Topic: BFL 50gh/s miner (Read 2431 times)

Not always. BFL need not have a presence in the UK for instance, but you could sue them for libel there. I would imagine you could take something to the EU version of the FTC and have them render a judgement, but what happens after that is anyone's guess.

EU law (distant selling, for EU based companies, of course) is much more favorable to consumers - there is a 'cooling-off' period. A buyer can return the product even 7 days (14 some countries) AFTER delivery.
When following discussions here, I must constantly remind myself - it's USA law that apply here.

BFL is in the mail order business not the telemarketing business.

Not to mention the fact that "all sales are final" is referring to a product ALREADY shipped (which btw is perfectly legal to offer no refund or exchange on DELIVERED product.

http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus02-business-guide-mail-and-telephone-order-merchandise-rule

The Rule requires that when you advertise merchandise, you must have a reasonable basis for stating or implying that you can ship within a certain time. If you make no shipment statement, you must have a reasonable basis for believing that you can ship within 30 days.

Within a certain time is the operative phrase. "2 months to infinity" is about as uncertain as you can be when talking about a delivery date, so no, BFL is stating that they can ship within a certain time.

If, after taking the customer’s order, you learn that you cannot ship within the time you stated or within 30 days, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delayed shipment. If you cannot obtain the customer’s consent to the delay -- either because it is not a situation in which you are permitted to treat the customer’s silence as consent and the customer has not expressly consented to the delay, or because the customer has expressly refused to consent -- you must, without being asked, promptly refund all the money the customer paid you for the unshipped merchandise.

BFL failed this requirement.

The evidence you need to demonstrate the reasonableness of your shipment representations varies with circumstances. The following, however, is important:

Anticipated demand. Is the demand for each advertised item reasonably anticipated?
Supply. For each advertised item, is there a sufficient inventory on hand or adequate sources of supply to meet the anticipated demand for the product?
Fulfillment system. For all promotions in the relevant sales seasons, can the fulfillment system handle the cumulative anticipated demand for all products?
Recordkeeping. Are adequate records kept of the key events (see section headed "Why You Should Keep Records" for a list of key events) in each individual transaction to ensure that items can be shipped within the applicable time, as established by the Rule?
Remember: Whether you make a shipment representation or rely on the 30-day rule, your advertising should be unambiguous about when you will ship.

BFL failed this requirement.

While I generally agree with your comments, the reason why you cannot directly buy BTC with paypal is not because of its risk status but instead because bitcoin is not seen a physical entity. Paypal was created to facilitate eBay and the basis of eBay has always been that you are trading currency for physical items that can be posted. This is clearly reflected in the paypal dispute resolution process whereby if a seller can't provide proof of postage then the buyer will win the dispute.

Source: I used to be a powerseller on eBay

Again, you are going to have to make the argument to the FTC that 2 months or more isn't a specific time frame and therefore falls within the 30day refund policy. With the way that the FTC has been coming down on the BTC community lately, I'm not so sure they are going to be too happy to stand by your side in this as their stance is more along the line that those who participate in bitcoin mining, sales, etc are money launderers and such, and skirting the government from its cut, I.e no taxes and anonymity.

PayPal may be the same way. They consider any and all bitcoin transactions to be high risk, which is why you cannot buy bitcoin directly on PayPal. The policy on hardware is that it is considered high risk and that they have adviced their employees to not even escalate incidents that are filed. Kind is the "well you gambled and lost, why should we cover you" stance.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1g23w2/paypal_email_to_employees_policy_regarding_bitcoin/

Shipping updates - https://forums.butterflylabs.com/blogs/bfl_jody/

Looks like they haven't even finished shipping the first days orders yet.

2 months or more is not a specific date.

BFL must offer a refund 30 days after the order was placed (since they have never offered a specific date). If BFL denies a refund one can complain to the FTC. If one ordered via PayPal, complain directly to them first.

http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0020-shopping-online:
"A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule requires sellers to ship items as promised or within 30 days after the order date if no specific date is promised."

Is "2 months or more" valid as 'specific date'?

The way I read it, they are not.  It states:

The Rule requires that when you advertise merchandise, you must have a reasonable basis for stating or implying that you can ship within a certain time. If you make no shipment statement, you must have a reasonable basis for believing that you can ship within 30 days. That is why direct marketers sometimes call this the "30-day Rule."

In BFL's statement, they said it will be at least 2 months, but never promises "by" statement.

And reading through this page, this does not cover the by-law of "All Sales Are Final" as stated by BFL.  When dealing with something  as this, the rules are different.  Also taken from the FTC website on this page http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus27-complying-telemarketing-sales-rule

3. No-Refund Policy
If there’s a policy of honoring requests for refunds, cancellations of sales or orders, exchanges, or re-purchases, sellers and telemarketers must disclose information about the policy only if they make a statement about the policy during the sales presentation. If the sales presentation includes a statement about such a policy, it must also include a clear and conspicuous disclosure of all terms and conditions of the policy that are likely to affect a consumer’s decision on whether to purchase the goods or services offered.

If the seller’s policy is that “all sales are final” — that is, no refunds, cancellations of sales or orders, or exchanges or re-purchases are allowed — the Rule requires you to let consumers know before they pay for the goods or services being offered. You may give this information to consumers orally or in writing, and the information must be clear and conspicuous.

.....This means BFL does not have to offer a refund as it was made aware to you BEFORE you purchased the item.

You and BFL may want us all to believe this but until a customers order physically ships it appears according to the FTC that the company must issue a prompt refund when the customer asks for a refund for ANY reason.

Just because their ToS is against FTC regulations doesn't mean it's OK to break those regulations because you put it in your ToS LDO.

(Bolded in mine)

When You Must Cancel an Order

You must cancel an order and provide a prompt refund when:
•the customer exercises any option to cancel before you ship the merchandise;
•the customer does not respond to your first notice of a definite revised shipment date of 30 days or less and you have not shipped the merchandise or received the customer’s consent to a further delay by the definite revised shipment date;
•the customer does not respond to your notice of a definite revised shipment date of more than 30 days (or your notice that you are unable to provide a definite revised shipment date) and you have not shipped the merchandise within 30 days of the original shipment date;
•the customer consents to a definite delay and you have not shipped or obtained the customer’s consent to any additional delay by the shipment time the customer consented to;
•you have not shipped or provided the required delay or renewed option notices on time; or
•you determine that you will never be able to ship the merchandise.


http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus02-business-guide-mail-and-telephone-order-merchandise-rule

The way I read this BFL is clearly in violation of the FTC mail and telephone order merchandise rule (punishable by the FTC suing them for up to $16,000 per incident).

Feel free to continue to state misinformation as fact though, seems to be common with BFL nut huggers

LOL, Awesome!

+1

of course no matter when you get this thing you will still be in a good place

Hahaha, awesome.

OP Please have a look at this website I think you will find it very informative.

http://bfl.ptz.ro/

Good luck receiving it by the end of July

As stated when you placed your order, all sales are final.  You can ask for a refund and start a dispute with them, but they are under no obligation to refund you your money.

IIRC BFL stated to have all 2012 pre-orders delivered by September and then soon after shipping next day.  So I wouldn't hope too much to get your device before October.  Will it still be profitable; well BFL chips are currently the densest chip fab shipping.  So you couldn't have ordered a better chip.  KNCMiner are offering an even denser chip but there not promising to ship until September but they could run into BFL level delays yet.  So I feel you should at least get your money back as there is no faster chips currently shipping.  If KNCMiner ship on mass in September you may have been better going with them.  Tho as BFL are shipping the fastest chips available ATM if I was ordering another ASIC today it would be BFL.  There is another (UK) ASIC company promising 65nm chips like BFL but much cheaper than BFL tho they're not shipping yet and may not for a while.

Do you think they could refund?