Topic: Get a REFUND from Yifu for Avalon chips (Read 6278 times)

The Wall Street Journal
TECHNOLOGY
Updated August 11, 2013, 10:11 p.m. ET

Regulator Examines Bitcoin Practices
New York Issues Subpoenas to Firms Tied to Bitcoin.
By ROBIN SIDEL

New York's top banking regulator has issued subpoenas to roughly two dozen companies associated with bitcoin as part of a wide-ranging inquiry into the business practices of the fledgling virtual-currency industry, according to people familiar with the matter.

The subpoenas, from the New York Department of Financial Services, seek information on a range of topics, including antimoney-laundering programs, consumer-protection measures and investment strategies, according to the people..

Subpoenas were sent to firms backed by high-profile Bitcoin investors such as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

The department, led by Benjamin Lawsky, also plans on Monday to issue a memo expressing concern that virtual-currency companies aren't complying with the state's money-transmission laws. As a result, the state is considering setting new guidelines that are specifically aimed at virtual currencies.

"We believe that—for a number of reasons—putting in place appropriate regulatory safeguards for virtual currencies will be beneficial to the long-term strength of the virtual-currency industry," wrote Mr. Lawsky in a draft of the memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Companies that received subpoenas include some of the best-known names in the nascent industry, including Coinbase Inc., BitInstant and Coinsetter.

Executives from Coinbase and BitInstant couldn't be reached for comment on Sunday. Jaron Lukasiewicz, chief executive of Coinsetter, said in an email that the information request is "an opportunity for companies in our space to open up a much needed dialogue with regulators."

He added, "They'll quickly find that most companies are working to legitimize Bitcoin and want to build bridges that help regulators understand and support these financial innovations."

The state agency also sent subpoenas to companies backed by high-profile Bitcoin investors, including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, and twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who are best known for battling Mark Zuckerberg over ownership of Facebook Inc. FB -0.10% Mr. Andreessen and the Winklevoss brothers couldn't be reached for comment on Sunday.

Bitcoin, the best-known of a crop of virtual currencies, are created in a computer process called "mining." They also can be traded on a number of exchanges or swapped privately among users. Most bitcoin are traded on a Tokyo-based exchange called Mt. Gox, where one bitcoin was valued Friday at roughly $102.

A subpoena is a legal demand for information and doesn't signal wrongdoing by the recipient. The New York banking department sent the subpoenas late last week, according to the people familiar with the matter.

The subpoenas come amid heightened scrutiny from state and federal regulators into the world of virtual currencies. Because virtual currencies aren't backed by a central government like traditional ones are, regulators are worried they can be used for illegal activity or can violate laws involving money transmission.

Federal regulators earlier this year issued guidelines placing virtual-currency exchanges under the same comprehensive antimoney-laundering requirements as traditional money-transmission businesses such as Western Union Co.

Although a growing number of bitcoin exchanges have registered their businesses with the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, they have moved more slowly at the state level. In part, that is because the process of getting a license in each of the 48 states that require them is complicated and lengthy. In addition, states also typically require companies to put up a bond that could run as much as several million dollars.

New York has been one of a handful of states aggressively examining the industry. Mr. Lawsky has assembled a team to assess the issue and already sent a warning letter to BitInstant, a New York company that allows customers to buy and sell bitcoins.

"If virtual currencies remain a virtual Wild West for narcotraffickers and other criminals, that would not only threaten our country's national security, but also the very existence of the virtual currency industry as a legitimate business enterprise," according to the memo.

The round of subpoenas also are aimed at gleaning information about how the companies are dealing with individual investors who may be attracted to the novelty of virtual currencies, but may not be sophisticated enough to understand the risk associated with them.

Write to  Robin Sidel at [email protected]

Lolololol and WHAT are the chances?!;

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323585604579006880143449754.html

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2914728



Looks like Robin Sidel of the Wall Street Journal is hungry for blood since being made a fool of!!!

He will campaign to get your money back after being taken for a chump!!!

Contact him NOW!!!

Doing nothing is no solution and accepting that nothing can be changed is really not how I see it going down this time. BFL and Avalon have lost a lot of future business already and with enough of a push we could help them go out of business. Don't kid yourself there is leverage here we just need to use the right fulcrum. The times are changed there are more than two players in the marketplace one can easily avoid BFL and Avalon this coming generation of chips. You would be surprised what can be accomplished given the right organization.

+1000

Boycotting will do nothing, they will still sell to the next fool as greed blinds, they need to be investigated for why they have been caught out being dishonest on several occasions.

Pre-mining, splitting up, receipt of goods end of June, purposeful delays, selling of stock to other parties, and other shady dealings.

There has been no reason at any point to deceive anyone on this forum. Real delays are understandable, but when you lie and then people connected to you post photographic proof confirming deceit, and when they are too stupid to clean their pre-mined machines of dust and of the preconfigured pool info, then something has to be done as this is not what you agreed to in any no bullshit terms and it's theft, be it of currency or of value of the return of your items promised by a specific date and sold to you as an investment. The law is very clear to you about this.

Pursuing this won't harm Bitcoin, it will clean it up. Turning a blind eye is what allowed Lehman's to abscond as long as it did and cause the largest financial crash in history!

We don't need to lose 100% or 50%. They failed to deliver on time as promised. They need to refund everyone at this point to be brutally honest I highly doubt anyone is going to see chips on Friday this week. I doubt highly they will get them next week either. At this point they have failed to deliver. They need to simply refund anyone that wants a refund at this point and they should be boycotted till they do.

In fact it is connected. I mean you can get 50% refund for the chips but what to do with the chips then? You would have to buy assembly for 100%. So in fact you only got a refund of 25%.

Its not the same like avalon giving refund for a complete miner.

On the note of refunds not being enough because of manufacture costs or roi... with all due respect, as much as it pisses us off, that isn't actually anything to do with bitsyncom and is a secondary objective.

Right now It's about cutting your losses...
would you rather lose 100% of your investment?
or only 50% of it? easy choice.

If you buy stock and it goes very wrong, you can sell it for a loss, and make a better decision next time to make up for it.. if you hang in there and it hits 0 points.. game over.

Additionally, I think it's been mentioned, but I'll reiterate, demanding a refund is the first step
You cannot possibly take the additional step of suing for manufacturing costs or other damages until you've demanded a refund.
And no judge is going to sympathise with you if you show that you hung in there silently because you just so badly wanted to make a heap of money

Also... again a re-iteration... you can always pull-out if by some miracle the company does turn around and satisfy us by shipping the chips and/or making some sort of offer. You don't have to just choose 1 road to walk down, you can walk many all at once.

Puulllease, you don't think law enforcement browse this forum, or know this is going on?! They must be pissing themselves at the amount of idiots that do no research into supposed 'investments' and risk unsecured funds on unknowns. Of course Law Enforcement is here, we damn well know media is!

I can't vouch for your group buy leaders I can only communicate that our group buy is of one mind on this. We all agree and we all want our refunds now and we will boycott Avalon.

I suspect that MOST of the group buy leaders are like us concerned with the community and want to make Avalon pay for their lack of communication and breach of contract but the anon buyers in those group buys need to step up and help the leaders out and let them know what they want. I suggest the refund, boycott and legal action pathway is something we can all push and force on Avalon. Waiting passively will not get you any closer to a resolution.

Group Buys like ours who have luckily avoided buying all our components and have asked for an immediate refund because of Avalon's breach of contract and not delivering the 20 developer chips and not delivering on the main order. If you have no such ties to production then maybe you need to join with us in Refund actions and Boycott calls. We still hold out hope for SebJu, Terrahash, Burnin, Alten, BKKCoins and others who are already vested in production get their chips in a "timely" (yet in breach of contract) fashion but the remaining people need to stir up a huge shit storm and hold their feet to the fire on this. We will not let them wiggle out of their legal obligation. When they breached the contract Avalon became responsible to refund anyone who has asked.

As for compensation BEYOND the chip price I am not sure that is something you can accurately calculate but sure ok let us go after them for that as well.

No one said they would or would not be timely, the situation has to be we FORCE Avalon to be timely. If they want 1000s of people clamouring for refunds and screaming boycott then drag this out. Do not give us information today on the chips and when they will ship. Wait for the momentum to build to a point where your company becomes so toxic no one will buy anything from you. That is what we can offer them if we stick together. If we push they will cave.

I'm saying that what everyone planned to do with the chips is very relevant, because it means 100% refund for the chips is insufficient compensation.

Indeed.

What do you mean by "no such ties"?

Good points here.

Whatever floats your boat.

When social media and other things fail we are left with the legal action as a last resort. I am pretty sure if we stir up enough of shit storm Avalon will cave well before the lawyers get sunk in but we need to make sure that hammer is hanging there right over his head just in case he tries to move sideways away from basic obligations like INFORMATION needs to be given now, REFUNDS/COMPENSATION need to be addressed now and that means we have to be proactive as you say but you have to use every tool in the arsenal not just keep to the shadows.

Who is to say that the refunds will be timely.

B3 refunds option newsletter when out with a deadline to commit to a refund a month ago. 
To date the best of our knowledge indicates that only 1(!) i.e. only a singular refund has been processed.

If it is this slow for a refund process that they have acknowledge and are prepared for, how long do you think it will take to issue refunds that they weren't preparing to offer?

So who wants to begin telling role to role based story telling.  I think we need to not play total victum here.  We don't want any gov to use this as another tool to ban the Bitcoin. With all due respe to the Pirate40 investors.  Shit could have been handled different.

For one don't make shit worse and sell chips.  The least amoun of paper trail the easier it is to drop a hammer if needed.
Use your voice. Social Media, Personal websites etc. Don't allow the media to smear crypto of this go's epic. Talk about the Open Source  beauty that has been lost.  If you are like me at this point wr would rather have the chips.  This is a mile stone project.  DYI Miners = Pure Open Source.  What other online community could have done this shit!

NO yiFU Avalon
---------------------
One Week GPU Miner Standoff

Lawyers and the lot are going to cost money if this go's to legal action.  I say we group fund some guns. For one week w e pool our "Extra" Rigs.  Rebuild and recall the fleet of torn down GPU miners.  Take photos of our rigs with some FU Avalon scribble.  Then after that week pool the mined btc for fighting back.

Lots can be done but I do not believe idle hands will win

What I intended to do with the chips is not the point.

The point is Avalon is breach of contract.

If others have invested more in production they have to do what is right for them. I suggest that asking for a Refund even if you have chips on order is a prudent ploy should you need to use legal means to get compensation later especially given there is no evidence the chips exist or are being shipped currently. Asking for a refund 4 weeks from now is not going to help anyone especially those who have already put money into production of units because they are going to be left holding that bag if they continue to wait.

I suggest group buys that have no such ties use all available pressure to force Avalon into the following situation:

1. THEY IMMEDIATELY COMMUNICATE THE LOCATION OF THE CHIPS AND SET A HARD DATE FOR DELIVERY.
2. THEY IMMEDIATELY RESPOND TO REFUND REQUESTS.
3. THEY IMMEDIATELY OFFER COMPENSATION.

There is no benefits to wait for Avalon to deliver chips that are already 5+ weeks late. I suspect they want people to adopt the posture of hope and pray so that further delays and lack of communication can be milked out for weeks and possibly months. Sorry but the risk here is not that they won't deliver. The risk is they will fail to refund everyone or COMPENSATE them properly. Simply sitting back and waiting is the wrong response. Look at BFL customers for what happens to those who wait quietly and patiently for delivery? No we need to set a clear tone and that is we want refunds / compensation, we will boycott your company until we are all satisfied you have made good on a resolution and given everyone responsible for group buys a full briefing on where the chips are now and when they will ship.

That's nice, but you seem to have ignored my point.

What were you planning on doing with your chips? Did you spend some other money preparing to use them some way? Was that money also refundable to you?

I have asked for a refund 7 days ago via Support Ticket as Avalon is in breach of contract. http://support.avalon-asic.com/support <--- feel free Group Buy Leaders to join in the calls for a refund.

Others should do the same and until we are compensated properly our group buy members will not buy or support Avalon products. DIY effforts like BKKCoins etc we do support but once they are complete we intend to maintain our boycott and be very vocal about their lack of communication and failures to deliver both relevant information and the product to the customers on time. We are also working on legal actions with other group buys at this time.

Is "refund" really what you mean? IME, that implies that the chips will never be delivered, and you accept the same amount that you paid for them being returned to you.

The chips are not standalone devices. What about the hardware (boards) needed to run them? What about the time and funds that went into developing and purchasing and building that hardware?

A refund for the chips alone hardly seems satisfactory to me.

Immediate delivery + compensation seems better, but I'd be surprised to see that.

I think most buyers wouldn't be made whole without at least a ~2x refund--and that doesn't even account for missed opportunity, just cost of equipment. So...I'm not sure that even qualifies as being "made whole", after all.