what kind of delivery time are they now quoting?
have they done anything more to show a working prototype?
I offered to visit their offices and they would not let me telling me everything was going on in India - I'm still very skeptical of this company be able to deliver anything and personally think they're scammers at his point but I have an open mind.
They sent their most recent e-mail update yesterday, which has shipping dates estimated between July 15th and 31st.
They have no working prototype that I am aware of, but I will look into this further.
Personally, I do not think they are a scam. They have offered me a 100% Full Refund of the deposit.
They do have an office in England, in which the company is registered to, however, their manufacturing is pretty much in India, like many companies. If you live in England, just show up. Some guys did this to BFL in Kansas, and they got a nice tour.
The company is also accepting direct credit card payments now as well. It doesn't sound like much, but to get your company approved by the credit card companies isn't an easy task, and you have to have solid proof of business. Many companies get around the red tape by using middle man companies like Paypal, etc.. You can choose to pay Alpha with a credit card now without a middle man company.
I hope this helps.
They claim as of yesterday that they are still on schedule for shipping in July. But as you mentioned, they do not have working prototpye yet. In fact from the update yesterday, they don't even have the chips yet. So clearly they will not be shipping anytime in July.
They also do NOT accept credit cards. They keep promising to add this, but as of yet they have not convinced the bank to allow it. As you yourself pointed out a company has to be legit to convince the bank so that should tell you everything you need to know right there. My guess is the bank took one look at their business model and said no because they realized this is going to be a million chargebacks.
Lastly regarding the refunds, they promise partial refund (which in and of itself is illegal) but I do not know of anyone who has actually gotten any money back from them despite trying. Actually, I do not know of anyone who has even gotten a response from them once they mentioned refund.
Anyways, where does that leave you? Well you're obviously not going to be getting a machine from them in a timely fashion. Your best bet would be to get a refund, but they don't seem to be honoring refund requests. I think your best bet is to just convert it to a 50Mh/s. Yes you lose the difference but you already lost that the day you bought this preorder, thats gone and not coming back anyway. This way you don't have to send them any more money and eventually you might get something. It will be worth a fraction of what you paid for it of course but hey something is better than nothing. Basically any option that doesn't involve you sending them more money is the best option.