Topic: Butterfly Labs announcing new preorder marketplace (Read 7650 times)

No joke, It sure sounds like an asset-backed security.  I wonder is this is actually fully legal in the U.S.?   

Thanks! Perhaps I'll wait for BFL to "work the bugs out"...in two weeks. If this is true: wow, do they really expect their customers to roll over and pay shipping twice?

Be wary they could charge shipping fees again to the new customer: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/hardware-discussion/4863-bfl-charge-double-shipping-pre-order-transfer.html

Another possibility is that you could initiate a chargeback and bfl could ship your order out of sequence. Either way chargebacks = good.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1mch22/bfl_refund_success_sort_of_lol/

Paypal is hitting BFL hard with refund demands , lots off people get it refunded now way after the official 45 days. BFL is listed as untrustworthy at Paypals. I just got refunded for the paypal part.
Now they just need to refund the upgrade in BTC part. But if they don't it's officialy stealing by law because the rufund was done for the paypal part of the order.

Sooo , lets all be helpfull and do our best to help BFL. Force refund tru paypal and clear the backlog this way .

Ah! Thanks!

Do you have a link that explains the process so that I can contact the buyer?

My pre-order was transferred dumped the 11 so check in your dashboard.

Anyone know the latest on this? Haven't heard anything about the rollout that was *supposed* to start on Sept. 10. Went to the site briefly & didn't notice anything new.

Would like to transfer my ebay sold BFL Jally pre-orders to wash my hands of it and be done with it.

2 more weeks^TM?

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/classifieds-269/

 

Another delay™ in BLF land. I can't wait to dump my already sold pre-order and call it quit.

OUCH ....erk you should get some ointment on that nasty burn ...lolz

Be gentle he is just discovering that he has been working for the devil when he thought it was jesus.  

Read it. Didn't make it past the assertion that someone should be required to prove a negative. It's not possible, so I did not respond to what followed.

I have no idea if they made the claim that they are NOT mining the equipment. I know that before they "shipped" they made the claim that they WOULD NOT mine the equipment on main net. I know too that BFL reps attempt to deceive whenever they attempt communicate so I'd likely consider anything said by such to be without merit, unless and until proven otherwise.

Read the question.


DID they make the claim? (Your answer is they NEVER made any such claim. My question remains has anyone seen this claim made anywhere by BFL?)

If they did is there evidence to support they lied about it?

It's not possible to provide proof of what an entity never said.

The burden of proof is on those that make the claim.

Did BFL make the claim they are NOT mining the equipment?
Is there evidence that have mined with it?

Agreed. BFL never said they would self mine. I have no proof that they never said they would self mine. How could I possibly have proof of what they never said?

Just when i thought we where getting somewhere ...lolz

WHy not mine with a product right until its at or in NEGATIVE ROI and then ship it to the customer that had PAID for it in the first place...double bite at the cherry

Considering the ringleader Sonny @ camp BFL  has spent time in prison for a 5 year running LONG CON ...you really need to stop and think who you are dealing with...

Awesome .. U just have to get it out of your system dude

I am going to wait like a vulture...there is a storm of oversupply coming and patience is a virtue 

erk ... you have seen the light ...

BFL never said the would self mine, where is the proof of that? Avalon said from day one they intended to self mine and the reason the entered the hardware market was to respond to BFL to try and balance things out. ASICminer self mine you missed them.

There are far more BTC to be made by selling your mining hardware for BTC than there is mining with it. If BFL can manufacture a  Jalapeno in 10min and sell it for a couple of BTC, and make a BTC profit on each, there is no way that device is going to mine a  BTC for them in months, let alone in 10min.

Sounds painfully correct. Their progress has been incredibly slow, with them moving on a single product (Jalapeno) at an accelerated rate not remotely linear with a different product (singles). It could take them until late october to catch up to July orders, and possibly some time in december before they catch up the last pre-order.

In my opinion, they are simply using new "orders"/pre-orders to keep up with producing orders from 7-12 months earlier.

Sounds legit. BFL self mine - check. Avalon self mine - check. Bitfury self mine - check. Only one of these actually conducted themselves with integrity. Bitfury announced months ago they'd be self mining their hardware, the other two specifically said they would not mine main net with customer gear.

That's most of why I follow these forums.  I'm too dumb for bitcoin, but in a few years things will be quite different from now, and no one will believe the shenanigans going on years 1 through 5 if they weren't here reading it happen.

Being here to read this stuff is like being in Bethlehem a couple thousand years ago, or maybe Sodom and Gomorrah.

BTW, I gotta believe for every one miner that the new ASIC vendors ship, they're gonna put 6, 8, or 10 on line for themselves.  It's a good use of their NRE paid by pre-orders.

That shouldn't be a long term issue, so far only BFL and Avalon have failed to ship as promised, the other ASIC vendors will have an easy opportunity to outperform those two, which should bring back some credibility to the BTC mining hardware industry.

 FWIW, I just doubled-down on Bitfury and bought a second 400GH/s rig from BuzzDave for October.

 Don't see anything else as being a reasonable purchase before this year is over.

Previously, BFL was allowing customers to exchange their orders informally. Which means they (BFL) didn't have to change their pre-order books nor the names or the addresses. It was an informal agreement between one customer to another that when BFL sent the order to the re-seller, they (the reseller) would take it upon themselves to forward the order to the new customer.

Now in this recent change, BFL is actively (formally) changing their database and allowing customers access to change the address and name of the order to someone else.

See the previous post as to why this is problematic.

The third vulnerability is just like the second scenario:


CC companies do not allow you to send a product to another unregistered address. BFL stopped giving people address changes for that specific reason.

Lets say you moved to another house in the same city, you then contact BFL with your new address that you have moved to, but you fail to contact your CC company with the new address to have it registered on file at the CC company.

When BFL ships you your product to this alternative address, they open themselves up to a dispute that you can then file after you have received your product in hand.

You can simply call the CC company and claim you never received it or that it was sent to the wrong address.

That is why some buyers send items to their friends house. So they can then use this as an excuse to defraud a company with an unregistered address and claim non-receipt.

-----------------------------------------

This very same hole is being opened up by BFL intentionally by shuffling around orders and changing things.

It would probably be very hard to deal with a CC company who rightfully states that their order Payment system shows something entirely different from BFL's ordering system.

BFL saying anything about shuffling orders around won't really hold any water. (IMO)

The only problem I see with the double tap actually happening is that CGM was supposed to give AEK the payment not BFL.  I very definitely could be wrong on this but its my understanding.

Not trying to pick your post apart. Actually just wondering if I am wrong about this.

Regards,

That is very good for my Chi

cheers,
kev

Pretty much.

Except that whoever invented this gamble of a strategy must also know there are very grave, potentially fatal (to BFL as a business) problems.

The first problems is obvious, this could accelerate refunds rather than slow them down!

------------------------

Let me explain,

If people like CGM in your recent example can't sell off their September 9/2013 paydate on the very same market, then they are 10 times more likely to ask for a refund (and actually get it). They are probably still within the refund window which paypal or CC companies will still take them seriously.

-------------------------
Another gamble that opens the door to a refund "double tap":

The other gamble is that BFL must realize that payment processors like Visa, Mastercard, AmEx etc, won't stand for BFL's reshuffle of orders. A CC company expects BFL to keep accurate records on customer orders.

If AEK (Order date 9/2012) sells to CGM her order spot (Order date 9/2013) and BFL changes the name AND Address of the order to CGM's name. (Which you shouldn't do because a CC company won't protect you if you do this!)

Well....after receiving payment from CGM...AEK could ask for her refund from her CC company and leave CGM without both her money and a legitimate order spot. When BFL has to respond to the CC company about the chargeback they will have to announce that the payment on file now belongs to CGM and not AEK.

The CC company is going to be bewildered as to how BFL expects a payment to be switched over to another customer. What will likely ensue is that the CC company will say that they don't give a damn who the order was transferred to in BFL internal order system, they have AEK as the payment and they will issue AEK a refund at BFL's expense.

Leaving CGM without her order spot, minus a large amount of $$$.

CGM will then probably seek a refund from BFL for her own order paydate (9/2013) and BFL will get a second chargeback.

The only one who would come out ahead in the double tap scenario will be AEK. Who got her ROI the instant she sold her order and then asked for a refund regardless for the 9/2012 pay date.

BFL won't really have much of a defense about shuffling their payment processors orders.

=========================

It is all a gamble that hinges on no one figuring out these vulnerabilities. Quite the gamble!

The one thing I have to say is that BFL as a company concerning their tactics don't reflect very well on BTC as a whole considering US lawmakers are looking at what sort of regulation should be in place.I don't think BFL will last 2 more years and some might actually be prosecuted under US law.

Theoretically these were liquidated by bitpay when AEK placed the original order and the proceeds, less fees, were sent on to bfl, but we don't know with any degree of certainty as bfl has never(to my knowledge) defined their arrangement with bitpay.

The marketplace has changed. There is no point ordering anything from BFL anymore until they actually have stock on hand.

The ROI on BFL pre-orders has been terrible, most people will not make the money back they have paid out for the pre-order because of the slow production line. The practical solution is not to order. I am not suggesting don't buy BFL, just don't pre-order, wait until they have stock so you can punch into a Bitcoin calculator and work out if it's worth buying. The gen1 product is obviously not worth buying unless they at least halve the price. The Monarch quite likely will not be worth buying if it ships in February. Best hold on to your money until February and then make the calculation. You could easily find BFL will have to halve the price of the Monarch in February to be competitive, so it would be crazy to pay for it now.

I know other ASIC vendors will be reducing their prices before the end of the year. KNCminer have already announced price reductions on Nov delivery.

The ASIC industry is coming up for a massive shake out, the winner will be the companies that have stock on hand.

Selling places on a pre-order queue is absurd.

AMAZING COMPANY!!

They never stop to amaze me.

Will it work like this?

Alice Ellen Krauss (AEK) pays 20 BTC ($12 USD each) in September of 2012 for a 5Gh/s miner preorder.
Tired of waiting in September of 2013, AEK sells her preorder to Carol Grace Miller (CGM) for 3BTC ($120 each), figuring she's $100 ahead, or so.

So AEK gives 20 BTC to the middleman in 9/12.
CGM gives 3 BTC to AEK in 9/13, and AEK calls it quits.

Who's the middleman between AEK and CGM that keeps the other 17 BTC, which are now worth about $2000 total?

And is it a coincidence that the chief ombudsman of bitcointalk is being hosted about the same time all this is happening?

(ANN)  Group Buy on life insurance for one particular woodsman.  Expiring in 2 days (the Group Buy, that is).

So this is where all pro-BFL can circlejerk with their non-delivered techologically outdated preorders?

I feel good about going with BitFury instead, my rigs are hashing away after 40 days of ordering and using only <0.7W/GH while beeing passively cooled.
It seems like a good idea to fold with BFL and ask for a refund from my point of view.

There is a definite collaboration going on...

All I can say is that Josh is now one EVIL fucking Mofo.... as he has now been trained by one of the best criminal minds i have seen

(Once again Crypto turns in a movie set ....)

Hey maybe we should check teh records..Was not Sonny in state fed with MAddoff ??

ALso here is the current cast for...da..da...dah....da..da..dah

 "Coin WARZ............. the ASICS strike back "

Sonny is "The Sith Emperor"
Josh is "Darth Vader"
Yifu is Luke

Except this version Luke turns to the dark side & stays there ..lolz

Is so bad its funny

Except for... imagine if u are one of teh Mininrig guys who have poured 100k into this cluster fuck

Anyone wanna bet Sonny is NOT the "mastermind"........anymore........ 

Who knows Bitcoin better than him Who knows what drives miners better than him Who knows the Bitcoin community better than him   Hmmmmm........................

I just went to put my 7g/h order 6/6/13 up for sale and the classified section at BFL is locked...

The criminality of this all scares me...Sonny has learnt a lot from the many years honing his craft as the LONG CON master

ASIC is just a vehicle he uses ..."LOTTERY WIN" "MONEY PRINTING MACHINE" the same pathological drivers are their ...GREED,FEAR,Hope for a better life ...he knows exactly how to play to the human psych

The PRE_ORDER marketplace was ALWAYS in teh works.... the ability to keep perpetuating this never ending cycle of NON delivery is amazing .....THIS GUY NEEDS to be locked up as he is a menace to society..

[Crazy Speculation]

MOTHERFUCKERS!

It was bullshit that was ssssooooo well crafted. That even my BS detector couldn't understand the scope of the scam.

Holy shit, BFL figured out a way to have [newer] customers pay for the refunds.

========================
The Scam Defined (IMO):

They (BFL) don't even have to touch their own bank to set this up. It is genius, true scam genius.

They open up "a marketplace" for old pay date holders and newer pay date holders to get together and send money to each other. (thereby keeping BFL out of the refund loop). Later pay date holders source $$$ and send the refund money to early pay date holders.

The newer customers under the illusion that they still want [nearly obsolete] hardware earlier than their current pay date (April 2013 for example) will go into the marketplace and therefore will seek an "Early Pay Date" in the market place (lets say October 2012). They will opt to send money (the disguised customer-to-customer refund process) to the buyer with an earlier pay date (october 2012). Thereby moving themselves up in the queue.

The original buyer with the *Early pay date* then steps out of line and drops out of BFL as a customer. (they got their refund from another customer...not BFL)

Then the buyer with the later pay date (April 2013) is then going to sells his/her *Later pay date* (April 2013) on the very same market place to someone with an even later pay date (lets say another pay date holder for July 2013).


======================


In effect, BFL has found an ingenious way to keep the apparent ponzi going without putting their own bank accounts as the source of the funds.

Newer Customers now refund older customers in their bid to get an early spot in this ongoing ponzi-like structure!

Madoff would be damn proud!

Inefficiency, waste and mismanagement all great ways to make the BTC / USD evaporate. I wonder if some of these actions are on purpose?


Either way BFL are SHADY characters aren't they?

Credit : gif from reddit

It is all bullshit.
They had no intention of meeting all current pre-order deliveries by the end of september 2013.

It just shows the stupidity and lack of thinking ability,(or the real issue), bit like those assembly machines they wasted money on.

Instead of assembling the product, allow the customer to take  a kit of parts or just the main boards, that way you don't need workers to do assembly, that is
Unless you need a bottle neck, because the boards won't meet the hashing rates.

It all makes sense ..this is the "AH HAH" moment where they have created a new trading derivative

"THE NEVERENDING PREORDER"

These guys really are genius...I am serious ...From the years of the long con with his Lottery scam ..he KNOWS exactly how far & long you can push people when it comes to greed & once you have them on the hook

He is NEVER going to let them off without getting his pound of flesh !!

 

Maybe.............a preorder stock market    Buy/sell/trade your preorders today!!!!!!  

Wrap em up like the banks did mortgages & sell em all over the world 

what happens on 9/11? Well its official pre-orders are worthless as fiat.

> We expect the order transfer system to be in place by September 10, 2013

...

Not now, not a month from now, not by Christmas

Surely you mean the Vleisides School of Business?

Brought to you by the creators of Butterfly Labs,
industry leading experts in offers you can't refuse.

/snark

Expect the SQL and DB server to be powered by a used Beowolf cluster.

Say it with me BFL is just

shady.

September 15th is coming fast  

Have you got your refund yet 

I dont understand why they would need any of this

Are they not clearing all back orders in the next 2 weeks ....??

Are these assholes so bad that they are now creating s/w to help maintain the LONG CON....

yes, since 2 weeks! already!

Beautiful insights. I think you summed it up perfectly. Thanks!

I think BFL left some money on the table here, why aren't they charging a 10% transfer fee?  Why not milk the investomer a little more!!

This definitely appears to be a move to preserve liquidity by slowing down refund requests and complaints to regulators by helping people shift an unwanted order to someone else rather than going to the hassle of filing a complaint for refused refund.  This makes me believe that BFL is nervous.

BFL needs the orders to stay on the books at all cost, the more complaints the regulators get the closer they are going to be looking at BFL and I guess no one at BFL wants that! 

I don't believe for one second BFL cares about the aftermarket sale integrity.  What benefit does it have for BFL who holds the order the product is paid for and will ship at the same time regardless of who owns the order.  The only thing they care about with this program is to keep the order on the books, they will certainly parade around telling anyone who wants to cancel to go and sell it on their site and they will help with the transfer (free of charge?).

Trust factor?

If you're not BFL & you have a solid ebay rep by not pissing off anyone - like moi - you easily sell 3 Jalapenos with 2 of them being pre-orders!
D'oh! So much for that argument.

Yoda says: "The fail is strong in that one."

 Damn. That's some pretty impressive speculation. I would guess you're probably not far off the mark with regard to the solvency aspect.

At the Inaba institute of higher learning.

We get our PHD with professor Inaba.

You speak fluent BFL... amazing where did you study PuertoLibre?

If they are working on "features" like this.. that means all the back log of orders is completed right?

Speculatively Translated:

We have a retention problem. People aren't willing to wait until the order queue is fully processed. So they are "bailing on us" for other companies with better offers and forcibly pulling money out of our bank accounts.

We couldn't figure out a way to keep them waiting in line and leaving with their money. We are letting people with spots closer to being serviced in the backlog to sell off their order numbers for some monetary sum. Which means we will keep our newer customers and give "added" value to those who no longer want their orders. (thereby circumventing the forced refund process)

So go along with us. We need this cash. We need to keep our newer customers and our cash flow is probably running real low.

Transfer your unwanted position in line for some cash and keep us solvent, pretty please!

(This is my personal interpretation behind the bullshit.)

They just posted this on their Facebook page:
What do you think about this new announcement?
www.facebook.com/ButterflyLabs