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AlphaVPS / Alex Barakov: Surprise biometric KYC (Didit), service withheld, refund refused & account
true_human
Member
Hello LowEndTalk community,
I am writing this to warn current and prospective customers about unacceptable business practices and unlawful fund withholding by AlphaVPS and its owner, Alex Barakov.
Here is the exact chronology of how AlphaVPS accepted payment, withheld the service, demanded third-party biometric facial scans, refused to issue a refund, and unilaterally terminated my account while keeping my money.
The Timeline & Facts:
Order & Immediate Payment:
I ordered a Cheap Cloud VPS in Sofia, Bulgaria (Order #52891) and paid in full via MasterCard. The payment was cleared immediately.First Delay & Profile Requests:
Instead of provisioning the VPS, the service was suspended. Staff member Nancy Basheva opened a ticket asking to update profile contact details. I fully complied and provided matching details.The Surprise Third-Party Biometric Ambush:
Shortly after, ticket #431327 was opened stating that the account did not pass automatic checks and forced me into mandatory identity verification through an external third party: Didit (verify.didit.me), requiring government ID and live biometric scans. This requirement was never presented as an unavoidable condition for keeping funds prior to taking the payment.Lawful Refusal of Biometric Processing & Refund Request:
Under EU consumer protection and GDPR principles, any customer has the undeniable right to refuse biometric data harvesting by third-party processors. Since AlphaVPS refused to provision the server without Didit, I formally exercised my right to cancel Order #52891 and requested an immediate full refund back to my original payment method (MasterCard), as zero services had been rendered.Alex Barakov's Response:
Instead of processing standard merchant cancellation for undelivered services, Alex Barakov dismissed the refund request with a one-sentence reply:"It was specified during the order process for Russian/BY Orders, such as yours."
Account Deleted, Money Stolen:
Immediately following this, my client account was completely changed to "Closed", locking me out of the portal, without issuing a refund transaction ID or returning a single cent of the payment.
The Core Issues AlphaVPS Must Answer Publicly:
- Services Not Rendered: Under Visa/MasterCard core operating regulations, a merchant cannot capture customer funds, refuse to deliver the digital service, and decline a refund. That is textbook unauthorized withholding of funds.
- Biometric Coercion: Holding a customer's payment hostage to force submission of sensitive biometric facial data to an external provider is predatory and unacceptable in the hosting industry.
- Discrimination & Arbitrary Confiscation: Declining service based on geolocation or origin is a provider's prerogative, but keeping customer money after refusing service is outright theft.
I have already initiated a formal transaction dispute (Chargeback) through my issuing bank under "Services Not Rendered", which will incur mandatory non-refundable dispute penalties against AlphaVPS's merchant account.
I am posting the full uncensored ticket logs and account closure screenshots below for transparency.
@AlexBarakov: Issue the full refund immediately and explain to the community since when AlphaVPS policy allows pocketing customer payments for zero provisioned infrastructure.
Full screenshots album: https://postimg.cc/gallery/9rb9kJ0
Comments
I'm aware that providers require KYC before accepting customers, but it is unethical to take customers' money and then refuse to refund him based on customer's country, customers have the right to reject KYC and receive their money back. It's not that difficult for a provider to use WAF to block customers from a specific region or nation from accessing the billing panel.
Oleg, please, do not use AI to summarise your case.
Nowadays a lot of customers use VPN, and passing WAF geo block is the easiest thing.
Fair point. English is not my native language, so I used an AI strictly to translate and structure the timeline clearly instead of posting broken English.
Every single fact, quote, and ticket screenshot in the post and gallery is 100% genuine and untouched.
You already have taken actions through the chargeback.
For "transparency", why are you creating an account on this forum for the unique purpose of posting the AI slop? Why would you want to warn a community you were not a member of beforehand? Is it to put pressure on the provider?
I mean, they do make it very explicit.
Alex is a good dude, and I'm certain there is a good explanation. Likely some weird EU regulatory thing about transferring money blindly to a Russian bank without knowing who exactly it's being sent to.
Welcome to regulatory oversight and being punished globally because of political leaders.
Yes, absolutely. Why shouldn't I put pressure on them?
They took my cash, gave me zero service, demanded my biometric data, refused a refund, and deleted my account.
I don't give a damn about the €3. It’s the principle. A host shouldn't get to quietly pocket a customer's money and pretend nothing happened.
A chargeback gets my money back; this post is so the next guy doesn't get screwed. That's literally what Reviews are for.
I’m from Kazakhstan. My card is Kazakh, my billing address is Kazakh. I am not from Russia or Belarus.
"Subject to KYC" does not mean "we keep your money if you decline third-party biometric scans".
Refusing to provide service without KYC is their choice. Keeping the money and deleting the account is just theft.
🍿
Use providers who explicitly advertises No KYC. If you don't want KYC, don't pay providers who does it.
agree with it. keeping customers money for not doing KYC is sort of scam. alphavps should really refund the said customer.
We make it very clear that orders from specific countries (such as Russia) are required to pass KYC. There are additional things regarding our order screening, which I am unable to share. Neither this is your first attempt to surpass these requirements.
Just so we're on the same page - your billing address is not the address of the foreign credit card utilized to make a payment.
Anyway - this is on me. I always refund payments (even issued a credit note) before closing the account, most likely Stripe returned some error and I mislooked it.
I can gurantee you that we are not interested in stealing 3EUR from you, especially when this is actually a severe compliance issue.
Nope, actually the opposite - in this case it should have been refunded, I just overlooked/misclicked or something like this.
Update:
Full refund received with Transaction ID.
A provider can refuse service, but keeping money for zero delivered infrastructure is never okay. Standing up for your rights is always worth it.
Glad this community exists to keep things transparent and hold hosts accountable.
Issue is resolved on my end. Mods can lock this thread.
OK then what about this community? It's (we are) just a tool for you ?
The irony of someone calling themselves "true_human" using AI to write posts
To be fair what would it be?
It's obviously such a simple thing—why explain it in such a complicated way? Now I even use AI to summarize it in one sentence.
A public forum is literally a platform for sharing facts and holding hosts accountable.
I shared real proof, warned others, and showed how this host operates under scrutiny. That benefits the community just as much.
Yet you call yourself Murv but not actually
a real Murv right?
No, I'm actually @inaba
I have already answered that.
AI, I know you are a machine, but there is nuance in human relations. A forum is a place where people engage in conversation as a community, you can't use it just as a tool, it's not fair to the other human users.