Several more attempts to make contact with tech support have failed to reveal any humans. (I get automated responses only.) In addition to my help tickets, I've also posted on 5$'s forum, asking of others' recent support experiences and any status on 5$. Then, I sent a message directly to Craig, the owner, to see if he and his are alive and well. I'd hate to be insensitive if a personal tragedy has befallen them, but with no contact at all, it's difficult to know what's going on.

I look forward to the possibility that this is an uncharacteristic fluke that won't be repeated. I'd gladly include their explanation here. Until I learn otherwise, though, the simplest answer is the most likely: unacceptably bad support.

I finally reached a human at 5$, but he was unable to fix the problem. Again, Craig (5$ owner) has been notified.

The human I reached said there are issues with both the old and new help ticket systems. Notification of "admins" (Craig & Terry) either doesn't work at all or is flaky. He felt sure, though, that Craig should have been notified, since I filled out help tickets on both the old and new support systems. He was at a loss as to why Craig had not responded in any way in almost four weeks. (I'm also at a loss as to why he has also seemingly ignored a private message to him about this support trouble.)

I recommend all help tickets be followed by a phone call--repeated phone calls, if necessary--if a satisfactory response is not received within a few hours. Craig has mentioned that call volumes are high and has repeatedly requested phone calls be avoided. However, with the apparent, technical glitches in their online system, there's no way to know that anybody will receive your request for assistance.

The jury is still out on 5$ support, since my SSL cert. trouble is unresolved. I don't know why first-level support made no attempt to contact me, nor do I know why Craig has not responded to numerous attempts to contact him. Satisfactory answers to these issues would go a long way to redeeming 5$.

Since I talked to first-level support and learned that the issue had been escalated to Craig (and has been waiting on him since the beginning), there's still been no contact. It's been four weeks now with no sign of Craig. Even his first-level support guys are befuddled by Craig's silence. Given his history of top-notch support, I wonder if something tragic has befallen him. If so, it's quite strange his own support team is unaware of it. I think I'll try contacting his wife to see if all is well (she handles billing, orders, etc.).

It looks like my expired certificate has finally been fixed! I haven't heard anything from Craig yet, though, and I'm anxious to know what happened with that huge delay. Nevertheless, the problems seems to be corrected! Yay!