Topic: And some more delays in BFL shipment plans / no shipment before 14th Jan 2013 - page 16. (Read 22705 times)

There's no "A)". The authority is the official company website. "B)" is simply a rude grunt employee unable to enforce or enact policy.

Consider this,

When [original buyers] do finally get their pre-order, if you are one of those people who purchased an item indirectly by a [authorized/unauthorized] re-seller.....

You run the risk that this third party may not deliver. Your grievances may not be heard by BFL if it turns out this way. Why? Because they have no business with you.

They only (as of now) will confirm the existence of an order number to certify it is real. But delivery is the responsibility of the third party. If the third party leaves you high and dry (as the Rep said, in a High Scam scenario) then you are SOL. (Sorry Out of Luck)

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Rather than create a potential bubble of risk and create unnecessary liability elsewhere. The vendor should cut their ties to third parties and truly make it a third party affair. (A real gray market)

If not, there are gonna be at least a number of bad sales and scams going on by third parties who decide not to part with their rig.

I recommend they only offer refunds. Period. Full stop.

They should not provide any "assistance" to third party [authorized/unauthorized] re-sellers whom may start a massive scam on the community.

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If you buy the rig from someone else, make sure you fully understand you assume the full risk and that re-seller is not part of BFL. Not sanctioned, not certifying the re-sellers legitimacy...no not even in control of their supply of hardware. BFL should (IMO) not enter into the picture or provide any assistance with such a sale. Because it may create a false sense of security that somehow they are backing or legitimizing the sale of some goods produced by themselves.

Thats how I see it.

There's been alot of discussion about the conflict between what BFL is actually doing with respect to refund policy, and what their stated refund policy on the website is. 

It should be noted however, that once a party to a contract continually violates a stated term of that contract, at some point, they begin to lose the right to enforce that term. 

So even though the statement on the website is one thing, it is the actual action that BFL is taking that essentially is nullifying that term.  You see this often when a company wants to leave something in the terms of the contract, just so they can change their mind one day, and say "look it's in the contract!"

The most common example is the acceleration clause in a mortgage.  Once the borrower misses a payment, the mortgagee usually has the right under the mortgage to bring the whole amount of the debt due.  But if the mortgagee has allowed the borrower to fall behind multiple times in the past, and then catch up, then the mortgagee loses his right to accelerate the debt.  He can regain this right by providing additional notice that the next time the borrower falls into default, the mortgagee may exercise his right to accelerate.

So bottom line, until that additional notice is given again by BFL, I don't believe a court would enforce that no refunds policy in light of BFL's actions.

Also, I would have to do more research, but I'm quite certain FTC regulation prohibits the non-refunding of money in certain pre-order cases.   

Implicit truthiness?

In light of him confirming several points [irrespective of the conversation and tone] this is pretty straight forward.

I like how you guys are taking an employee of a company who is quite familiar with said company's policies, telling him he's wrong and that you as an outsider know more about his company than he does, and then not even listening to him when he corrects you. Yes, he was an ass in his reply, but still....

Look at it this way: as a 3rd party just browsing these forums and reading your conversation with Inaba, who am I going to believe when it comes to BFL's policy:

A) The person who is not associated with the company, is not even a customer of said company, and is posting accusations? or
B) The long time customer and eventual employee of said company, familiar with their inner workings?

Im glad someone else can see through Inaba's simple tricks, he usually has some sock puppets showing up about this time to deflect and derail even further - lets see how he handles this

*popcorn*

Correct and true.

Though you have the manpower for it before a certain date. I take it that refunds have skyrocketed and perhaps you can no longer keep up? Therefore the policy change?

Hmm, I believe I am typing in a facetious way. Perhaps.

False. A baby could draw the links between the two.

You just admitted [did you not?] that the reason the policy changed *recently* was because you wanted to mitigate risk.

This is a confirmation of at least more than one point. Not a denial.

Holmes, I believe he just confirmed the red paint on his hands. Apprehend him.

Indeed, what company would?

So then I ask, why did your company, until just now, change the shipping addresses for your customers who no longer wanted their orders but did find someone else who did?

Again, I ask, did you lose customer service agents or did your refunds skyrocket beyond your control?

Oh wait, you wanted to limit your liability...gee it almost sounds like you are confirming my speculative post....hmm. Strange.

Well, I do wonder.

But perhaps that is because you are hoping someone else will be dumb enough to believe it as well?

True.

False.  

It is a market where customers can turn in their spot in line for an extra percentage on their orders. If they are discontent with their purchase and have a sufficiently early order, then they can both A) sell it for more than they paid, and B) offload their risk.

BFL used to assist them in this, just until very recently, they no longer do. BFL has [speculation] obviously chosen to eliminate their risk of the pre-order "resale" venue that some customers opt for. This keeps the BFL order filled (one way or the other) does it not?

This ultimately also prevents BFL from having to transact a bunch of refunds. Often it does cost money to send people large volumes of cash (especially via electronic wire).

So it is good business. No one (I think) will blame you for it. (at least right now anyway).

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Does this mean that BFL rejects their customers approaches for refunds? NO. (this is why your summary of the 5th point is invalid)

This just means they have figured out a way on how to push their risk onto their customer AND keep them from cashing out.

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Now here is where I fish for information, and you keep your lips tight no doubt.

Have your staff ever solicited the practice of reselling your items rather than obtain a refund? If there had never been such a case, then it's just smart practice.

If there has, then you know that you are pushing the risk of someone not fulfilling the order process unto the reseller (the original buyer) and to which the second hand owner would object.

But since you have absolutely nothing (speculatively speaking) to do with that, you have no obligation to second hand buyers.

So far on the BFL blogs on BFL forums there have been incidents of people selling false order numbers. I wonder where the scammers got that crazy idea?

On top of that, in that same blog, there is evidence that BFL will go the extra mile to assist the resellers in confirming [for the second hand buyer] that that orders being resold are valid.

(The fine print: Though we take no added risk in actual fulfillment of your pre-order [second hand buyer]. It is up to you, to get it from the original buyer!)

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Why does a business even need to do that if they push the refund option first?

Inaba, the king of misinformation - brace yourself for a hissy fit in the form of a wall of text.

Just cuz he might scrub their toilets once a week doesn't mean he determines company policy. He doesn't even post under his offical company account here. Official BFL Policy is clearly visible on the website and has been that way for 6 months. If the website was intended to be updated, it would have been updated months ago. BFL can refuse any request for a refund.

Actually, yes.

You missed like several paragraphs that outline the point, that is why you had a WTF moment. Point number 5 is invalid as you interpreted it. Learn to actually read and follow along someones speculative post. (And quote the whole thing!)

Rather than read my post, you instead are doing a sort of psychological trick where you pretend to misread someones post and then proposition a false conclusion that makes no sense.

In other words, your lame attempt to reframe my post [with your additive non-sense] and deflect has been "called out".

In cased you missed it, Inaba works for BFL. I think that part of their website needs to be updated, as I don't think it's ever been enforced. I've never heard of someone who wanted a refund, and didn't get one.

Stop spreading mis-information. Let me show you the official BFL policy.

http://www.butterflylabs.com/faq/

This just makes my head a-splode.  Do you even read what you write or do thoughts just flow out of your head and into your fingers, like a stream of consciousness thing or something?

Lets boil down what you just wrote:

1. Customer wants to sell their order
AND
2. BFL won't change the shipping address
SO
3. Customer is advised to take delivery and send it to third party
BECAUSE
4. BFL does not want to be liable for scams
THEREFORE
5. BFL won't refund money because they would be out more sales.

WTF?  Seriously, how does it even make sense?  They are two completely unrelated policies and situations.  If a customer wants a refund, we issue a refund.  End of story.  If a customer wants to sell their device, then they need to take responsibility for it as we don't have the man power, nor do we want to be liable for scams.  What does one have to do with the other?  Absolutely nothing, yet in typical PuertoLibre fashion, you try to throw out FUD and paint BFL as somehow being evil and we are scamming by conflating two unrelated issues.  You go on to highlight the fact BFL "pushes the  risk of the sale from BFL to the reseller and the buyer."  Well no shit, Sherlock.  What company do you know is willing to shoulder the responsibility for third party sales, especially in a high scam environment?  You act like this is some revelation and that BFL is just crazy evil for doing this.

Do you seriously wonder why I call you an idiot?

[Speculative post]

Because they would lose a CC fight if they acknowledge they sent it to another address....every single time. (They couldn't easily prove they sent it to the legitimate address. This is why many companies won't ship to a different destination other than what is on file with the CC company.

They (BFL) are pretty unlucky they aren't contacting everyone they  already arranged for a different address of delivery. It no doubt opens them up big time to large losses.

If those people (if any exist) did chargebacks on their CC as the rigs got to their doorstep they would likely get a rig for free. Why no one noticed this earlier at BFL is a mystery in itself. At least that is how I understood CC policy.

The change in their policy is really no mystery at all.

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I take it, that it was to prevent the money from flowing out of the coffers. If you tell someone who wants a refund that they can't sell their position in line, then they would have to give the refund.

For BFL it would probably have been marginally better to arrange the customer to hand it off to someone else and take on the risk that the customer will do a Chargeback. (as long as they don't tell them that, there is only a slightly possibility.)

Now that the risk is probably too big to keep doing, they changed their policy.

Now they likely tell the BFL customer that they can resell it on their own, but they will have to ship to the address of the original payment. Which pushes the risk of the sale from BFL to the reseller and the buyer. Leaving BFL's hand nice and clean in the event that the reseller steals the second hand buyers money.

You can't blame them for this change, it makes perfect sense.

If things were done "right" they would just give the original buyer their money back and they would be out 1 (or more) sales. Which is inconvenient of course cause they ordered all that hardware....

they changed it pretty recently.

Selling Your BitForce Products
by
BFL_Jody
, 12-04-2012 at 11:19 PM

    Sometimes people have sold their pre-orders to someone else, because they need the money or whatever. I have some comments about that:

    1. We will verify your order for potential buyers if you ask us to do so.
    2. We will not ship to your customer. We will still ship it to you. It is your responsibility to ship to your customer.
    3. The warranty is still in effect even if it is sold to someone else.
    4. Please be careful--several people have bought items from shysters ...

For anyone wanting to sell their SC spot in line hit me up.  Might as well get some of your money back since BFL is line right.

Anyone want to sell their spot in line!  I just need a Jalapeno or two or three.

My favorite color is blue.