Hi caker,

I just want to know if it's normal that I've already received my payment receipt (17485) but not yet my activation notice?

Thanks.

I'm not caker, however I did get my receipt before he activated it. Apparently it's activated manually, however billed automatically. I believe this is to limit fraud.

-tiz

Thanks tizen,

Why not the contrary? Shouldn't the billing start just after the activation as we pay for the whole month? If it takes 48 hours to get the activation, are we getting those 2 days back? It's not such a big deal but wouldn't it be more logical that caker start the billing at the same time he activates the account -- he can check if the credit card is valid beforehand?

Sorry if I'm wrong.

Thanks again!

I paid for a new linode (I have already other two) and after several days it has not been activated. I suspect something wrong is going on because on the other two the activation took less than an hour.

Caker is not responding emails, not even phone calls. Is he in vacation?

I also agree that we should get the days' worth back.

Caker has been around working on linode stuff behind the scenes, I believe it's been a realitivly busy week for him. You'll notice the website recently changed the copyright notice at the bottom of the pages to be copyright Linode LLC rather then himself. He's been dealing with legal/paperwork stuff. Things should be getting better soon though.

I guess it's okay to have a busy week from time to time, but now, caker is giving me a hard week too. This is take 8 to get activated on a TheServer (if possible) datacenter.

1. I've received my payment receipt (17485) on February 21, 2005 at 4:52PM GMT-5 so more than 90 hours ago.
2. I've also left a message on the forum on February 21, 2005 at 11:15PM GMT-5 to learn about activations delay.
3. I've sent an email to caker@theshore.net on February 22, 2005 at 9:56PM GMT-5 about this matter.
4. I've checked the IRC channel on February 23, 2005 at 10:31PM GMT-5 to see if caker was around. Nice folks answered my technical questions but none could help me with the activation.
5. I've sent a private message on the forum to caker on February 24, 2005 at 12:21AM GMT-5.
6. I've sent an email to sales@linode.com on February 24, 2005 at 11:03AM because all of the above requests have been left unanswered.
7. I've sent another short private message on February 25, 2005 at 5:03PM GMT-5 about the ThePlanet datacenter.
8. And now I'm posting this forum message.

I've used differents means to get attention on my problem and not to flowd the email box, I've checked the forum regularly for caker and I've tried to login to the member section from time to time, in case the activation email hadn't got through. All my messages where shorts, none where frantic. But when a customer sees a "All accounts are activated within hours" he sort of thinks his account will be activated within hours so he can tell his own customer that's he'll setup the things for next week.

Caker: I would have appreciated a quick answer, at least telling me I would have to wait a little bit longer while you were performing checkups or whatever. Maybe a autoresponder with your email saying you have received the email would be a nice start, I don't even know if one of the above request reached you. Maybe allow access to the member area to be able to send support tickets and browse to the interface while the Linode cannot be turned on would be a nice feature too as we have already paid. Most of us are not thieves and would appreciate access (within hours) to the service we just bought. I'm willing to believe you're really busy and that the product you're selling is really great; that's why I'm here waiting. But please, don't let your new customers down for so long.

Thanks for you attention with this matter.

It would seem you're not alone. I logged a ticket for a Linode upgrade a while back (see the thread 'Linode Upgrade'). I received no response at all to the ticket. I've also tried IRC and leaving a phone message on the sales number listed on linode.com -- none of this has solicited a response.

The product is great -- I've been using it for a year, and am using more and more (hence the need for the upgrade).

However, this lack of response from Chris/Linode, despite being atypical, is very frustrating.

Very odd. I've checked your signup many times over the past couple of days while doing activations, and each time the "fraud" score for your registration was off the charts. Typically with signups like these I'll wait a few days before deleting/crediting to see if they're a legit customer and contact me regarding the account. Occasionally, I get contacted even though it's an obviously fraudulent signup, in the hopes that the person can "socially engineer" their way into an account.

I have a procedure that I follow in these cases, which is to request a FAX of a signed authorization with a copy of a photo ID and the credit cards. I was about there with your signup, and checked the score again today (we use an 3rd party system to check these things, no personal info is sent, btw) and today your score was excellent.

So, you've been activated. I've posted a credit to your account for the downtime which you'll see on the March 1st invoice. I apologize for the delay and will certainly investigate this further, as well as review the entire signup-validate-activation procedure.

Thank you for your patience, and your business.

-Chris

I just signed up for an account as well... I'm just wondering how long it'll take to activate the account? I know it's the weekend, but I'd really like to register some domain names and point the DNS in the right direction soon.

I'm interested to know how the "fraud score" is determined.
Since it's a third party system, could you give us a link.
I might use that system myself.

Whoa.
That's pretty fancy.

EDIT: I got 0.95 using my ISP email and 3.45 using GMail. So using a non-free email address can really save you a LOT of fraud score.