Topic: . - page 11. (Read 27386 times)

I'm assuming the credit card purchases are probably enough to cover the expenses.

The purchase was in USD. Expecting a higher refund based on the deflation of another currency is irrational.

No Luke you're wrong. It is his choice and his risk as long as he is able to deliver what we - the customers - paid. If he never delivers ASICs it's a speculation on the back of his 'customers'. If the BTC price is rising Tom wins, if the BTC price is falling we are loosing. And now it seems that all customer who paid BTC are screwed independant of the BTC price. Tom should have exchanged those funds to USD and maybe spent them to create this damn bASIC chip and not speculate on rising BTC prices!

With this new information the only acceptable choice would be a full BTC refund, a bASIC device or to let him burn like hell! The last point seems to be the most realistic one.

Except it's not really 50/50 as I've said before; we all expect bitcoin will more likely go up, than down don't we?  So it's not quite like you say.  In his last email to me, Dave apologized that I lost BTC through that exchange, AND promised that he's working to get everyone back their money, AND if the project still produces, he's pledged to give returning customers a chance to recoup the loss.

Like I said, I count myself extremely lucky that I got the BTC back at all.  The arguments about pricing in USD, risk either way BLAH BLAH don't hold any water if we were mis-informed and if no product was actually produced and our money was squandered on beer and gambling for example...   (or to pay for plane tickets and a hideout somewhere perhaps)

I also think Tom was trying his best honestly. I consider it more of a failure as a startup rather than a scam,
at least at this point.

If the BTC wasn't converted to USD, seems like there is ZERO justification for giving partial refunds.

I am out, too. Requested Refund 5 min ago. Feeling a bit buddfact. Still I believe, Tom worked in good faith.

1NpZwAn2m9nnKVuoZWwQgkKcKBkKD2tNNv is the address, if someone wants to make looky looky.

Damn, wished it would have gone down differently, but too many PR mistakes fuelled the refunds.

And Damn BFL and Basic. Oneself probably would have made an asic by now?!?!?

I sent mine just now, but will not be waiting more than a few days to process a charge back. I suggest you start thinking along the same lines.

dat glorious mustache

It's well known that Inaba and MPOE-PR bicker back and forth here on the forums. In the past 48 hours, MPOE-PR has called BFL a flat out scam more than once, and Inaba has called MPOE-PR a self-overvalued POS company with no authority to speak on BFL matters.

I don't think they're a scam, but that's my opinion. I really don't know enough about MPOE-PR's business to make an opinion of their value. However, I will agree with Inaba on the point that MPEO-PR has no right to make statements like the one you quoted. How did they determine that BFL is a marketing company? They're a hardware company - they even said so themselves. It just makes no sense. That's like saying Sandisk is a marketing company, because hey, I've seen an add for them in the past!

Perhaps the coins were being stored in one address as an ego thing: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1018953


Unless no monies were dispersed to any entity.

To me, the issue is really that if he didn't convert the BTC to USD, how were the ASIC R&D funded? Tom collects BTC and then pays for the chips development out of his own USD profits from the MMQ? Seems unlikely, as that can bet pretty expensive I would imagine.

I discovered the same when MichaelBliss got refunded and was surprised he didn't mention this fact, especially after his diatribe on wanting the exact amount back. http://blockchain.info/tx/4f895ed5fb5b29d1e8d5cf1b21f0b21a5aac6797b6e90ff7748d9a77b7f907b2

Lukas seems to be in position to take over bASICs operation if the assets are there: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lukasbradley

True.  I'm just pointing out that they appear to never have been converted, contrary to some opinions.


I dunno, I don't think it's too appropriate to keep business and personal funds mixed together in the same account in these kind of large amounts.  Maybe you disagree.

I concede that I'm guilty of the same when it comes to my tiny USD-based business.  But I don't hold massive amounts of pre-order funds.  The risk is all mine.

I've now asked for a refund.  On the positive side bASICs bitcoins are easily found.  My 9/29/12 payment went to 19Ysizrie7XAGcqSTzhCTsMTuUaFU1hCEa.  A ton of money was paid out of that address on 1/11/2012.  At least one of them is a bASIC refund reported here.  There is currently 1,555.9054 BTC at that address.  That is enough to pay me back.

Sam

This is irrelevant. The price of the product (to buyers, and on the material end) is USD. If Tom or BTCFPGA decided to take the risk of keeping the income in Bitcoin, that risk - and any potential gains/losses - is his.

I think it is highly likely he had everything mixed together - but why is this automatically assumed to be inappropriate? MtGox certainly stores all the user balances together, and bitcoind does so even if you have separate accounts setup. Perhaps ideally, things might be different, but that doesn't change the reality or realistic expectations.

I wonder what ever happened to those prototypes....

So I've noticed something about the flow of the BTC refunds that did show up, which makes me think that the funds were never in fact converted to USD.

I first paid 93.8326 BTC to 1CpZJF9jwbR3SZmk4i6HaPfp59VPpXAcP5 for my later order #1678 in this transaction:

http://blockchain.info/tx/4cff94125296a7d6e8a86e9ddc7681f2bfd203ea006e0dfa64edc3269a5e936b

A couple hours later the funds get swept into 19Ysizrie7XAGcqSTzhCTsMTuUaFU1hCEa, which seems a main BTCFPGA address.

Much later, my refund paid to 1upLmz8yxpzKCDpBGyVzu1Lv6vox7PMuQ gets paid from this same 19Ysiz address.

If you look up MichaelBliss's refund request address, 1CVmb947c2kGmQcQTjJFWAxMGRmEuLnnfW, you will see that a large part of his refund also came from the 19Ysiz address.

Now here's the bad part:

Remember Tom's 500 BTC bet that bASIC would ship in March?


http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ah3W7i9L8GMJ:https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php%3Ftopic%3D1039.0+http://betsofbitco.in/item%3Fid%3D1138&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari

10-Jan 7:51 AM, 500.00 BTC move out of the 19Ysiz account: http://blockchain.info/tx/c290b3d26e5344b0dfc7545b083cc9d28aa607237e11fa7543287841464ee4de

10-Jan 12:06 PM (after some confirmations) Tom announces the 500 BTC bet made with "my Own coin"

I know this is based on some conjecture, but I think the evidence looks highly suspicious.  I think it's quite likely that those 500 BTC were from customer funds, or that he had everything mixed together (inappropriately).

The statement is not yet available for betting.  Maybe Dave intervened and had BoB not approve the bet and hold the funds or something.  Or maybe BoB staff themselves are watching what's going on and decided to do the same.

it appears this bASIC project was another "experiment that did not go right"

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.941475

I made a CC refund last Wed and Dave sent an email saying it will be processed. No updates after that.