e-gold has gone haywire

I have been using e-gold for about 5 years now and the journey has been quite good until recent times. These days, using e-gold has become more of a nightmare than anything else.

e-gold is quite popular among regular Internet users in some African countries. I am sure of Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. Why? A few years ago, there were no means of paying online for these group of people since no local banks issued international credit/debit cards and many saw e-gold as an alternative online payment method since they could use e-gold from their country, without any bureaucratic hindrance. Things are changing however.

e-gold is becoming unpopular with many users in recent times for a few reasons but the main reason that concerns me most is their IP blocking exercise. Users attempting to access e-gold’s website might either get a timeout error from their web browser, to get the message below after login:

————————————————————————-
Error(s) detected:

Access denied

The IP you are using to access the e-gold website (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)* appears to be either an open proxy or otherwise exploited. You will not be permitted to access e-gold services from this IP while this condition continues.

Your first order of business to restore access should be to make sure that you are computing securely. Please read and implement e-gold’s Security Recommendations.

After you have resolved any security issues, including virus removal, it may take a day or two for your access to be re-enabled.

My problem with e-gold Ltd is that many innocent people are adversely affected by this. Yesterday for example, I spent around 2 hours looking for an appropriate proxy IP address that will work fine with e-gold. The proxy had to pass the following criteria:

  1. It had to work on port 3128 (or it won’t work on my PC’s Internet connection)
  2. It had to support SSL (or I won’t be able to login to e-gold)
  3. It had to be off the IP blacklist of e-gold

Getting an IP that meets all these is difficult enough – sometimes the proxy server is down and one has to start the proxy search process, all over again! What more? One does not know the owners of these proxies and safety cannot be guaranteed.

My Internet connection is via a fixed wireless technology and so my IP address is shared and static. Now, I cannot possibly be responsible for everything that happens via this IP even though I had taken time to remove it from all spam databases.

I have exchanged several mails with e-gold’s customer service this week but the problem remains. e-gold’s website keeps timing out each time I try to access it and this is making business really difficult for me!

What has been your experience with using e-gold in recent times? Share your experience and how you went around the problems.

*IP hidden for security reasons.

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Oluniyi D. Ajao
Oluniyi D. Ajao is an Internet Entrepreneur and Tech Enthusiast based in South Africa. Follow him on twitter @niyyie for more tech updates.

12 Comments

  1. about 8K biz use egold
    true my friend
    apart from e-xchangers
    we are talking about people who are into forex trade, the MLM marketers
    those into clubfredom, diamond cash club and the likes
    infact over 8K of these people are likely to be affected

  2. its a big problem here too especially for folks in Nigeria, we pray all goes well .. mean time i’ve tried several Proxy but the funniest is that if one works today by the morrow its gone
    hope this does not for far ‘cos e-gold will be killing some 8,000 businesses that depend on it in Nigeria

  3. I have experienced the same thing. A proxy works today, tomorrow it doesn’t. The whole wild goose chase is really getting to me. All these discomfort is unnecessary.

    About 8,000 businesses in Nigeria using e-gold, can you please provide your source of this statistical data?

  4. Hi, I’m from the Philippines and have been having a hard time accessing my e-gold account. Although mine was not blocked, I keep getting “timed out”. How do I contact e-gold? Do you their contact e-mail? Thanks

  5. My e-gold account was not blocked either. Its my IP address that is blocked thus my request to access e-gold’s website keeps timing out, just like yours.
    e-gold Ltd prefers that you contact them through their contact form since your request is passed to their customer support ticket system.

  6. Why is e-gold popular in Nigeria?

    I had never seen public posters, banners, handbills, billboards, newspaper/magazine ads all used in promoting the use of e-gold – specifically advertising for e-gold users in Nigeria to fund their account. Not until I visited Ibadan (in Nigeria) again,…

  7. my problem rite now is that i need to fund my e-gold account as i am in Ghana and i can’t seem to get anyone in Ghana to do that…
    Can anyone pls help me

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