I ordered a 2Th/s rig late last year, after a lot of delays Bitmine offered me to send me 3 x 1Th/s Coincraft Desks which they did within the 7 days we agreed upon. Two of the modules was faulty, so they sent me 2 replacement modules. They still owed me the price difference and the cost of a replacement powersupply (one of them died after a couple of weeks hashing) as a refund, instead of sending me the funds in euro's or bitcoin they offered to send me 2 modules. As my miners were fully equipped I couldn't really use those... so they sent me a complete 400Gh/s unit instead. So even though they were very busy they were able to send me the replacement parts and a compensation for late delivery.
The way I see it they are doing their best but have underestimated the complexity of both designing, manufacturing and distributing their hardware. Keep in mind this is not Intel, AMD, or some other big electronics company. They have probably paid for a lot of hardware up front, when lots of customers demand a refund it's like a bank run... their is no money, just a lot of hardware.
I have always said you can compare this to the goldrush: the people who get rich are not the people digging for gold, but the people selling the shovels
Even though I realized this I find bitcoin so interesting that I wanted to be part of it, as an evangelist what better way to put your money where your mouth is than mining?
This certainly hasn't been one of my best investments, but not one of my worst either. It's no excuse for Bitmine to ship late or not send a refund in time but we need to keep in mind that the whole bitcoin mining industry is still in it's infancy... delays are common, my first miner was from Butterflylabs, needless to say I never made a cent from that investment. (I suspect BFL was/is a scam) Personally I think you should only invest in something as risky as mining when you can stand to lose the money. As far as my little mining operation: with a little bit of luck I'll break even by the end of the year and make a tiny profit. When the miners are using more power than they return I might try my luck with some altcoins... and in a worst case scenario I'll have some power supplies and a couple of RaspberryPi's "for free"
I don't believe Bitmine intentionally shipped/refunded late, from my experience they have done their best to help me but they seem a bit overwhelmed by their own success, their tight schedule and the fact that the refund plan they have in place might have been a bit too optimistic.... especially when large groups of customers demanded a refund this can cause huge cashflow problems.
Don't get me wrong, everyone who asked for a refund should get it as this was part of the agreement with Bitmine. This is just my personal experience / 2 satoshi's... I sincerely hope they are able to refund everyone and professionalize Bitmine.