As an impartial observer in this situation,....
Thank you! Great post!
1.) You can find several ToS-versions here:
http://hashfast.org/Terms_of_Sale Maybe your friend can have a peek at them.
2.) One question that i would like to ask your friend:
Given the precondition that they have sorted out their problems and producing now full scale. Whats the legal situation if they decided to force refunds all of their customers just to either mine themselves with those miners or to sell them again at higher prices in their webshop?
Good question. It very much depends on why they are refunding you. If they say, honestly, that they cannot guarantee a delivery date due to technical problems, then they're in the clear. However, if they ship to other customers the following week, then that reason could clearly be challenged, but you have to realise that this is commercial litigation, not criminal, and on both sides of the Atlantic it can take ages, and cost a lot to prosecute.
(Just a thought, by the way for US buyers - thought about applying for a slot on 'Judge Judy'? It's not as stupid a suggestion as you might think, and I'm sure the networks would love it. Only problem is that the maximum you can sue for is $5000, and the other party has to agree to appear. But think of the publicity! Not sure if someone from, say Germany or the UK could apply to sue a US company?)
As for them hashing with 'your' equipment, I have discussed this at some length with my QC friend, and he is of the opinion that it would be nigh on impossible to prove that Hashfast were mining at all without 'inside knowledge', ie Bitcoin Wallet addresses, IP addresses and the like, and even if you could prove they were mining they might claim they were using other equipment. He thinks your chances of success in a legal battle are near zero - a judge would have great difficulty even understanding the concepts, as would a jury and there are too many variables in the arguments. Again I'm sorry to bear bad news, but it's best to be realistic.
And speaking of being realistic, have the Hashfast buyers thought of puting together a 'fighting fund' for their cause? If you could elect someone that you all felt you could trust to represent you to Hashfast - not a lawyer - then they might talk to that person rather than trying to fight on hundreds of different fronts....and you'd pay the person for their travel/time etc. I'm sure there is someone among you who could fit the bil.
Despite the negative comments, I still think Josh is your best bet, purely and simply because Hashfast know he's in a senior position in his company and has already expressed very unbiased views concerning the situation - he could just as easily have slated them, but he didn't and I think any reasonable person would recognise that this was a very fair and mature position to adopt. I don't know him and know little about him, but anyone that doesn't jump on a bandwagon to get one over on a competitor deserves my respect. I'm also guessing that despite BFL's early problems, an awful lot of people made an awful lot of money from mining with their chips. Just an observation. I do think Hashfast would talk to him as they would have an 'audience' that wasn't going into a discussion with a prejudicial attitude, and ultimately, he's on a similar seniority level.
Put it this way, if you thought he could get a solution - even if you think he's the devil incarnate - would you agree for him to represent you?
