We're not gone, nor moving out right away. We're not running away with anyone's payment either. We've said numerous times that we're working on a upgrade/refund options for all of our clients, as such it requires a complete audit of the company's finances (needed for discovery during the litigation's investigative process anyway) and we're also restructuring of our current business model all together, gearing up to offer hosting as well hardware soon.
[snip]
You know, I feel like Charlie Brown. I keep trying to kick the football and play the game with you (e.g., believe you are legit and really are trying to deliver on your promises) and then Lucy yanks the ball away at the last minute (you are Lucy in this analogy). There are folks on this forum who could be (or at least could have been) your strong supporters, but when you do that to us time and again, at some point we lose trust and faith in you.
I know AMT was attacked early on by a handful of haters. That doesn't however justify treating **all** of your customers like enemies.
In another thread, long ago after your first missed shipment dates, I asked you in private e-mail and in public on this forum, to please just come clean with what is going on and give us regular updates and honest answers about the problems, delays, obstacles as soon as you know of them (not months later when you are so desperate that you have to ship non-working parts to customers who then have to attempt fixes themselves). Repeating myself: that is not just a friendly request but it your obligation under the FTC Mail Order Rule when you failed to meet you stated shipment date. And its really just good business practice.
Since you never followed that advice, you now find yourself in a position where even people like me who believed in you and defended you, start to question whether you are legit. Why would you not just post on this forum that you were moving and would be unable to post for a few days? Why would you not tell us what is going on long ago? It is obvious now to me that you never could have met the February/early March delivery dates yo you promised, and you would have known that long before February. Did you string us along just to get more orders? Or like BFL did you have an unexpected and sudden problem you needed to solve? Or did you outsource and have problems with your contractor(s)? Or is the whole thing a scam?
See, we don't know because you don't tell us. Not telling us leads us to believe the worst in you, rather than the best.
We ignored the naysayers, and now we appear to be just schmucks who didn't heed their shrill but accurate warnings.
Ironically BFL seems to have learned the same lesson but it has recovered some degree of credibility (at least in the minds of many customers) by providing weekly updates, and honest assessments of problems, and real and credible compensation. They are still way off schedule, but there are now a core of customers (including myself) who might just buy from them again.
If you are really trying to make AMT into a business, and are not just scamming us, here is what you should consider doing:
(1) Provide very regular updates on the status of deliveries (what order numbers shipped and when they were shipped, with tracking numbers, at a minimum); the status, plan and timeline for fixing the myriad of inventory shortages, manpower shortages, design flaws, and whatever else is preventing deliveries of working miners; and how you are implementing your promised compensation package.
(2) If you have determined that you cannot make a viable 1.2 Th/s miner with your current design using A1 chips, and a design that can operate profitably at current difficulty, (which may be the case, as it seems the A1 chip was not as good as was spec'd), then tell us what you plan to do for us given your failure. I am not talking about assigning blame, I mean that if that is the case you should work with those of us who have tried to work with you to come up with the best and fairest plan possible, in a bad situation.
(3) Stop making promises that you can't keep and statements that are at best exaggerations (refund check is in the mail; your units will ship tomorrow; we are on track for delivery; we have delivered/are delivery; we welcome visitors; etc.) I want to know what is going on, not hear promises. If you do make a promise, you have to keep it come hell or high water at this point (consider just in my case alone how many times have you told me that my miners were going to be shipped the next day, within a week or within a few days).
(4) Don't ever - EVER - disappear from the forum for more than a day. If you are moving, busy, even in the hospital .. it takes only a minute or two to post "Just got run over by a car but I am okay. In hospital and won't be posting until XX." Its really easy to keep our trust if you are being honest and communicating. Easy to lose it otherwise. Saying you are too busy (building miners, moving, dealing with lawsuit, etc.) is just malarky and you know it. A post takes a few minutes if you really are busy, 30 at most.
Here's to hoping that the next time I kick the ball while you are holding it, I can connect without having the ball yanked away and then watch it sail through the uprights.
