Streamload – Mediamax – The Linkup – Be Afraid!

I received an email over the weekend from a company I absolutely despise.

Mediamax – “The online storage company that can loose your files and does” are in their process on trying to hide under the guise of a new company and website.

Hello MediaMax customer – xxxxxxxxxx:

We have some exciting news to share! We will be launching a major upgrade to MediaMax this month. With this release, we’re going to be renaming our service to “The Linkup” (www.thelinkup.com). The Linkup supports all of the current functionality of MediaMax, but also has some exciting new features.

The basic info you need to know:

“The Linkup”: MediaMax will be renamed to “The Linkup” on April 25. The new URL will be www.thelinkup.com and we’re expecting that you’ll love the new service and features. You can check out a preview now at:

http://www.thelinkup.com/

Current subscribers: If you are currently a paying subscriber to MediaMax, you don’t need to do anything. Your account will automatically be moved from MediaMax to The Linkup before the end of the month. All files that you uploaded to MediaMax after July 1, 2007 will be automatically moved to The Linkup. If you’d like to move additional files, please select them here using the “mover” tool:

http://www.thelinkup.com/mover

We’ll process requests made using this tool once per day through the end of this month. You can use this tool more than once if you forgot some files the first time.

Current non-paying users: If you are not currently a paying subscriber to MediaMax, you need to upgrade your account before April 25 to be included in the move. Otherwise, your account will be deleted and all your files will be lost. Click here to upgrade your MediaMax account:

Upgrade now:

http://www.mediamax.com/Brands/MediaMax/home/pricing_plan.aspx

The Linkup Prices: Effective April 25, we will be increasing the prices of all of our premium subscriptions, but, in addition to the increased stability and new features that The Linkup provides, we are also removing bandwidth limits on all accounts, so there will be no more bandwidth “overage” charges (for personal, non-commercial use only). For example: $4.95/mo subscribers will now be paying $5.95/mo; $9.95/mo subscribers will now be paying $11.95/mo. Your MediaMax subscription will be automatically moved to a The Linkup subscription that is closest to what you currently pay. Additional subscription details will be available on The Linkup web site.

That’s it! If you’re currently a paying subscriber, there is nothing for you to do (except for selecting extra files that you’d like to have moved). For additional information please visit our blog: http://mediamaxblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading, and we’re looking forward to having you at The Linkup!

MediaMax & The Linkup Support Team

support@mediamax.com

If your un familier with Mediamax, then feel free to read my other post about this company.

I’ll keep it short and sweet -

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

DO NOT USE GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD DETAILS.

DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR FILES.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Online Storage and Sharing – Beware!

I first began working on my own projects using Flash Video in 2004.

It soon became apparent that I would need a facility to host the video files while allowing them to be shared in order for the Flash Video player to target and play them.

After much searching I found a company based in the USA in San Diego called Streamload.

They offered exactly what I required, they even had a tracking facility where you could view how much of the file had been streamed and various stats about who had requested the file.

They had great reviews and what appeared to be a growing community of users and best of all the pricing was good.

My Flash Video samples worked flawlessly and if ever there was a problem the Streamload Customer Service would usually respond to the query within 24 hour and the problem would be resolved.

As time went by Streamload announced they were going to rollout a new and improved version of Streamload called Mediamax which would be all singing and all dancing.

They also rebranded the company to Mediamax in order to add extra fanfair to the launch of the product.

Mediamax was rolled out and customers didn’t get a choice, the files they had on the Streamload system were ported across to the Mediamax system….and all hell broke loose.

It was apparent from the off that Mediamax didn’t work properly, files failed to stream, accounts could not be accessed and the whole situation began to take on that train wreck feel.

Mediamax still advertised and worst of all, still took customers money.

Their customer service disappeared, the Mediamax blog comments were disabled due to the amount of abuse the company were getting, and any form of contact was impossible.

The other problem was they held your credit card details on your account, but you had no way to remove them.

As I was using this company in both a personal and professional capacity (I had mp3 and video files hosted with them for the company I work for.) I was getting more and more annoyed and set out to get a refund of all monies paid from June 06 to August 07 which I successfully did after threatening legal action.

This left me with a situation, I had been able to retrieve files that had not been lost by Mediamax but I still needed someone to host them.

After more research I found a start up company called Omnidrive who appeared to be destined for great things.

I bought in, and moved both personal and professional files to the company.

There were some glitches but I was assured and fully expected them to be ironed out.

How wrong I was.

I logged on to Omnidrive this morning and on the new navigation layout I spotted a FORUM button.

I clicked on it and was immediately horrified to see posts demanding refunds.

Here we go again I thought, and having read some of the posts it would appear Omnidrive are also heading for the toilet.

So here is my tale of woe regarding online storage and sharing companies, I guess I will be looking for another one shortly.

Mediamax had no qualms about effectively stealing their customers money, not only that, but they still have the audacity to advertise the service as working.

They also appear to have rebranded and set up again as a company called Nirvanix, although they deny it, you only have to look at the addresses of both ‘businesses’ to see it doesn’t take an idiot to figure it out – they are on the same street as each other!

As for Omnidrive, well it doesn’t look good and I will be keeping a close eye on them.

More information can be found here –

Mediamax We Need You – Users Blog.

A whole blog dedicated to long suffering users of one of the worst companies ever to appear on the internet.

CNET Forum Review of Mediamax.

Mediamax Fraud Petiton.

Omnidrive – Finished?

More Omnidrive woe!

So if you know of any online hosting companies that arn’t going to loose my files and steal my money, please let me know!