have no idea what they're going to experience. I have no problems with you as a person, just rather the claims that have been made then the lack of following through with all of those. The communication was the big thing; lapses for 36+ hours are never a good sign.

I am more than willing to do another review and update once things have been on track for a little while, and was already planning to do this. I was hoping that my first review would have gone a lot better, but it is what it is.

My goal with all of this has not and will not be to hurt you or your business; it is to give others a run-down of my own experience so that they understand what they are possibly getting into.

With that said, I'm off to draft up this email and send it off!

[ranlo]

Update: Zif just spent quite a while with me (well, still is) helping me better understand what's been going on, what the plan is for the near future, etc. We also went through the rig settings together to ensure everything was set up properly, and fixed a couple issues (ex. getting two separate accounts set up for the two rigs so that I can differentiate them). I am pleasantly surprised and this is definitely a huge positive from everything.

While we had our issues, what he did today definitely speaks volumes about his service and willingness to try and get everything resolved!

[zif33rs]

I am extremely happy I was able to resolve your concerns and get you  back to hashing Ranlo.

Most of all I am happy to report everyone is being serviced and the farm is up and functional. As Hostedmining continues to grow I will continue to be available for live chat monday thru friday 10am to 4pm on site.

[zif33rs]

Update for Tuesday


Things are smoothing out at Hostedmining after a rough start to the week. I received a miner from a customer that had damage yesterday. After documenting everything and getting in contact with the customer I was able to determine that a corrupt hard drive is the most likely culprit. I am repairing the rig and doing what I can to help with the insurance claim. Basically the "case" and drive are the only casualties. The GPUs tested out as ok.

I still have not received replacement riser cables. Its seriously slowing down builds. I hope to see them tomorrow.

I still am having heat issues in the hosting room. I have done a lot of work adding venting and stuff but its just not able to contain the 12 rigs I have going. I am looking at renting/leasing another warehouse or office immediately. The other option is to rent or buy a container(can) to drop in the yard. I can then add what cooling/ventilation needed to it.

Still alot of decisions to make for growth.

I would like to remind everyone of the new Finance options available. I have 3 lenders ready and waiting to get you into a Mining rig today!

Also...I can now accept bitcoin directly from my products page.

Still have 10 7950s for sale at 209.99 each!

zif

[zif33rs]

Well...im sure its coming so I will just post it myself. I am done micro managing peoples workers. I set up the miners to the best setting I can. Ever one is different. Even machines with identical parts.

I had a 3k machine for ranlo working excellent..even thought it was only pulling 2.9mh\s not the 3k I have promised. Alot of this was due to the heat issue I have been fighting. I have some rigs de-tuned to help with stability. After granted remote access he has managed to crash it at least 3 to 4 times a day. The settings I had on cgminer are all messed up and now one of the cards is not running at full speed. I have been fixing and repairing these mistakes as best I can but I am done.

This is what I sent him and this is hes reply.


And by the way...it says "monitoring" not fix 24/7. It does not state I will do anything about down times caused by the owner.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Card #2 - Read Me First
From: *********  *************
Date: Wed, July 10, 2013 8:02 am
To: zif@hostedmining.com

On 7/10/2013 9:50 AM, zif@hostedmining.com wrote:
Most of my other rigs have TV. The problem with TV is that unless you have a monitor plugged into the graphics card all you get when you remote to it is the black screen. I am going to try dummy plugs but they cost money. I had to order 75 ohm resistors so I can make my own. Still in process.

Its a real pain in the ass. I know its all about ROI and profit. But I should require everyone to ship me monitors and keyboards/mice. I swear to god i spend half the day walking around moving monitors and I/O equipment.

All of this is a lot of growing pains. I have been in business for less than 60 days and while its been alittle bumpy, I am making progress. I will have it all ironed out and working smoother in the next few weeks.

Basically this falls under the category of "setup" fee. If you change the settings that I set the machine up with, it is going to cost $100 for me to fix it. Also...working on modifying what I have stated about down time and monitoring. I am here all the time(mostly) but I do have other obligations as well. If you need the machine rebooted "after hours", ...a fee, If you change the miners settings and I have to fix it, ...a fee. I am basically "open" 10 to 10. If something needs done after that or before, ...a fee. I think you can see where I am going here. While I want you to enjoy your rig to the fullest I have to set some boundaries for OCD people like you.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Card #2 - Read Me First
From: ********* ************
Date: Wed, July 10, 2013 7:09 am
To: zif@hostedmining.com

Are the other rigs you have running (that don't have this problem) using
TeamViewer? If not, that could be the culprit.

I have already reverted back absolutely everything on the rig, including
ensuring that all processes are closed out, with no luck. I've even quit
using cgwatcher on it, and instead manually ran cgminer from command
line -- same thing.

The only change there should be from when it first started now is in the
cgminer.conf file, as I added a pool for FTC that has 0% fees. Past
that, everything should be just like it was.

If the other rigs do have TeamViewer, are they set up to run on Windows
startup? If not, you can close that out and see what happens (maybe it
is thinking the monitor is one monitor and the TV is a second one --
which would make sense, being that card 1 reads fine and card 2 reads
with the slower speeds).

Anyways, just throwing out ideas here...

My problem with these "fees" is that they are not stated on the site. In fact, check out this image:

https://hostedmining.com/zif33rs/images/Front_Page.png

"24 hour worker monitoring."

From here: https://www.hostedmining.com/Howitworks

"...you enjoy the following: ... 24 hour hour[sic] monitoring maximizes your worker's up-time."

Now you're saying it's 10-10... and for the record, 24 hour monitoring should be 24 hours; taking days off should not be a part of that, as that is the opposite of the site's claims.

At this point I'm just going to have to decline. Please give me your LTC and FTC addresses and I will send you all of the earnings from both rigs. I am requesting a refund under false advertising between this and previous statements that were made in the past that I was willing to let go but can no longer do. (For the record, there were no mentions of fees based on changes prior, and the only reason I even started making changes was because of the immense downtime we were facing; when I start a project I don't let it go... and have spent many hours a day researching these exact issues).

I apologize for any inconvenience caused by all of this; I was just under the impression that what was offered was what was going to be delivered. At this point it's best to just split ways.

Thank you for the opportunity though and I wish you the best of luck with your business.




zif

[zif33rs]

2 3k miners at work.

[grobbes]

Sorry to hear this zif. Feel free to hit me up if you ever want to go over some issues you have or want some suggestions.

[zif33rs]

UPDATE:  9/4/2013 08:52     Hostedmining is Moving!  I am pleased to announce that I have acquired a new hosting facility. I will have the move completed by this coming weekend.

This move is being made in conjunction with the release of a Revenue Share on LTC-GLOBAL. This investment opportunity is to expand the existing Hostedmining scrypt farm from 40 MH to over 100 MH.

Check it out here.  https://www.litecoinglobal.com/security/HOSTED-MINING



Thanks everyone for your support and patience. Enjoy and let me know what you think.  Photos and more updates to follow through out the week. 

zif

[cptmooseinc]

UPDATE ON HOSTEDMINING:

So apparently Joe, aka "zif33rs" lost his house that he was hosting all these machines at. He promised a new facility was coming to everyone even though he hadn't even been approved for it yet. I got messages from him late last week saying that he was "fucked" because his application for the new facility had been denied and he needed to be out of his other place basically immediately. All my hardware was taken offline on Friday in anticipation of the "big move". Now his cell phone is no longer accepting incoming calls and he's not responding to emails either. He hasn't been on bitcointalk.org since Sept. 14th either. Is there anyone else hosting with him that is in any sort of contact with him? I know he has a few other clients that are hosting a machine or two, but not sure whom exactly.

I have over $15k in equipment and cash that's in his possession and not making any money at the moment. Currently, I feel like it's all been stolen because he won't respond to me. If I don't hear back before the end of the week, I'm going to try to find what my legal options are. First, I'll have to find out where he's run off to, then next I'll have to try to reclaim my cash and hardware.

I'm not saying my stuff HAS been stolen, but right now it FEELS like it.

Joe, if you're reading this, get ahold of me and tell me what the fuck is going on.

-Moose