I will write my reviews in 3 areas:
- Set up the service: signup and shipping
- Customer and Technical support
- Quality of Service: voice quality, features
First, my experience of setting up the service: 5
- I signed up through italkbb's website: italkbb.com
- I received an confirmation email about an hour later on the same day.
- I received an email notifying me that the ATA was shipped a day later on 7/18/2007.
- On 7/20/2007 I received the package from UPS and plugged it with power and router and I got an immediate dail tone and I could make inbound and outbound calls.
Customer and Technical support: 1/5
The final push for me to sign up the service is due to the recent implosion of SunRocket (SR henceforth), which has provided my phone service in the last two years. I really enjoyed their service, and it's a shame they went out business without warning.
On the second day (7/18/2007) I signed up italkbb, I filled out the line-port authorization form and faxed it along with my SunRocket's invoice to italkbb. Since the SR's service could be gone any time, I called italkbb's customer and tech support and inquired if they had received the fax. The CSRs were courteous, but none if them was helpful: no one knew where to find if the fax had been received. Instead, they suggested me to call back on the following day, which I did and nothing changed. Long story short, today is the 5th day after I faxed in the LNP form and I still have no knowledge if the form has been received, or italkbb has taken any action at all to port the number in.
On the second day after I signed up my service, italkbb started to run a promotion for former SR customers. I called in after I became aware of it and the CSR was again no help: sorry, Sir, there is nothing I can do since you are now our customer.
I had a problem where the China DID (basically an access number for people in China to call the italkbb number in US) did not work from a phone, and I called the tech support and was told that there would be no incoming calls within the first 24 hours. Immediately after I hang up, I called my friend in China and asked him to call me back, and it worked! So I think that the reason was the access number did not work in all areas or from all phones. But they could tell me this instead of "incoming call does not work within 24 hours."
So, I made 5 or 6 calls to the customer and tech support, every time with a problem to be solved and they score nil. I only gave them a 1 because CSRs are polite, albeit useless.
Quality of Service: Voice Quality and Features: 2.5/5
Being a SR's customer, I am sort of "spoiled:" SR did have occasional service outage, but I have absolutely no complaint about the voice quality and richness of features. I have used italkbb for 3 days and I rated them a 2.5 out of 5.
I have made about 200 minute calls since the service was activated. It has happened multiple times that a portion of the conversation was "chopped." The situation was deteriorated to the level where neither party could hear each other and we had to hang up and dial again. Even when it actually worked, the voice is often not natural (think of the sound made by a male duck).
As I mentioned earlier, the access DID in China does not always. I have a little sense of being cheated since this is their selling point: isn't it nice for your friends in HK, Taiwan and Mainland to call you at US for free? The fact is that it works for some phones, but not for others.
Compared to SR, the features of italkbb's service are quite limited. The following is a partial list of features I had with SR but missing in italkbb:
- No voicemail
- Cannot forward a voicemail for an email with the message as an attachment
- No free second line
- No distinctive ring (i.e., identify a caller by the ring)
- No SimRing (i.e., an income call rings multiple phones)
Overall, I rate the quality of service 2.5 out of 5.
If you are an italkbb customer, I hope you can leave a comment which will help others. If you are a perspective customer, I hope you find my blog useful.
=======================================================
Update 1: On 7/23/2007, my LNP request showed up on the web portal. italkbb also sent me an acknowledgment email that the request has been received. Good communication!
------------------------------------------------------------
Update 2: On 7/30/2007, my LNP status changed to "ACCEPTED."
Hopefully the number port will be finished soon.
------------------------------------------------------------
Update 3: on 8/3/2007, LNP status changed to "accepted," whatever
it means.
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Update 4: on 8/9/2007, LNP status changed to "completed." Finally
I have cut all the ties with SunRocket.
While SR had its own shares of problems, I really miss some of the SR features: a customizable portal; voicemail and email/SMS notification of a voice message. When will italkBB provide such features?
50 comments:
with you permission, i'll quota verbatim your post in italkbbreview.blogspot.com...
italkBB Voice Mail sucks. I recorded a voice mail prompt, and it worked fine for a while. Then mysteriously, the voice mail prompt disappeared. I recorded a new one, and the same thing happened. I should not have trusted this company.
Not trying to be racist, but companies run by the Chinese have a long way to go to catch up with Western management. I would use Vonage or Primus for now, if I had not signed up for the Annual Plan.
Beware of the fine print of ITALKBB!
This will cost you a lot of money if you do not read the fine print in grey color at the bottom of the Plan Service web page.
Except for US, Canada, China, Singapore and Hong Kong, calls to mobile phones in other countries are not included in this unlimited plan.Unlimited calls to speical services are not included too.
GrandCentral comes with far better Voice Mail features, and it is free!!! Here is a post on using GrandCentral with iTalkBB.
We have terrible experience with ITALKBB.
Quality is bad. many days of un-reimbursed interrupted services and they have to mail a new box.
After we canceled service (we prepaid for one year and after one year, the service was cut off and we called them to cancel), ITALKBB blocks all calls from ITALKBB customers to us.
After they tried to get us to use their service again, we turned it down. Then they said the equipment (the small box) need to be returned or we will be charged. We said that when we signed up, the equipment was free. But if they sent us a shipping label, we can mail it back.
Several weeks later, we did not receive the shipping label but a letter from a collection agency saying that we owe ITALKBB $104.98
Buyer Be aware!
Ok but not terribly good in the begining. Then no phone could come in (that is what they mostly advertised, right? a phone number in China). And voicemail never worked. Plus their plan is very miss-leading, if not cheating on purpose. After the initial 30 day period, you are AUTOMATICALLY entered a one-year contract with them. Customer service is useless.
Bottom line: Unless you only speak Chinese and have no other way to communicate with family friends in China, stay away from italkbb.
I hope some lawyer will file a class action suit against these unethical behavior by italkBB.com......
thank y'all so much for letting me know all this information. we were very close to signing up and thanking God i read this first, and not making a huge mistake. Thanks to everyone again!
I totaly agree with what the users said above. ITALKBB sucks... please do not sign up to this service..... I am really fedup of this service... Nothing works..,no call waiting, voice mail, quality is worse.. customer service is still worse... PLEASE PLEASE do not sign up...and become a victim
SK
absolutely one of the worst company. buyer beware.
Poor Customer Service
Unreliable
A Class Action Suit against them is just a matter of time.
I thought the service is most important for whatever product, and service is connected with their people, if they hire right people, they will have good service, otherwise you could imagine like below story.
some day their sales call me and want to sell their BB, I told them I don't need it, and told them don't call me again please, because I know their product, and also my number is on the Do-Not-Call list. and they said "I will call you again and again". what a sort of sales they are???
even I thought I might need their plan sometime, but how can we trust and depend on this company which hired sort of this people.
The worst customer service I ever seen. Without any notice(no email, mail or phone), they tried to charge my credit card automatically for one year service. It was failed because I cancelled my old credit card(Thanks God). Then, they cut off my phone srevice in 3 hours.
When I call their customer service and was told they can do nothing about it.
Never seen any company in USA doing business in this way.
I will never use their service any more.
my call forwarding when not answered function stopped working a couple of months ago. Their tech support instructed me to fix the problem for over 10 times and couldn't solve the problem. And they simply ignored my conplaint afterwards till now. Today I called them to terminate service and was told to call 9-5pm eastern time. Let's see what happens tomorrow. I heard that they were good at making it almost impossible to quit them and safely get the equipment deposit without trouble....
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Do yourself a favor-DO NOT USE iTalkBB. This is the worst phone company I have ever used. They are full of lies, and traps. They are nice until you have signed up. The phone dis not work half of the time, their tech support agents have no clue how to solve your problems. If you ever fall into one of their traps, you are held as hostage until hefty ransom is paid. They look cheap but with the survice and harrassment you get, it is not worth it! Believe me, they are sweet until you encounter a problem, your nightmare has just begun. Take my advice, keep away from this company. I suspect the great reviews are done by their own people, or people who have not had any problems yet. I wish they could say the same after they cancel their service.
Terrible services. I dailed my home number and it connected to someone else number. Called 24 hours service line, has no one to answer, choose either English or Chinese.
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I signed up Sept 2008 for a yearly plan ($320 for 14 months). Like everyone said, the quality is awful. Calling form China never worked. I certainly will disconnect after a year. Now on Feb 17, 2009, I found my credit card was charged $2.95 by ItalkBB. I called them, a very nice lady said they start to collect regulation cost which they paid by themselves before. What a joke! I think they just test if my credit card is working and prepared to charge another $320 in September, 2009. Now I have to clearly remember to cancel this sucker on time.
I also hope some law firm can initiate a class suit against italkbb. The fact that italkbb unilaterally broke the service contract by charging a monthly fee not found in the original Terms and Conditions is worse than robbery. Common sense tells that this would be an easy case to win.
Ibbtalk charged 1 minute long distance despite the other end not picking up the call (the reciving end has no answering machine).
This is ridiculos.
It is very bad business practice. Very triky. A part of service I subsribed never worked. I still had to pay all the fees when I dropped. It costs more money than you want to save. And it also get you more trouble than you try to avoid. Read my blog: http://shareexperince.blogspot.com/
for details.
I'm new customer to ItalkBB Canada.
So far I found the voice quality is not bad. At least it's not worse than Comwave (for a IP phone company, I don't think it's very reasonable to compare the void quality of an IP phone company to that of a traditional phone company. After all, you pay less for it get more other features).
The China callback feature is great!! I love it.
The voice quality of callback from China is not bad.
iTalkBB-Review invites you to fill out a single-question poll and leave your iTalkBB number (it's fine to be anonymous); if the last digit of your number matches the last digit of total votes, you would win $20. No purchase required, although qualified new subscribers could receive $100 in stead of $20.
ITalkBB is bad. I meant really bad. sometimes the phone conversation just get cut off. sometimes the voice is very noisey, If I would not use it again.:-)
Be aware, if you buy phone service from this company, they will try all they can to put off refunding your money. I had to call my credit card company to dispute the transaction enable to get my money back.
The sales person could tell you all kinds of lies to get you hoked. Good thing I discovered early and did not use their service. After they sent me the little box, I returned back without open. But they kept claiming they didn't receive the box. After several trips to the postal office and phone calls, I had the proves of they had received the box I returned more than half month ago. They still tried to stalled and put off another two days. Finally, I had to call my credit card company to dispute the charges. Don't be tricked. This is the most dishonest company I had ever deal with.
Good for you to get out of this company. The way they doing their business will grantee they will fail soon.
I have been using italkbb for about one and a half years. Based on the voice and service quality I have received, in the scale of A to F, I would give italkbb a D (almost the worst).
Often italkbb voice quality is so unacceptable that I have to use my cell phone to remake the calls. Their customer service leaves you a ton to be desired, it's like waste of time when you call them for help.
I do feel like getting a Third-world service from italkbb, and am looking for a better VOIP service to replace italkbb.
I try to set up the voicemail, there is absence link reply, it appeared they have faulty reply system. Too get support bty phone or by email is impossible. Also they are not trained ..... Extremely frustrated.
I have been using iTalkBB for 2 months. Good voice quality (local and overseas), handy voice to email feature, responsive service. My only complain is about porting in my existing number. After 5 weeks of waiting, I was told that my phone company name was wrong. Then I sent my phone bill 5 days ago and am still waiting.
Don’t like iTalkBB. I have no problem for the refund process. Actually it’s quite fast back to my credit card. However, they won’t allow me to drop off the adaptor to any of their retail location at some Chinese mall. I must ship it back to their PO BOX address and I have to pay $8 to do that. Secondly, I just received my invoice from Rogers wireless and all calls I called home (Markham) is long distance (To Oshawa). No one from Rogers/iTalkBB can tell me why. Quality I give 4 out of 10. Anyway, when I cancelled my service via phone, the rep kept me on the phone for 10 minutes tries to retain my business even though I said “No” every 30 seconds. I am glad they finally did it. Thank god I cancelled within 30 days. No more. No recommended to anyone. That’s it.
ItalkBB is the acronym for Big Bullshit! They are by far the worst company I have ever dealt with. In a nutshell, my story is as follows. My friend referred me to them and before confirming with the whole sign up ordeal, the ItalkBB customer rep. told me that I can cancel at any time after my one month trial and if no cancellation is made then I will be charged monthly for their service. Well, their one month free trial period made me change my mind because everything about their service sucked! Therefore, I called them back within 2 weeks of signing up to cancel and the customer representative asked me to give them another chance, which I did, but after just another week it was the same bullshit. I called back and asked to cancel and this time the rep. told me that the person in charge of cancellations is not in and I will have to call back, which I did EVERYDAY and every time it was the same damn thing. I swear they did this on purpose because I couldn't speak to anyone in regards to cancelling until a week AFTER my free trial period!!!
I still cannot believe that those assholes had the nerve to charge my credit card for their service!! They said the reason for the charges is because I exceeded the one month free trial period!! Well, no shit I did, because there was NEVER anyone available to speak to me about the cancellation and when I finally got a hold of someone, it was already a week later after the one month trial! They are so unethical and I am hoping to file a lawsuit on them. Therefore, I would like to know if anyone else feels just as set up as I do. If so, perhaps we could file a lawsuit together? Those assholes deserve to go under. They even sent me a collection letter recently in attempt to make me pay!!
Everything is smiles until you cancel... The story starts like this: my credit card on file is nearing its expiration date. It just so happens that it was around the time I was to renew... I really had no idea till one day the phone stops working. No warning, nothing. They don't make contact with you until you don't have service anymore - and furthermore they try to contact you at odd hours of the day, like 8pm, 11pm and when they do, it's hard to understand them because of their thick accent (they are geared to chinese customers.) So i log in online to put in my new credit card information. For some strange reason, it doesn't work.
So I decide this is a good time to try vonage, who is now offering a very similar package for $15 for first 6 months (would like to try a big name in the business). Now here is where it gets messy. I want to cancel. Yes, online chat is available 24 hours but they cannot cancel their account. Their calls to you at odd hours reps cannot cancel either because they are in a "different" department and the proper dept is only open 9a-5p eastern time. Fine. A few days wasted cause I am speaking to these guys that can't help me. I finally get to talk to someone and lo and behold, I am charged for a whole month of service after they have already cut off my service with no prior notice, and to make matters worse, my record shows 3 days of usage past their "billing cycle" cut off date. how convenient that they cut you off AFTER the billing cycle. So I am arguing that it's not proper business practice to do something like that. But that's company policy, their bible says so. So along with me paying for the whole month to avoid their "collections" and their if you don't return our equipment upon $15 days you will be charged $59.99, I am left with a sour taste upon cancellation. No business operates like this - and I have been with them for over 4 years and referred customers to them too. So you decide if you want to put yourself through this.
Everything is smiles until you cancel... The story starts like this: my credit card on file is nearing its expiration date. It just so happens that it was around the time I was to renew... I really had no idea till one day the phone stops working. No warning, nothing. They don't make contact with you until you don't have service anymore - and furthermore they try to contact you at odd hours of the day, like 8pm, 11pm and when they do, it's hard to understand them because of their thick accent (they are geared to chinese customers.) So i log in online to put in my new credit card information. For some strange reason, it doesn't work.
So I decide this is a good time to try vonage, who is now offering a very similar package for $15 for first 6 months (would like to try a big name in the business). Now here is where it gets messy. I want to cancel. Yes, online chat is available 24 hours but they cannot cancel their account. Their calls to you at odd hours reps cannot cancel either because they are in a "different" department and the proper dept is only open 9a-5p eastern time. Fine. A few days wasted cause I am speaking to these guys that can't help me. I finally get to talk to someone and lo and behold, I am charged for a whole month of service after they have already cut off my service with no prior notice, and to make matters worse, my record shows 3 days of usage past their "billing cycle" cut off date. how convenient that they cut you off AFTER the billing cycle. So I am arguing that it's not proper business practice to do something like that. But that's company policy, their bible says so. So along with me paying for the whole month to avoid their "collections" and their if you don't return our equipment upon $15 days you will be charged $59.99, I am left with a sour taste upon cancellation. No business operates like this - and I have been with them for over 4 years and referred customers to them too. So you decide if you want to put yourself through this.
I can basically write a 10-page complains about iTalk BB. After one year land line (for home) service with iTalk I’m so glad that my contract is expired. The poor connections, customer services and unauthorized transfer my phone number to others during the contract just name a few, make me believe this company shouldn’t be in telecommunication business at all.
Most of the consumers may not realize that iTalkBB is a Chinese operated company. The operations mainly happened in China. That’s the reason you received phone calls late at night, sometimes really late. I’ve been informed them don’t call me at this crazy hours but it still happens.
iTalkBB is the worst services in the world............The first year is fine; however, I recommended a lot of friends to use their services......in the most recent year, their services could not connect to the long distant services. After I confirmed to renew their contract, and they said they will be free upgrade to my cell phone minutes from 200mins to 500mins, they asked me to pay more.....it is unbelievable services. I would not recommend any of my friend to use their servics in the future.......
i just got italkbb and seemed to have lost my tivo ability. used to have vonage, which worked fine. anyone know what the problem is? tivo does not seem to be able to connect the phone line anymore.
thnx
I called 3 weeks ago try to set up an new service, and just until now, no confirm email and no words of when the equipment will ship out! after several calls for last 3 weeks... still ask me to wait for 2 more days if I want to call back for status... this is how they want to make a sale? i'm frustrated and who knows what might happen if I decide to cancel or any problems in the future, be aware!
I knew lots of people had problem with italkbb. But it is bad to become italkbb dealer that sell italkbb to their friends. Take a look to this blog for their story.
http://italkbbdealer.blogspot.com
Thanks for the comment, I used italkBB almost one year, need to cancel when the contract is due. The voice quality is worst, Many times people call me, the phone didn't ring and forwarded to voice mail.
iTalkBB customer service is unfriendly. It costs you a lot more to subscribe and un-subscribe.
They charge you up-front for the box. When un-subscribe, they want the box returned. I returned the box, then they claimed they received the wrong box. First of all, I had no reason to keep the box that I don't use and send a router instead. Secondly, I use Verizon and I don't have any router to send. I asked them to check if the router they received was from someone else and perhaps the receiving department made a mistake. They came back and said they did not the router and the mailing address was mine. I asked they should return the wrong box to me. They said they must charge for returning shat they consider as the wrong box. Thy kept calling for 2 weeks and insisted what they claimed. It is a one way dictation.....
I've been using italkbb service for three years and their service and practice became very bad recently. Don't use their service or it's more like trap then service.
I think everyone should report them to U.S. government agency so they can't do business here and cheat money out of people.
Marvin
italkbb is very bad recently and it's more like trap for money now rather than service.
DON'T USE IT AND REPORT IT TO US GOVERNMENT.
See this from their email to me after I cancelled my extra italkbb service and have use their service for more then three years.
Please mail back iTalkBB's phone adapter in its original condition including, all packing materials with bar codes in tact, all parts and accessories, documentation and manuals and all other items originally received within fifteen (15) days of service termination.
does anyone think you can do that after you got it for more than a year, if you can't, italkbb will charge you big bucks.
DON'T USE ANY OF THEIR SERVICE AND SOMEONE SHOULD WRITE THIS TO MANY WEBSITE AND REPORT TO US GOVERNMENT.
I had a surprised experience with italkBB today.
I noticed one of the cancellation department is in McLean which is very close to me so I went there in person to ask if I need to return my equipement since I don't have the original condition, package and all the other stuff.
In that address, I couldn't find 102 so I ended up asking suite 120, which is the HQ. The girl in the front desk was very nice and she just gave me a very simple form to fill out and took my returned box in a plastic bag. then I am done.
I think if you have any issues with cancellation department, try to esculate and deal with its admin department, you might get something reasonable.
After using iTalkbb for 2+ years, I decided to switch to other VOIP service company with better service and voice quality. iTalkbb's voice quality is too bad.
I was surprised my the cancellation process, which it was my fault that I didn't read the tini-tiny fine print carefully. The lady talked with was polite, but not reasonable. She told me that because I was one day late to the billing cycle, iTalkbb can not refund me the monthly fee. I was not happy, but it is not too bad. Then, she offered me a free month after current monthly. The catch is I have to call to cancel again. If by any chance I forget to call, iTalkbb will continuously charge month from my account.
I experienced a lot of other problems from iTalkbb service: They claimed that your friends can call you from China with a local number, it just doesn't work.
Im a subscriber of this ITALKBB. Im jusy wondering why Singapore government allow to continue such business. I felt being betrayed and cheated by them. It started when someone in their office (stall)in singapore told me that UNLIMITED CALL service is no longer exist that I will be entitled only for 16 hours. This changes disappointed me so much... because... in the first place the UNLIMITED CALL ADVERTISEMENT and service they were telling me prior my subscription convinced me to avail such interesting deal... but last January 2012 ... to my disappointment, I decided to tell them to discontinue their service up to the next month which I pay them an advance payment up to February 2012 since I was in their office early last February and I have no choice. Recently, (early March 2012)I was surprise! someone called me up (in my mobile) from their office and tell me that I must settle an unpaid account... I said and asked. I never used your service (ITALKBB)since the 28th of February which is a day before the end of the month and of course the month she was mentioning (the lady on the next line whom I was talking)was already paid in advance as I mentioned earlier. Well, they might misplaced or misentered my payments but the bottom line here is their INEFFICIENCY not only in this case but Generally a rubbish... Remember... I was once a client who believed and expect an honest to goodness service by this company... In the end it disappointed me greatly... and I said never again... well YOU PEOPLE in this world are the judge...
I have painful experience with italk bb.
I canceled it on Tuesday, but my parents want to restore, so I call it back on Wednesday morning to restore. And then I call it back on Wednesday afternoon since not work yet, she told me to wait, it guarantees to italk bb will do it within 24 hrs. However, it still not working after 24 hrs, I call it back, the answer always they are busy, it will take time to restore, please wait. I mentioned that she guaranteed 24 hrs, and then she said she maybe new, we guarantee 48 hrs. Is it 24 hrs or 48 hrs? I try to talk with her supervisor, she said they are busy, and I insisted to talk with manager, she told me that let leave my cell, an manager will call me, a day passed, but nobody call me.
Due to move, the technician did not make my Telus work well, I called second time, the remote person solve the problem and give me money for inconvenience.
I have 2 questions
1. It should restore within 24 hrs or 48 hrs?
2. The only way is to solve problem is to wait?
3. Manager will not call you back at all, promise is nothing?
When you cancel the italkbb service, the horrible time just starting. First, they transfer you to cancellation dept, then tell you that they are busy. Leave a contact number or call back later. You will never get call from them. Keep trying again and same reply. Your service is never off the hook and they take money off your account every month. Even when you transfer the phone service to another company, they still charge you. The only way to stop these BS is to cancel the Credit Card.
I'm just a kid who would like to say: GOD DAMMIT ITALKBB I GOT IN A LOT OF TROUBLE WITH MY TEACHERS THANKS TO NOT BEING ABLE TO ACCESS THE WIFI THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE CRAP WIFI THAT IS OVER FUDGING PRICED AND USELESS! YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE DESERVES A -INFINITY! THERE ARE WAY BETTER COMPANIES BUT YOU GUYS MAKE IT SO HARD TO CANCEL AND JUST WANT MONEY! YOU GUYS DON'T CONSIDER THE COSTUMER PART OR SERVICE PART AT ALL! YOU GUYS RIP PEOPLE OFF AND WON'T LET THEM CANCEL, YOU GUYS ARE NO BETTER THAN THE WORSE SCAMMERS ON THE INTERNET! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO DO FUDGING HOMEWORK WITH YOUR WIFI?! MY PARENTS GET FRUSTRATED OVER IT ALL THE TIME WHEN IT DOESN'T WORK AND THEY DESERVE TO ENJOY THEMSELVES! YOU ADULTS ARE GREEDY AND CRAPPY EXAMPLES OF A MODEL FOR KIDS AND YOU GUYS SUCK! I JUST WANT TO DO MY FREAKING HOMEWORK AND FOR MY PARENTS TO BE ABLE TO WATCH A SINGLE HOUR OF TV EACH DAY AFTER THEIR HARD WORK, IS THAT TOO FUDGING MUCH TO ASK FOR?! I DON'T WANT TO FLUNK ELEMENTARY SO I SUGGEST ANYONE HERE WITH KIDS WHO NEED THE WIFI TO DO HOMEWORK TO CANCEL AND STOP DONATING YOUR MONEY TO ITALKBB AND LET IT GO OUT OF BUSINESS! SO SEE YA ITALKBB AND I HOPE YOU ALL BECOME HOBOS SOON!
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