The forums are literally exploding with people angrily denouncing the support staff and calling scam. I can't even log in. Should I consider my $80 lost and just start browsing somewhere else? I'll keep an eye on it for the next few days, I guess. Maybe I'll get lucky and the staff will just turn out to have been insanely incompetent at public relations...
Fuck, I miss the stability of SR1. What's a good market to head towards now?
Members of the British Tor Vendors Association seem to be favouring Agora Marketplace at the moment, simply due to its association with bitcoin fog. Its their money laundering bitcoin tumbler of choice, with prompt admins.
Silk Road 1 was good because they banned vendors at the drop of a hat, so scammers didn't get far and confidence was high. The only thing SR2 inherited was it's terrible windows 95 interface, the interest of the FBI, and (this week) the page timeouts. Forget ever receiving a reply from support. They're all on bail,with a couple fighting fires in the forum. Nobody in their right mind wants THAT job. wallets take days, and sometimes have negative balances. Today,people are lucky if they can even login. "We will pre fail"
SheepMarketplace was a well-designed interface. Shame it was a scam, because it was a nice one. It had an "order accepted" button and a "shipping" button for vendors. SR2 has that stupid "shipped" (past tense) button only, which misleads customers who think "I haven't got it! Shipped? Scam!"
They email the vendor, who can't login to answer because its down for "scheduled" maintenance that was scheduled in their minds a minute earlier. They email support, but support is an empty room with a phone that is always ringing, signs of a struggle,and police tape.
So the customer comes on here and cries "scam". The boss of the Medelin cartel reads it, splutters on his cornflakes, and orders a couple of columbians to visit the customer's address (which he gave to them), with a petrol chainsaw and duct tape.