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customer service failure

Spam from kingex.io (Kingex Crypto and Cash exchange)

Apr 28th, 2025
by Craig.
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Spam is frustrating. It is for me on many levels, not least of which because I run a mail server for a few thousand users. This is especially true since my company is a small hosting provider, so we have almost no leverage with the “big boys”, Google, Microsoft/Hotmail/Outlook (however they want to be known today), Yahoo, etc. The one that can’t make up their mind what they’re called has a programme called “Smart Network Data Services” but which used to be called “Postmaster Live”, but it’s as useless as tits on a bull. I’ve jumped through all of the hoops, but I still get just infuriating auto-replies and ignored when I try to interact with their system and the people behind their system. Google’s system is completely worthless and unworkable, as in order for my company to be a part of it, I’d have to create a new account for every domain we host! I can’t just sign up my mail servers’ IP addresses and deal with them that way! It’s stupid beyond belief.

But the point of these programmes/systems is for, as in the “old days” of the Internet, service providers — particularly the postmasters of said service providers — to interact and resolve issues. But the “big boys” don’t actually make any effort to “interact and resolve” anything; they just dictate how the rest of the world is supposed to interact with them, even when they’re operating outside of the RFCs, which are, essentially, the laws of the Internet.

One day I’ll write a more comprehensive post about how I think that all of said “big boys” are colluding to ensure that only they provide email service in the future, and companies like NinerNet Communications — with whom people are currently free to contract! — are shunted to the side, and encouraged to become their resellers.

But on a personal level, I myself get hardly any spam. Seriously! (Seventeen since 2021.) But when I do, I go through the roof, especially if it’s sent to one of my personal addresses, which I never give to anyone but close friends and family (I just don’t!), other than my “personal company” address, which I use to communicate with clients as well, of course. And I never enter it into a form on a website either! I have a system of rotating email addresses, and addresses I set up for individual suppliers and for specific purposes. For example, if I sign up for a Twitter account, the email address I give them is twitter123@myspecial.subdomain.com. That makes is easy to filter messages from them, and also makes it clear to me who leaked my email address if that address is spammed.

And if I’m going on a trip (as I just did), I set up an “alias” for the trip; that way I can use it for everything from plane tickets, to hotels, to entry tickets … the works! After the trip, I delete it. All of those airlines and hotels and theatres can spam me all they want — and they do! — but at the flick of a switch when I get home, all of that spam stops. Ahhhh, peace!

So after five paragraphs I should address the spam I received on Thursday from a company called Kingex, who bill themselves as a “crypto and cash exchange”. Years ago I gave up reporting spam to the email service providers from where the spam originated, and the hosts of the spamvertised websites. I used to have a very sophisticated and in-depth system for doing so — as good as if not better than Spamcop’s — but I eventually realised that it was a complete waste of time to do so … and it was a significant amount of time to do so, looking up the owners and contacts for multiple IP addresses and domains. It was a waste of time because my reports were completely ignored, and in some cases the hosts justified the spam, questioned my intelligence (“You probably just forgot you signed up for the spam”) and/or defended the spammers.

Anyway, this spam from kingex.io was sent to my personal company email address, not to one of my rotating or supplier email addresses. (I have a “personal company” email address, and a “personal personal” email address, both on their own domains, neither of which are the domain of this website.) Ironically the message included a request and a link: “Please leave us some feedback https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kingex.io”. So I thought, “What the hell, I won’t be reporting this, but I’ll give them some appropriate feedback.” And I did:

Never heard of these guys until I received spam from them a few minutes ago asking to be reviewed. So I am. Never deal with spammers.

I also perused a few of the other reviews, most of which were five (of five) stars, of course, as is typical on review websites where customers are coerced or otherwise strongly motivated into leaving reviews. But there were a few negative ones (read them yourself) where (a) Kingex representatice(s) was/were very aggressive in putting down the reviewer … which, as everyone knows, is Customer Service 101, put down any criticism with aggression.

In that vein my review received this response:

Dear customer,

We do not send unsolicited emails and do not promote our exchange services via email marketing. If you believe you received a message claiming to be from us, please provide the email address in question or contact us directly at support@kingex.io — we will be happy to investigate the matter thoroughly.

Until any evidence is presented, we consider this review an attempt to discredit our exchange service without basis.

Best regards,
Kingex Team

Because, as everyone knows, every negative review is quite clearly “an attempt to discredit our [company/]service without basis.” Yup, I’ve got nothing better to do all day than find new companies and leave them negative reviews.

Anyway, I’ve posted this here so that when I send these morons the copy of the spam I received, I will send it along with a link to this post, because on the Trust Pilot website there doesn’t seem to be a possibility of engaging in any back-and-forth, so my blog is where I will make this back-and-forth possible because Kingex will probably do all they can to have my Trust Pilot review removed. But, you know, when someone accuses you right off the bat with lying, there’s not much chance of any constructive back-and-forth. (Ironically, I see they now have another one-star review from someone else they spammed, with the same copied-and-pasted aggressive reply; see screenshot.) Here, the review cannot and will not be removed.

Oh, and their domain has been blocked on my company’s mail servers, so any future spam from them will not be delivered to our users’ mail boxes.

Kingex review and reply

Kingex review and reply.

Kingex spam complaints

Kingex spam complaints.

And here’s the spam:

Return-Path: <dumbass@kingex.io>
Delivered-To: xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Received: from nc036.ninernet.net (nc036.ninernet.net [127.0.0.1])
by nc036.ninernet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD920C540C3
for <xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx>; Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:54:25 +0000 (UTC)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at nc036.ninernet.net
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: 2.787
X-Spam-Level: **
X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.787 tagged_above=-100 required=3.5
tests=[BAYES_00=-1.9, HTML_MESSAGE=0.001, MISSING_HEADERS=1.021,
RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET=1.347, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_BL=0.001,
RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_ZBI=0.001, RCVD_IN_VALIDITY_RPBL_BLOCKED=0.001,
RCVD_IN_VALIDITY_SAFE_BLOCKED=0.001, RCVD_IN_ZEN_BLOCKED_OPENDNS=0.001,
RDNS_NONE=0.793, SPF_HELO_FAIL=0.001, SPF_SOFTFAIL=0.665,
TVD_SPACE_RATIO=0.001, TVD_SPACE_RATIO_MINFP=0.85, URIBL_BLOCKED=0.001,
URIBL_DBL_BLOCKED_OPENDNS=0.001, URIBL_ZEN_BLOCKED_OPENDNS=0.001]
autolearn=no autolearn_force=no
Received: from nc036.ninernet.net ([127.0.0.1]) by nc036.ninernet.net
(nc036.ninernet.net [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id
X-fluxj0TjIf for <xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx>; Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:54:24 +0000
(UTC)
Received: from domain.com (unknown [94.26.90.29])
by nc036.ninernet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id D05C2C540C1
for <xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx>; Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:54:24 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <252444ef1bdff5fed9e3aa01f5012a2fb46c4b@kingex.io>
From: Kingex <dumbass@kingex.io>
Subject: Best exchange
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 17:54:02 -0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="2b81c86397537de6c56f26bd48820a7ce3"
X-Evolution-Source: 0ff2745c15978e92c527518f51fd77983813ec4b

–2b81c86397537de6c56f26bd48820a7ce3
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”utf-8″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

A BUNCH OF LINKS REMOVED

Please leave us some feedback https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kingex.io

–2b81c86397537de6c56f26bd48820a7ce3
Content-Type: text/html; charset=”utf-8″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

A BUNCH OF LINKS REMOVED

–2b81c86397537de6c56f26bd48820a7ce3–

Updated, 2025-04-28: Firefox turns a bare Tiktok link into a tracking warning. I am not tracking anything.

Updated, 2025-04-28: Actually, removed most of the body of the spam message, as WordPress (Word-press?) just makes a mess of it, and all I was doing was helping to promote the spammer. Ain’t WYSIWYG great?!

Major website-management failure (Win Win Chick-N) due to ineptitude, and loss of business

Sep 8th, 2021
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post

There is a fast-food chicken place in our area called Win Win Chick-N. We’ve been meaning to try it out for a couple of years, but we never get around to it. However, one day last week was the day, and I worked my mouth into a lather thinking about eating fried chicken.

And then I tried to use their website.

Win Win Chick-N menu

Win Win Chick-N menu.

First thing I noticed was the pop-up offering me a coupon for $5 off my order, in exchange for my email address. OK, sure, so I give them one of my older rotating email addresses and get my coupon code: MYCOUPONCODE. Cool. Then I look at their menu, which you can see at left. I settle on the “2pc Delicious Fried Chicken Snack”. I switch to the order page and I notice that the price has suddenly gone up from $9.99 to $12.75, a 28% increase!

So, whatever, at least I’ll get five bucks off. Since I was ordering for two, that almost made up for the sudden, unadvertised price increase.

So I put two meals into my shopping cart. I took some time to try and figure out whether or not a drink was included in the meal combos I had ordered. It was very unclear to me whether or not a drink was included, as it wasn’t mentioned in the $9.99 description but it was mentioned on the order page. However, as we had actually already decided we’d be eating the meals at a nearby coffee house, where we’d be getting drinks anyway, I decided to go ahead. If we got the drinks, great; if we didn’t, great.

Win Win Chick-N coupon fail

Win Win Chick-N coupon fail.

Then I entered my coupon code. The response was, “Unable to find the requested campaign”! By that time I just lost it.

There was no way I was ordering from such a badly run website, as who knows how much my credit card would be really charged, how many times it would be charged, and what the hell we’d get when we got there and whether it would even be edible. And if they’d so badly screwed up everything up to that point, it was very, very unlikely things were going to suddenly get better from that point. Ironically, if we’d just gone to the place and waited the twenty or so minutes they suggested our food would take things probably would have gone fine. But now … we’ll probably never know.

Instead of spending about $30 plus taxes and a tip at Win Win Chick-N, we chose to go to another place we’d been meaning to visit for the last couple of years, Steveston Built, and spent about $70 there instead. We’d heard their prawn tacos were good, and they were. I sort of got my fried chicken fix with their “crispy buttermilk chicken burger”, which they kindly offered in a lettuce wrap instead of a bun.

Also offered on the Win Win Chick-N website is a “Valentine Special Best Gift Ever 2019”, in case you’d like to try and get back that girlfriend/boyfriend you lost in 2019. Good luck!

I likely won’t be going back unless I get a very earnest recommendation from someone I know (and they listen to my story first), and I don’t know the author of the old Globe and Mail opinion piece to which their website links.

Win Win Chick-N menu page

Win Win Chick-N menu page.

Feedback sent to Staples

Apr 26th, 2017
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post
Staples makes my head square and my face red! Art by SumiTomohiko: https://openclipart.org/user-detail/SumiTomohiko

Staples makes my head square and my face red!

I’ve been using Staples more than usual for about the last year for various reasons, and one of the things I’ve been doing is making signs for a noticeboard. For this I generally want something printed in black ink on coloured paper; nothing fancy, but not plain, white paper. However, unsurprisingly (I suppose) Staples doesn’t offer coloured paper on their self-service machines, so of course I go to the desk … for which I do expect to pay a bit more, considering I’m dealing with a paid employee.

However, what I don’t expect is a bureaucratic nightmare! Below is what I’ve just submitted to their survey system, although (to rub salt into the wound) I don’t qualify for their freebie draw because my order total was less than $20. (However, I had to scan the fine print to catch that.)

In order to get three copies on coloured paper your employee had to do four pages of paperwork that took more time than it would have taken to do the job. I realise you can’t have as many employees as you have customers, but the bureaucracy involved in your typical “quick” job would make a government bureaucrat blush with envy.

On top of that my “express” job couldn’t be done right away, and I was told it would take an hour and a half! However, within five minutes of my arriving back home a few minutes later I got a call saying my job was ready. If I had known it would only take that long I’d have returned after doing my other errand in the area.

And further, your employee told me that the express charge was an additional 30%, but when I showed up to collect my order it turned out the express charge was 2825% — yes, two thousand eight hundred and twenty-five per cent — of the base charge!

This is not my first experience like this. It’s always like this with simple orders, but I’ve had enough and decided it’s about time I said something.

SIMPLY PUT, you need a better way of dealing with orders that take less time than it takes to do the paperwork. This is just bloody stupid.

Bloody ridiculous indeed! I did time the process on a previous occasion and I think it literally took two minutes — 120 seconds — from the time the employee started talking to me to the time I walked away with my paid-for copies. But if they screw around with four pages(!) of paperwork it of course takes much longer, and so it’s no wonder they can’t do small jobs right away and have to charge an “express” fee. I went into Staples late one evening a few months ago, interrupted the kid checking her social media, and still had to pay an “express” fee! (I believe that was the occasion on which I timed the whole process.)

Staples, train your employees to differentiate between small jobs that can be done in a matter of seconds and stuff that will actually take longer to do than it takes to do the paperwork. It’s not that hard. People with small, quick jobs like me will be happy to be out of your hair in minutes, and the guy over there waiting for his thousand copies won’t have any reason to complain if the employee is off at another machine doing my three copies while his are still printing.