Silk Road forums
Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: forumuser001 on May 10, 2013, 06:39 am
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Notes from the last SR outage.
I first noticed the issue on a Fri. I was working from a remote access point and was unable to hit SR. Tor in general seemed flaky so I assumed "I" was the problem. Later that evening I tried again and accepted the chilling reality that SR was under a complete blackout. I'm an SR user with some activity under my belt but admittedly a neophyte. Tor info boards were blowing up claiming DOS attacks. I had read about the legendary outage of 2012 but things had been working fine through 2013.
Sun- Still no access. I remind myself I'm not a drug addict but still feel cut off like one. What's going on?
Mon -- Brief sign of life on the SR but 3 click's in and I was kicked out and unable to re-login. The fear of isolation is being replaced by empowering frustration. "There has to be a place. Too many people out there who are used to this feeding trough for such a thing to wither away in silence".
Mon Evn- Login to that dusty BMR account and find signs that vendors have relocated to support the SR Outage overflow. (This site has always been a mental red flag for me based on the title alone.) Bitcoins go through and I find a vendor who is waiving FE in consideration of the SR overflow. He is a busy man.
Tues- Check order status (unchanged) - Begin reading the vendors bio page and realize he has had some recent drama which is cited as an excuse for late shipments and lack of confirmations (which is apparently a thing on BMR). Send email to vendor to check if he's waiting on anything from my end...A surprisingly quick response confirms he's not and will process the order asap.
Wed - No package and no communication with vendor
Thur- Check order status late afternoon. (unchanged) - The vendors page has been updated to let everyone know he will be even more disorganized due to a tragic family emergency which is currently ignoring to faithfully update his customers.
Fri- Check for arrival based on Tuesday's communication. It does not arrive. At this point I initiate dispute on the BMR indicating a high reading on my improbability meter. email vendor in hopes of clearing things up and let him know the dispute has been issued and why.
Fri- Late evening . Vendor apologizes for the mix up and references family emergency as the reason for not sending my confirmation of the package that has already shipped. (***vendor claims the record is saved to a pc which is not available due to his current 'situation'.) Multiple customers are leaving similar negative feedback but he responds to each and they rescind.
Fri-Late Evening - into Sat Morning - Fear and loathing over what is motivating this guy and the fact he has an address. Is he just collecting shipping information from SR refugees or is he an immature chump trying to promise the world based on a mortgaged huffy.
Sat - No package. This confirms that shipping had not occurred when claimed and the promised confirmation # was never provided. I asked the vendor why he would save my shipping info to a computer in the first place which violates common sense and best practice on all levels. Within 30 minutes I had a refund and no explanation or follow-up.
begin bitcoin cleaning procedure and debate whether to let them go altogether. I did not want to leave them on BMR which I was beginning to have worries about in general. In the end leaving them there seemed just as risky as moving them out.
Sun - Investigate 'Atlantis' which appears to have shown up out of nowhere and has a number of listings basically copied from SR. SR is periodically coming online and boards indicate people are heading there. My concerns for this site were raised when they were able to list a high number of 'non-drug' items which typically sell slowly. This creats the illusion of a fully functional site but there is no way that many miscellaneous vendors jumped ship and systematically re-posted their listings to 'Atlantis' (unless I'm very much out of the loop). There are other similarities which suggest the site is either working off the same database or was outright copied.
Mon- SR is back online and is not kicking people off. With no hesitation I transfer all of my BC to old faithfull.....
Mon evening - Still waiting on BC to arrive.
Tues morning - still waiting on BC to arrive (much activity on the forums regarding the cause of this delay which is impacting everyone).
Tues late evening - BC arrive - Naturally, since the site is fully functional again. I place an order(s) with complete confidence.
I was baffled why someone on BMR would troll for sales with no attempt to FE but a very elaborate attempt to keep the story going. My first conclusion was LEO but on further inspection I noticed that their 'product' jpg's had 800 #'s imbedded. A lookup on these returned a Narconon hotline. (is that it? are Scientologist trolling for potenial drug addicts? Any other experiences would be appreciated.
~forumuser001
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So as not let my first post go without any replies...Something weird happened that disrupted normal buying patterns (for a while) and several sites (BMR and Atlantis) received the overflow. My experience indicates that nothing but BS existed on the other side. Was this a coordinated effort or just typical everyday BS for everyplace that is not SR?