Just recently after ASAP Market was hacked and its hot wallet drained, ASAP Market has been raising money with donation from users and vendors, has now found a new revenue stream.
ASAP Market admin, LeChacal, has posted in Dread forum that from now own, users who want to get a response to support tickets need to pay 10$ for an answer.
We have stopped responding to useless tickets. Users still create these kind tickets and spam the ticket system. Some important tickets are missed and responses are delayed. Now, if you want your useless ticket attending by a staff member you must pay $10 fees before we resolve your issue or check it.
Three top reasons why your tickets are unanswered
1. You were phished and you created a ticket about the same. You created a ticket but didn’t share the destination address, transaction hash of the deposit you made to ASAP Market.
The updated policy about such tickets
If you want us to check such ticket you must pay $10 fees before we check your ticket.
Also, note that if your issue was legit and transaction was missed by our system. You will not be charged for it.
2. You disputed an order. You created tickets about the same, you also spammed our inbox. In this case, we will release the funds to the vendor, no matter if vendor is scamming you.
What should you do instead of creating a ticket
Dispute the order and mention the issue in the dispute message. Sooner or later, staff will attend the dispute. If staff misses it, just bump it.
Also, note that if staff didn’t attend your dispute timely, you’ll be given a small coupon to compensate it.
3. Pin change, password recovery. You either lost it or someone hijacked your account and locked you out. Now you need our help. There is no hope.
What should you do before creating a ticket
You should make a new deposit of atleast $100 into xmr. After making a deposit, create a ticket, send transaction hash along with the ticket, mention your issue and send password/pin of your choice. Please note that once you request for pin change or password recovery, we will permanently block your withdrawals you can only spend your coins on the market. Pin will only be valid for making orders. Also, note that we will only reset your pin/password after verifying that you are the actual owner of the account.If you disagree with this policy please find a new market.
LeChacal post in Dread under the post “Important policy about the missing deposits, unanswered tickets, pin change and password recovery.“
ASAP Market admin is not the only one who tell users to find a new market, Tor2Door admin has recently also told users to “go to alphabay then, bye.” which seems a common theme among darknet markets who become “too big to fall”.
As expected, users did not like this new fee on users looking to get support and help to their issue on the market. One user wrote “referral payout on AB could possibly make you enough money, they pay out handsomely, and then you can actually hire some staff? Just refer your buyers to AB with your special referral link.“, another “lmao. Useless mods. I guess a ticket about a vendor scamming (which has been reported on numerous forums) is useless huh? Customers not receiving what they ordered, customers not being shipped what they bought, customers not receiving responses from the vendor… Useless tickets right?“
This apparent cash grab by ASAP Market might signal an incoming exit scam, or just be an action of an annoyed darknet market admin from too many support tickets being opened by new users. We will keep following up with ASAP Market and updating on new ways the market admin finds to monetize the market.