Privacy Shark - Issues With Email (Was: Do Not Use Privacy Shark - Fraud Alert)

[joe]

I signed up for a domain name with them about a month ago. A week later, sent an email requesting the domain to be DNS'd to a different IP. No response. Messaged their account here on the bitcoin forums, no response. Still no action. Cost me 99 BTC for the 1 month of a VPS I bought waiting for the DNS name to work. Plus the BTC I gave to these criminals for the domain name in the first place.

I am not the only one having problems with nobody home at privacy shark. There are other complaints on Privacy Shark, see this thread: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577.msg6105

When someone posts on bitcoin.org with problems with their service, sometimes they suddenly wake up and deflect blame back on to the customer, the customer's email provider, anything except themselves.

Avoid privacy shark.

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[kiba]

Usually when you posted on the bitcoin.org forum, you don't call them a fraud first. You ask for customer service on the forum...then if they did not reply, feel free to call them a scammer.

Beware, that others have good customer service with them. So this accusation can deflect back on you.

[jgarzik]

+1 agreed, joe

[kiba]

With BitDNS, I don't think you have to care much about customer service since registration of domain names is entirely automatic.

[The Madhatter]

I use them for my domains and I have not had a problem.

I did, however, have a slight problem getting my emails past their spam filter.

[nanaimogold]

It worked fine for me. Fast too. coffee4bitcoin.com was working within an hour or so.

One thing I did notice that might be the cause of a problem. I sent an email to that crazy address of theirs and hotmail converted all the upper case chars to lowercase.

[BioMike]

One thing I did notice that might be the cause of a problem. I sent an email to that crazy address of theirs and hotmail converted all the upper case chars to lowercase.

Email is not case sensitive.

[nanaimogold]

Crypto hashes are.

[BioMike]

Crypto hashes are.

Ah. I thought you meant the email address.

[nanaimogold]

I did mean the email. It looks like the address has been hashed.

At any rate, it's weird and maybe not working correctly.

[BioMike]

I did mean the email. It looks like the address has been hashed.

At any rate, it's weird and maybe not working correctly.

I would not be confident that they are competent with their services then, if they make these obvious mistakes.

Here is a nice quote to cover it:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

WTF is privacy shark ?

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EDIT:
(After googling)
Ah, this one http://www.privacyshark.com/

[davout]

WTF is privacy shark ?

----
EDIT:
(After googling)
Ah, this one http://www.privacyshark.com/

http://www.bash.org/?837510

[nanaimogold]

I did test that crazy email address and it worked.

I got a reply in about 12 hrs.

[privacyshark]

Privacy Shark isn't a scam.

We didn't receive joe's email, and for some reason the PM notifications on the forum don't seem to work at all. Can the forum admin please fix that? It would help us avoid posts like this one.

We do not provide support over PM. Email us. Be sure to use the email account that you signed up with. If this is not possible, please use the password that you provided upon signup.

We have setup a new email alias: "support @ privacy shark DOT com". It is memorable and easy to type in. After looking at our mailserver logs we have noticed that a lot of people were misspelling our other email address so the mail was being dropped. This is what probably happened to joe's email to us.

As you can imagine we have our email addresses listed on literally hundreds of domains, so spam is a huge problem for us. We are hoping that spam to the new support alias will be manageable.

Thanks to nanaimo gold to letting us know about this thread, and for sending us a test email.

Hugo

[kiba]

Next time, can we refrain from calling a company a fraud early, especially when you're trying to get customer service, and especially so if others had good customer service?


A lot of issue are apparently communication.

[FreeMoney]

It sounds like a thread title change would be appropriate.

[joe]

Privacy Shark isn't a scam.

There are serious communication issues that will likely cause someone to lose money again. I look forward to privacy shark implementing changes to prevent these problems from happening to others.

We didn't receive joe's email,

Yes, you did. Since you presumably run your own mail server, there is not even a mechanism by which an email could possibly be dropped en route.

and for some reason the PM notifications on the forum don't seem to work at all.

The PMs themselves work. You found my PM yesterday and sent me a reply. You are referring to a notification system whereby the bitcoin forum sends an email to you when you receive a PM. I venture to suggest that the lack of PM notifications to your email is related to the main problem of not receiving emails from customers.

Can the forum admin please fix that? It would help us avoid posts like this one.

Please avoid posts like this by preventing the same mistakes from happening multiple times with multiple customers. When this happened before nothing was done to correct the problem except blame the customer and everyone else, as you are doing again here.

If we are to believe your claim that you were not receiving emails, it would have been appropriate for you to investigate the configuration of your mail server then, to find out why.

We do not provide support over PM. Email us.

It is disappointing that you continue to deny there is any problem with your email, and then close your door to other methods of reaching you.

Be sure to use the email account that you signed up with.

I did.

If this is not possible, please use the password that you provided upon signup.

We have setup a new email alias: "support @ privacy shark DOT com". It is memorable and easy to type in. After looking at our mailserver logs we have noticed that a lot of people were misspelling our other email address so the mail was being dropped. This is what probably happened to joe's email to us.

No, I spelled it correctly. I sent multiple emails, and I double- and triple- checked the spelling on each, as any reasonable person would after not receiving responses.

As you can imagine we have our email addresses listed on literally hundreds of domains, so spam is a huge problem for us. We are hoping that spam to the new support alias will be manageable.

Thanks to nanaimo gold to letting us know about this thread, and for sending us a test email.

Hugo

[privacyshark]

There are serious communication issues that will likely cause someone to lose money again.

I fail to see how you lost money. After reviewing your order I see that your domain was registered and running within hours of your Bitcoin payment to us.

Your complaint is about a change to your existing service. A request that never reached us.

Yes, you did. Since you presumably run your own mail server, there is not even a mechanism by which an email could possibly be dropped en route.

You can verify that it was delivered to me successfully? You can verify that my eyes actually saw the email? Are you telling me that everything always works as expected?

The PMs themselves work. You found my PM yesterday and sent me a reply.

That was only after we received an email from nanamo gold telling us about this thread. How did his email reach us? Was it magic?

I venture to suggest that the lack of PM notifications to your email is related to the main problem of not receiving emails from customers.

That's a bold assumption. How did we get an email from nanaimo gold then? Why does the forum PM notification not work to our new email address as well?

For the time being, I have set a signature telling people to just email us. I've also blocked all PMs.

Please avoid posts like this by preventing the same mistakes from happening multiple times with multiple customers. When this happened before nothing was done to correct the problem except blame the customer and everyone else, as you are doing again here.

The previous complaint was about an order that was placed during the weekend. We are a 9-5 business that keeps real hours. Everything here is done by hand. Re-read the old thread again.

If we are to believe your claim that you were not receiving emails, it would have been appropriate for you to investigate the configuration of your mail server then, to find out why.

Re-read my post from yesterday and you'll have your answer.

Hugo

[nanaimogold]

It's true that the notification of PM by email on this board is broken. I did some experiments that any one of us can duplicate.

Privacy Shark, as a service, is much older than Bitcoin and much older than this forum. To expect support through this board seems rather silly.

It's pretty sad when people forget their morality because they can hide from civil responsibility behind their computers. You try accusing someone of a crime IRL and you had better be able to back it up or face consequences. All I can do is refuse to trade with you Joe, but if you were in my town and tried this shit with me, you would be punished for your slander.

In the interests of fairness and accuracy, I second the motion to have this thread re-titled.