Look, we all know self-hosting emails is an absolute nightmare. The moment you misconfigure a DNS record, your emails get sent straight to the spam void. That’s why sysadmins and devs usually outsource it to a provider. MXRoute used to be a highly recommended name in the community.
Well, not anymore. The owner, Jar, just pulled off one of the most unhinged, supervillain-level meltdowns we’ve seen in a while. Grab your popcorn, let's dive into this dumpster fire.
The TL;DR of a Staggering Meltdown
It started with a Reddit user simply criticizing Jar’s business practices. Instead of doing some PR damage control, Jar chose violence. Here’s a quick rundown of his toxic streak:
- Banning for reviews: Jar openly admitted on a forum that he banned a customer and nuked their account simply because they left a bad review. Zero data export allowed.
- Review-bombing ex-customers: A user complains about his service? Jar goes to Trustpilot, hunts down the user's real-life business (like a hypnotherapy clinic), and leaves a fake 1-star review to ruin their livelihood. Petty AF.
- GDPR? Yee-haw! A European user asked for their financial data to be scrubbed per GDPR. Jar basically said, "I'm in Texas, Europe has no jurisdiction here," and perma-banned the guy.
- Double billing traps: A user accidentally double-paid and asked for a refund. They got a generic "No refunds" auto-reply. When the user opened a PayPal dispute, Jar argued they should have replied directly to the no-reply auto-responder. Great UX, buddy.
- Blackmailing forums: He threatened to pull his sponsorship from another tech forum if the admins didn't delete threads criticizing him.
- The "Attack Sale": He ran a literal promo campaign using the critic's forum handle as a discount code just to mock them. The OP had to report it to Jar's upstream provider to temporarily shut down the server and end the madness.
The Final Boss Move: Doxxing and HR Emails
If you thought the "Attack Sale" was unhinged, buckle up.
Jar got so incredibly salty that he played internet detective. He scoured public records, LinkedIn, and probably server logs to figure out the OP's real-life identity.
Once he pinpointed who he thought OP was, he didn't just send an angry DM. He found OP's real-world employer, tracked down their General Counsel (legal department), and sent an email demanding OP be fired. Over a forum argument about email hosting. Let that sink in.
Fortunately, OP wasn't fired. But the sheer audacity to attempt to ruin someone's career over a Reddit post is peak toxicity.
The Reddit Hivemind Grabs Pitchforks
As expected, the self-hosted community is tearing him apart. A few key takeaways from the thread:
- All bark, no bite: People noted Jar always threatens lawsuits, but public records suggest he quietly settles out of court whenever someone actually calls his bluff.
- Brigading alert: Users noticed the upvote/downvote ratios fluctuating wildly on the original post. It’s highly suspected he deployed bots to suppress the criticism.
- Mass exodus: People are scrambling for alternatives. Purelymail is getting a lot of shoutouts. Or honestly, you might as well get a Free $300 to test VPS on Vultr, install Postfix, and suffer through self-hosting rather than dealing with a maniac.
The Takeaway for Paranoid Sysadmins
This whole fiasco leaves us with two golden rules for survival in the tech space:
- Don't trust 1-man-shows with critical infra. If your business relies on email, don't host it with a guy who has a God complex. One bad mood and your entire company's communication gets nuked.
- Compartmentalize your online identity. If you're going to shitpost or criticize companies on Reddit, for the love of God, do not link your handle to your GitHub or LinkedIn. Doxxing is terrifyingly easy today. Protect your real-life paycheck.
If you're still on MXRoute, you might want to run that backup script right now.
Source: Reddit r/selfhosted
