Topic: [Archive] BFL trolling museum - page 31. (Read 69394 times)

yes, You are right, only inexperienced company can order 100 000 chips without a prototype and testing, without sure if these chips will work, hoping for a miracle.

You should contact BitPay and get them to clarify this for you in writing. If you aren't sure you should always ask first for an official statement.

If Bitpay does act like paypal and is a BTC account with [USD conversion] deposited into a registered account at the sole election of the merchant, then yes, people probably have a case.

If BitPay converts it directly without BFL approval or handling (as in transparent) then you are SOL. (Sorry Out of Luck)

Does anyone here have a BitPay account that they could use to shed light on this particular point?

Simple. If they can't control currency exchange risk, they shouldn't have accepted payments in BTC in the first place!

Well, they should have protected themselves against a BTC price rise as well? It is not my fault if they've speculated and didn't do that!

Lower speed for first batch then upgrade those later on.
People would be more than happy with 'reduced ASIC performance' then 'no ASIC at all performance' which they get at the moment...
I don't think the dates were realistical in the first place because of how they suddenly decided to redesign the board after the original shipping date.
They didn't have a final product at that october date and you cannot set a shipping date if you haven't even seen your final working product.
That, combined with several more delays pretty much means their dates are meaningless as such and their primary goal was, i assume, to get people exited so they get the funding.

Since BFL claims that the FPGA run gave them heaps of experience in handling delays and Josh has stated that these delays are because they want a perfect chip it is impossible for BFL to ever have taken their dates seriously. There must have been, like, a 90% chance that the first date would never happen. This next date i'd say there is a   40% chance they will deliver. I think that the likelyhood of them shipping increases as we approach March.
 
BFL must fully understand that they are still in the design stage of their project and that the likelyhood for errors is high.
No responsible company could have set these dates in such a situation. The fact that the date has been moved several time shows that BFL lost control of the process several times.
They should have said from the beginning that they will ship propably early 2013 and not set a hard date at all unless they are sure.

If BFL, or any ASIC developer for that matter, owed me money at this point I'd be thanking my lucky stars to get half of it back.

It's actually hard to believe that BFL pre-orders are not being dwarfed by refunds at this point, but I don't know the business or the numbers...and I cronically underestimate the propensity of the Bitcoin community to fall for scams.

If BFL are still giving refunds (normalized to USD which seems legitimate to me) this strikes me as evidence against the hypothesis that they are straight up scamming.  Again though, without good data on their books it's hard to make a call here.  It was interesting that bASIC let a few refunds sneak under the door after it slammed shut.  Lack of coordination it looked like to me, and BFL strikes me as having it together much better in this way than did cablepair.

BTW, does anyone know the details of credit card chargebacks in this areana?  I mean, with pay-pal I can issue a charge-back up to a month after I made a purchase if the counter-party does not deliver.  In the few times I've leveraged this capability I've had to be on-the-ball and at least start a claim before this cut-off or I lose the ability.  I've never had to do such a thing with a credit card purchase.  I thought it interesting that the (apparently upstanding) bASIC PR guy suggested chargebacks but expected that the 'statute of limitations' had probably kicked in for a lot of 'customers' (or 'marks' to be more accurate in terminology.)

Bingo, that is exactly my point. ASIC companies should treat Bitcoin as a legitimate currency.

I fully understand they have to pay other companies in USD or Yuan or Yen. But they should try to market Bitcoin in some way beyond the superficial aspects of money conversion.

That is because no ASIC [Vendor] is using BTC as an actual currency (IMO). They are simply using it as a transfer of value in USD.

Sure, they could go bankrupt.  But that is NOT a scam.  A scam is purposefully taking other people's money for profit or other personal gain, whilst knowing you cannot deliver on the promises you make.  I do not discount the fact that BFL could go bankrupt (though I personally find that scenario unlikely).

Yeah, the big difference being that Pirate had incentive to keep going.  BFL's incentive to keep the scam going is GONE.  Out the window.  Bye-bye.  Refunds have exceeded new orders by a large margin for at least the past month.  BFL is not gaining any more faithful clients like Pirate was.  If anything, they are gaining more distrust and paying out far more in refunds than they are gaining in new pre-orders.  It makes ZERO sense for them to continue the scam if it was a scam.  "he only runs with their money if the scam is no longer sustainable" - that point was reached by BFL a month ago.


You didn't know where the BTC price was going to be 6 months ago.  Neither did BFL.  BFL converted their BTC to USD as soon as they received each order to protect themselves against a BTC price drop.  If BTC was now worth $0.50, I'd bet anything that you'd be demanding a full refund in USD equivalent, not BTC.  And that is exactly what BFL would give you, same as they are giving you today.

The units were priced in USD, and you got the USD equivalent for your return. It would be a FREE hedge against the price of BTC dropping if BFL was to give you a full refund of your entire BTC amount.  That wouldn't be fair to the company at all.

If you wish to continue to propagate this lie (that BFL doesn't give a full refund), then please do take it to a court of law and see if you can get ANY judge to agree with you.

Right - that's exactly what I am saying.  The rate of refunds has exceeded the rate of new preorders for quite some time (at least a month).  A quick perusal of the various related threads here tells that story quite easily.

Perhaps.  Maybe they killed all their initial samples by not being able to cool them effectively?  I don't know, I'd like to hear more about that part from Josh.

Good points, people on this forum probably do not know how much it costs to have a booth at CES.

In some cases, more than some make here in a year. (spent in a few days on a tiny area at CES)

It is easy. It is called class action lawsuit on behalf of all their customers that do not get full BTC refunds!

If that were true, they would have working sample chips and be able to demo them. No demo, therefore no chips, therefore they are still just spewing lies.

Then get a lawyer and try .... ?

What does a good legal atturnrey cost in other  US?
If you are not successfull does it imply that you have to pay all costs? (Court stuff &co)

What are you left with then?

Not at all. I want back EXACTLY what I send them up to the last Satoshi!

You can't understand it can you ....?

You want more back from them as you send them. That's not right!
Get tour refund and after that sue them for a fair share if your investment....

Obviously you failed to read that thread and see the screenshot I've provided.

As discussed in the bASIC thread, the products were clearly priced in USD, so a refund of USD is to be expected, regardless of the change in BTC price.

Pirate gave "refunds" right up until he shut down. If BFL was running a scam, they would continue accepting preorders and giving refunds until the rate of refunds exceeded the rate of preorders.

They give only partial refunds! My pre-order is paid in BTC and now they do not honor full BTC refunds!

Because they think they can have perfectly legal profit without doing anything!

Don't be an asshole. It may backfire and if BFL really is a scam people will come back to your posts and tell you "We told you so".

Going bankrupt before being able to deliver its first product happens in a LOT of startup companies. Managers going nuts and attempting to fuck shareholders over happens in a LOT of startup companies too. Why does it seem so unbelievable to you? Has it never occured to you that we might be right?

I remember people saying the very same thing about Pirate. He managed to keep his business running flawlessly for about 8 months. People kept asking : if he's a scammer, why hasn't he run with our money yet? Well because a good scammer never runs with his first money. He builds trust over time. He wants to get as many faithful clients as possible and he only runs with their money if the scam is no longer sustainable. Why? Because it's more profitable than to run away with the first few bucks he gets.

It'll be fun to come back to posts like this and say "I told you so" when I receive my ASICs.  

It's not a scam.  All signs point towards a company inexperienced in producing Bitcoin ASICs attempting to produce Bitcoin ASICs.  Unexpected delays happen in a LOT of startup companies.  Target dates are missed over and over again in a LOT of startup companies.  Modifying the end product in the middle of the production process happens in a LOT of startup companies.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If BFL was going to run with the money, they would have done so long ago.  Far more people are cancelling their orders than are keeping them, so they would be stupid to continue the scam (if it was one) and continue to give refunds.  It would be money out of their pockets for no reason at all if it was a scam.  If you believe that anyone with "reasonable intelligence" could conclude BFL is some kind of scam, please do tell why they haven't run yet.

Another interview with Josh. Subtitles on!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4SnUObMd0o