Alex P.

I use them as a hosting service (a site that I've updated maybe 3x in half a year...) and they registered my domain through GoDaddy and so far I've had no problems. I can't comment on uptime/downtime since I rarely visit and I have basically no outside visitors; it's more of a placeholder in case I ever want to do something. But they do offer cheap hosting, when I signed up around $4.99 a month. The first time I signed up, they double charged me for a service because of their confusing forms (my mistake) but when I contacted their customer service, they refunded both charges very shortly. One thing I noticed, if you use Paypal, their payments will get withdrawn as automatic billing yearly or whatever plan you chose when you signed up. BE sure to either cancel if you don't want your site or change plans if you have to. Just don't forget you have a site somewhere for years... In addition, if you delete your site from them - it's gone forever, so make backups.

I got spammed too:

"LouisVuitton L. Along with the network development, many products sale by the network.It becomes a Fierce
Competition. For example the Louis Vuitton Online Store, as one of the most famous brand in the world,
Louis Vuitton has their website, but they also need the Louis Vuitton Outlet to sale their products.So if
You want to buy Louis Vuitton you just visit our Louis Vuitton Store. Welcome to http://www.buylouisvuittonoutletstore.com or email me:*******@yahoo.cn."

It seems like these people don't know what SiteJabber is for, but it's comical... and sad. The other review pretty much covers the likelihood that this is 100% scam, but I just wanted to chime in about their ignorant spam methods.

A very comprehensive and useful watercolor painting reference site that covers techniques and lists some artists that I found useful to look at for inspiration. Some of the sections aren't linked and haven't been for a while but it's worth a trip if you're thinking about watercolor painting.

ESK has a wonderful collection of kettle/hand-dyed yarn, most of it at sock weight and in gorgeous colour schemes. They carry a ton of Malabrigo, the sought after Madeleine Tosh and other brands. Some colour ways may be out of stock depending on when you order and their backorders can take time as each batch needs to be dyed and sent to them, but it's understandable and I think alternate colours should suffice for those of us that aren't picky. They also have a nice yarnathon program depending on how many total yards you buy that you accumulate gifts at different stages, which is a great customer bringing back strategy :)

Also know as "Arcadia Aromatics", they make AMAZING soap. They're not cheap, but they're great as gifts and smell wonderful. I first found them on Etsy, which they no longer operate through. I've gotten a few batches of orders fine, they're wrapped well and the seller refunded for overcharges on shipping. Also gives out coupon codes and announces sales on their facebook page. Highly recommended if you're into gourmet soaps.

Knitpicks has their own house brand of yarn, importing directly from mills in South America cutting out the middle distributor. This lets their prices be competitive while retaining the quality other brand name yarn boasts. They're pretty good about keeping up with the current trend - silk blends, eco-wool/cotton, etc but I've never actually ordered or used the yarn. I'm not a fan of their colour palettes for the main weights (worsted, bulky) although they do offer a tantalizing section of sock and lace weight yarn. For me, what I like the best is their array of good quality knitting needles. I've ordered 2 sets, one was delayed because it was around Christmas time (not their fault) and the other one came timely. In general, highly recommended if you're knitting on a budget but don't like acrylic or craft quality yarn.

Being a yarnaholic, I used to troll sale sections of large online retailers and JBW has the best price on Malabrigo worsted! They had almost all of the colours listed and I did not see out of stock info., so I ordered what'd be enough to make scarves for me and someone else (in time for their bday). They sent me an email a week later to tell me that it was backordered and would take up to 14 days, maybe more and gave me the option to cancel. I went ahead and did and nothing was charged. Their customer service was fine, but they should REALLY differentiate first off which colours are backordered. I don't know if they do it now, but it was frustrating then.

Another experience I've had was back when I lived in Canada and a friend bought from them to gift me a bit of yarn and it took a very long time to arrive. I understand custom issues and there was some renovation on my street at the same time but I also remember them notifying me the colour my friend chose was out of stock and asked me to pick an alternate colour. Again, they should keep inventory on what is actually in stock because it's just annoying.

The only reason I don't give it 4 stars is because they have a rather limited selection on gemstones, but aside from that their prices are great and they offer a wide selection of the "meat and potatos" of jewelry components - findings, metal wire, stringing wire and so forth. Timely delivery! Once they sent me the wrong gauge of stringing wire and when I contacted them, they gave me a pre-paid return shipping label and once they received that they sent the correct one. Very reasonable prices too on everything.

This site looks like a similar sort of site to bonanza, but apparently with sellers offering electronics and game consoles. There's no information in About Us other than the origin of the word "ebanza". You'd expect a few sections about how ebanza works, when it was established but nothing. The help section is very disorganized and the FAQ is completely empty. The contact us does give an email and a form but it seems sloppy and very unprofessional. It might be a legit alternative to eBay/bonanza, but it seems a bit shady and I doubt it'd get much view since I stumbled on there accidentally.

Judging by other reviews, I think the freshness of food probably depends on where you live and how close you are to their distribution centers. For me, everything has been good to great in terms of freshness. I've tried almost all of the same type of service (Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Sun Basket, Marley Spoon, Home Chef) and Plated is still the one that I think has the best recipes. When I say best recipes, it's in terms of a) how good the final result tastes, b) whether the ingredients/process is easily reproducible and c) how well the recipe is actually written in terms of time management/clarity. One giant caveat: Plated doesn't publish their recipes/you can't retrieve archived meals or the other meals in your delivery you didn't purchase.
I'd say 90% of the time, the meals turn out great. There was one or two that I questioned their choice (large pieces of eggplant in lo mein, not what I'd choose but hey) but overall, just fantastic. The instructions are also always very easy to follow, and any highlights are printed separately for you to keep note of. I've also cooked a dish or two I've loved again and they were also great. It's slightly pricier than some of the other choices, but I think it's worth it.

Note: this is a subscription service like any other type (handbags, shoes, etc). You will be charged recurring weeks unless you deactivate your account or skip a meal. It's sometimes difficult to remember, but I always skip all the meals for the upcoming month or so to be safe and then go back to unskip once I'm not as busy. I'm pretty sure this is outlined in the sign-up somewhere, so it's not a surprise.

Another awesome yarn vendor that ships quickly with a gorgeous supply of yarn. As with any other vendor that relies on inconsistent supply (some of the yarn is independently dyed from overseas, for example) - some items can be out of stock for a few months but that's one of the main reasons to shop here: when it's in stock, be sure to grab it! Shipping is free over $75 and there's a reward system that's very handy.

Another cute little Japanese stationery retailer based in California. They offer free shipping for $25 and above within the US. I ordered notebooks but they carry pens, highlighters and an assortment of Japanese stationery. Their packaging is immaculate and the owners wrote a very polite thank you note on a pretty note card. Customer service like that always gets brownie points from me =). Highly recommended.

I'm a stationery junkie, with my specialty being notebooks, highlighters and gel/liquid ink pens but a friend got me into fountain pens recently and looking for fountain pen friendly notebooks led me to JetPens. They carry a huge variety of Japanese notebooks (Kokuyo, Maruman) and the beloved Rhodia brand as well as many beginner/student friendly priced fountain pens (Lamy, Pelikan and cheaper Sailors). There are also a ton of other items: pencil cases, inks, mechanical pencils and so forth. They offer free shipping above $25, which is so easy and tempting. The packaging is always fine, no ink bottles broken or notebooks scuffed. Many customers review the items making their product review system extra helpful.

I bought some foot petals to try and accommodate a couple of shoes I have. They shipped very quickly and it arrived quickly but for some reason didn't email me a shipping confirmation. I'm used to that from 99.9% of online retailers as it's extremely helpful in tracking something that's being delivered to a work address, for example.

If you've played video games to any capacity and remember the music, then you'll appreciate OCR. It's a community of mostly fan submitted remixes of video game music with a tight selection process so that the remixes are actually decent at the worst and very, very good at the best.

It's also always very interesting to hear a particular theme or sequence remixed in a different style. In fact, video game music remixes could be considered a whole sub-genre of its own thanks to OCR. It's free to download remixes and it's always interesting reading the judges' comments on a new addition.

Similar to lookbook.nu, where basically users can submit their own outfit photos, receive comments and post comments about other users. It's kind of like a facebook for dedicated fashionistas who are all too hip for the common mortal. Sarcasm aside, it is interesting to browse some of the outfits from French girls, for example who tend to espouse a certain aesthetic and photo sensibility. Last time I checked, they had a points system for doing things like commenting/receiving comments/etc that you use to redeem for actual products.

This site is now just freelancer.com, either they changed the people who run it or revamped it but while I was out of a job, I did a job on here that cost the person hiring $30. They charged a $5 fee for that, but their paypal withdrawl limit is $30, so basically you'd have to win another project and complete it before you can even withdraw any money! Not only that, they charge another fee for withdrawing from their site to paypal. If I remember correctly, they gave you free bids for projects per month but if you wanted to bid more you have to buy bids. I considered adding in another $30 to obtain a final value of $55 to transfer to my paypal, but I'd lose $5 more plus the initial fees. A gain of $20 is better than nothing, but it just seemed excessive for such a small amount. So I left it there, a year and a half later I log on and ALL THE MONEY is gone. Apparently they took out $5 every set period for inactivity.

I'm glad I didn't add any money on my account! Basically if they think you're no longer active, THEY WILL take your money. Hell, even imagecave sends me email reminders "your account will expire in 30 days, please log in to reactivate it." This kind of deceptive behaviour borders on theft.

Thumbtack is an utterly irresponsible and reprehensible company that provides no information and takes zero responsibility for their contractors. It should be illegal for them to connect customers to short and long distance movers. Recently, the FBI charged 12 people for moving scams where these criminals will either a). Take your stuff hostage and demand more and more money to return your stuff or b). Steal your stuff and then auction them off. There are in between outcomes where your stuff will likely be broken by illegitimate movers who will also severely overcharge you. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration keeps a database of movers who are registered and insured with the Federal government. In addition, a U.S. DOT number is required by FMCSA for interstate moves. This is the BASIC minimum step to check for the legitimacy of a purported mover. Otherwise movers who don't meet this basic minimum requirement: a) may not be insured and therefore you may be mislead into believing the insurability of your goods b) may actually NOT be legal to carry out interstate moves and c) are NOT subject to any regulation because you can't file a complaint against them with the FMCSA.
Think about online websites that connect customers to service providers. When you sign up on eBay, you are given hints to how to purchase safely and how to sell safely. Thumbtack provides NO guidance on identifying legitimate moving companies. This is because their business model SUPPORTS predators who prey on unsuspecting or ill advised consumers. Businesses have to pay a fee to see your request and that's how Thumbtack gets paid. They're largely accepting of scammers and shady contractors because they get money, take no responsibility for your pain and loss when in fact, they should be legally liable for not doing background checks on contractors.
I was contacted by a shady person, likely a moving "broker" who gave me a quote for moving interstate. I was asked to pay an upfront 20% deposit (a sign of shady business practices) which I did through PayPal. The moving company name this broker masquerades under is the same name as a legitimate company in another state, which is not unusual as moving companies often do long distance interstate moves. Their phone # also matched the area code of the legitimate moving company (Flag 1 for misdirection).
I then googled the name of the actual moving company, who has a similar name to yet another legitimate transport company (Flag 2 for misdirection). It wasn't until I felt a sense of uncertainty that I looked further and realized that this was one of those shady illegal moving companies that hire a local penske/generic truck, bang up your stuff and possibly hold your items hostage and/or force you to pay "storage fees". They CLAIMED to accept credit card payment, but switched to PayPal or Venmo (Flag 3). I was able to resolve the issue through several calls to PayPal but I had to escalate the issue as they did not believe me and thought I was backing out of a moving contract. I later did some research and it turns out the invoice was illegal because they charged by volume instead of weight (google binding vs. non binding contracts and the legality of quoting by volume vs. weight) so had PayPal not stopped the transaction I could have sought back my deposit by other means.
I contacted Thumbtack and sent them PROOF with screenshots. The moving company has ALSO been reviewed under Yelp with complaints that Thumbtack referred them. This is 99% Thumbtack's responsibility and yet they don't care. This individual is still on Thumbtack with fake 100% positive reviews. There have been other reviewers stating that these scammers just change to another name on Thumbtack even if action forces them to close down one account. In the end Thumbtack proposed a solution to connect me to this shady individual summarizing that I was "not comfortable pursuing services." This is highly misleading and has NOTHING TO DO with personal feelings or being comfortable. There were CLEAR signs and proof their contractor was shady and illegal. Not only that, it is dangerous to clearly disclose to a shady individual, "your customer is uncomfortable doing business with you." Who knows if these individuals will retaliate or get revenge, GIVEN that my original and new moving addresses were given to them. I advise anyone considering moving to NOT use Thumbtack and instead use OFFICIAL and FEDERAL government licensed companies and most of all, do research. Thumbtack doesn't care if you lose your valuable belongings, get terrorized by scammers or lose money. They will keep a band of thieves if it serves them their dinner on a silver platter at the expense of your WHOLE LIFE.

As a Canadian, I'm pretty familiar with David's Tea. I've gotten tea both in store and online. They have a pretty good rewards ($100 gets you free 2Oz of tea - yes it's kind of a lot to spend, but it's over a year I think). They also run promos quite often, and rotate seasonal teas. The teas themselves are kind of similar in flavour to each other with similar ingredients but I love their Chocolate Pu-Erh tea which is only around for the winter season. They've always delivered packages to me quickly and they give you a free tin if you order over a certain amount. You can also pick free samples online. I've never had a bad experience and they also have some cute teaware (travel mugs, tea sets, etc).

I've been recently getting into drinking loose leaf teas and came across Adagio Teas, naturally. They're sort of like Teavana/David's Tea/etc with a similar type of assortment and appeal but what really got me interested was their custom fan blended teas you can order by pretty much any interest you can think of. The BBC Sherlock series interested me, as did Batman... and probably other ones. But you can also order simple blends like Pink Lemonade, or Strawberry Cupcake. I even tested their custom blend DIY feature and it's nifty, though you can only blend 3 types of teas + a scoop of something else which may or may not be limiting. For beginners, I suppose more than 3 might make the tea too disharmonious but I can see for example how chocolate, almond, cherry and a base black would be a good blend. At the time I ordered, I got a $5 off coupon for my first order. The items were shipped promptly and everything was correct. As for the teas themselves, I think that they're decent but I have had better (not a snob thing just honesty). However, I would definitely try some of their fan blends again and flavored blends.