Topic: My Visit To Butterfly Labs Today! - page 3. (Read 7977 times)

If they can't give a shipping date, then they shouldn't be taking people's money!

Thanks even just a conversation was still something
Building confirmed
Production unseen assumed but
By chance did you see any of the rigs being built
Either way thanks for visiting them

Would be somewhat humorous if a different customer (or prospective customer) started showing up every couple of days on their doorstep.

I did consider contacting the consumer protection division of Kansas' Attourney General's office to see if they would consider investigating them... but figured that was more work than it was worth (at least at this point).

BFL needs to step up their PR and start delivering on their promises.

Is this for real?

Yeah, nice place and I know the rental rates around there are very, very expensive!

  You did enter in!!!

Thanks for the report.
Hmmm...Their working place looks really good.(I always suspect they spend money on everything except manufacturing and shipping devices)

Oh, man!

You have done a PERFECT job of putting into words!

I could not find them but you did it!

Precisely!

 

Congratulations on doing some due diligence before investing. I'm sure you'll make an informed decision.

I think turning up basically unannounced was a great idea. You got to read an employee's unrehearsed body language about how things were going. You'd think if it was all going gangbusters, even if he couldn't show you anything you'd still see the excitement in the way the guy talked about the company and how things were looking for the future. But you got something else.

Interesting!

Wow, awesome read and good information. I am considering myself to buy a nice rig, thanks for the help!

Could well be.  I have not yet formed an opinion.

My little take on your meeting :


What else can they do?
They are probably pushing suppliers and trying to get stuff sorted as soon as they can. But everything depends on everything. Even if they have the chips, they cannot do anything without the boards and vica versa. etc. etc.


Could it be that not all in BFL is happy about all the statements about shipping? I am not to into the whole BFL-drama, but it seems to me that Yosh have been touting a lot of overoptimistic/missleading dates and information. If I was in that same company, I might be a bit annoyed at all the drama that takes time away from development.


I might look as this as him being in a defensive mode (not about the knife though  )
He's probably thinking something along the lines of:
"Right... Another dude who wants to know stuff that i cannot answer. The answers I might give are highly uncertain or business secrets, and saying anything will only raise hopes that I don't want to be raised until I have information that is pretty firm. After all we are all kinda stressed out here due to all the delays. Seems like everytime stuff are looking to get finished, something goes wrong.
Oh why don't we follow Mores Law instead of Murphys Law. Fuck - this whole project have really been more trouble that it's worth and if I had known it would be this hard to get the product ready and out the doors, I would have stayed away.
 -But now I kinda have to run the line, and hopefully if that finally get the shit ready, we might be a success."

They might be legit but they are not professional at all, I bet they didn't even had money for raw material, they have gotten some samples made by some other company, taken screenshots etc and started their website to get money from peoples and I also think they didn't even tested chips completely (Environmental stress testing ) that's why they are getting huge delays.



They are actually saying "You are a fool and you need to wait for several months while we are using your money and we will return it when we will get new fools"

Any tour would have been well rehearsed and possibly staged I think and I pretty much got what I was looking for.

Answers in a backwards sort of way.

LostDutchman,

I don't see why you didn't phone ahead to try and get a proper appointment, and maybe even a brief tour of the facility. A casual discussion about technical matters first would have been a better way to go, and move onto shipping questions at the end.
Seems like a wasted opportunity to get an inside look.

Yeah but people should ask for refund first, if they don't give you can either call your cc company (if you paid via Creditcard which was processed by paypal) or just a simple chargeback if you paid via your paypal balance.

You can do chargeback even after 3 months, just write that you didn't received product yet, paypal ask them to provide shipping info and obviously they will fail to provide that, at end paypal will give you money back

I like the butterfly knife part. he should have been rolling a cassicus coin back and forth across his knuckles and chewing on a toothpick too though.

I'm pretty sure these guys are legit. They are more or less a start-up (where ASIC are concerned) so, ofc, there are snags and unforeseen delays. That's how start-ups work. Dude has many many real problems to deal with and thousands of units to get out, as well as being grossly behind schedule, so I can't see any of the BFL team being too interested in wasting much effort on the "customer service" that you and your measly 1/3 of a jalapeno order demand.

these kind of "exposes" of BFL only give me more confidence in them. BFL says; "If you don't believe we are working as hard as we can to get you your order as fast as we can and within a reasonable estimation of our performance targets, then we dont need your money". If they were in on some sort of "long con" they would be kissing your ass and trying to get more cash out of you.

a caveat; they should have HUGE disclaimers all over their website and forums, like gigantic welcome pages full of "we are a technology in development, and although we strive to meet our projections as much as humanly possible, they are just that; projections, and we will not be held accountable for delays in delivery and/or reasonable discrepancies in projected hashrate and power consumption." because they seem to assume everybody is aware of this and has been all along. Plus it would get rid of annoying pests who are bent on wasting valuable time better spent of getting their product up, running, and out the door.

Note; I have zero to do with BFL, I just know what it is like to run a start-up and fall behind in orders due to unforeseen circumstances. All of the sudden everyone starts to think the worst, and all you can really offer is either their money back or a plea for their patience.

You are 100% correct about billing prior to shipping.

Even if paid through Paypal via a credit card the CC could be used for a chargeback.

It makes sense to say that. He basically said the right thing considering the delays. The problem is not what he said, the problem is that they're very late now and that they cannot guarantee a time frame now.

He was fair. But the reality of things right now is that it doesn't make financial sense to buy BFL because of the massive cost of opportunity it may have.

Haha, Well they are just making themselves look like a big scam.

They didn't have done any shipping yet, but they are still accepting new preorders. Great

They knew they won't be able to ship products on time that's why they are accepting payments by Bitcoins
and paypal (You can chargeback guys) instead of creditcard. (It is against VISA and MasterCard's regulations for a merchant to bill their cards prior to shipping. *The Fair Credit Billing Act* )

You guys should ask for refund.