Put $20 into sms-activate and immediately felt like I'd been had. Is it real

topped up $20 to test sms-activate and the whole thing feels like a russian roulette machine

first number - no code, timed out, money back second - no code, timed out, money back third - code came in 4 seconds fourth - number was already used on that platform

so i've burned about 90 minutes and $6 to get one working registration. is this just what it is, or did i pick a bad country, or is the whole thing a slot machine designed to eat deposits?

it's real and it's a slot machine. those aren't alternatives

It's legitimate in the sense that it does the thing and refunds on timeout. Whether it's usable depends entirely on choices you've probably made badly.

1. Country matters more than anything else and the cheap ones are cheap because they don't work. If you picked the bottom of the price list you got the bottom of the delivery rate. Pay the two or three times more for a country that actually lands and your cost per successful registration goes down, not up.

2. The "already used" result is the second-biggest tax and it's why you sort by service rather than browsing. Numbers get recycled across everyone using the platform and a popular service on a popular country is picked over.

3. Time of day is real. Delivery rates on some ranges are visibly worse in the evening in that country's timezone, which suggests the pool is a set of physical devices and they're congested.

Budget four to six attempts per success on a mid-priced country. If you're getting worse than that consistently, change country before you change provider.

The same for me. Actually i lose two weeks before somebody tell me the cheap country is cheap for a reason. Is obvious after but not before.

i picked the cheapest country in the list obviously. that explains everything

You paid six dollars for a lesson about price signalling. Cheap.

Is real, been around long time. Anyway do not leave big balance there, only what you spend this week.