I would like to know if ANYONE has received a legitimate refund DIRECTLY from AMT? I believe they are bound by law to give refunds if requested, and this whole 'selling your pre-order to someone else' shit sounds illegal as fuck.
grumpybearsgirl
Fedex tracking # recieved from AMT for refund. 2.18.2014
check received from AMT 02.20.2013
I wouldn't say this counts as a refund directly from AMT. They simply facilitated a transfer of a pre-order from one customer to another. In essence they acted as escrow between grumpybearsgirl and whoever bought that unit. They didn't send money to grumpybearsgirl until they had received full payment from the new buyer. Essentially they, for an extremely small period of time, had double funds for the same unit.
They aren't issuing refunds, they are acting as an escrow agent to transfer orders
And where-else would the refund have come from.. since the money they wanted back was already spent on the hardware they asked them to build? (It would have come from the next person ordering a unit anyways. That is the same thing.)
However, a better business-plan, usually done by a larger company, would have gone as follows...
1: Place pre-orders (About 10% of expected hardware costs, not MSRP price.)
2: Collect pre-order money in a designated account, untouched. (For refunding)
3: Show loan-agent or business-investor, the "held funds", to justify a loan for building machines.
4: Build machines with "loaned money", and update that "miners are ready to ship". (When they are days away from being ready. This, to allow for delayed payment confirmations to go through.)
5: Pre-paid orders now accept the remainder of the payment-due. (Goes directly to pay-off loan.)
6: Items get shipped...
7: Word of mouth spreads... People buy more miners...
8: Participation in public forums, assisting those having trouble, or doubts.
9: Change status to "pre-order, full payment down"
10: Continue without loans...
11: Ship and retire...
Though, no ASIC miner that I know of, to date, has operated in that order... (Legitimate or not.)
I have seen some "group-buys" operate in a similar way to the above. Some have failed, some have thrived, some were just scams. (The scams never actually ordered anything. The failures ordered things that just became useless once ordered. lol, all those USB-stick miners, for instance.)
Would have been nice to order from a place that operated that way. But I have yet to find one that does. Nor did I expect this operation to go that way. I got exactly what I expected. (Still better than BFL, and on-par with KNC and CoinCraft.)
The miners are not quite "due" for a refund yet. They are acting within legal guidelines. You are right, they can't "refuse a refund", once one is legally due and justified. However, they can refuse to refund the money that they spent on hardware, on your behalf, that you requested of them... Or give you the unassembled miner and just say, screw it, you build it. Since you want your assets before they were assembled. (That would be ass of them to do, but completely legal.)
(I would actually do that, if you gave me money to build you something, then started bitching before it was built. That is why I don't even attempt to run an assembly business, and listen to customers.)
If the delays were not legitimate, (which only a judge can decide), then you would absolutely be correct. Your refunds would have been due 30-days after the expected "delivery arrival"... (They might be cutting it close to legal issues, not actually posting the delays on the website. But, they have proof of mentioning the delays to us, following them on the forums. Which is not all the customers they have.)
I want this to just be over with... (with either money or miner in hand)... So I can review it, dissect it, and post it. As for the rest of the business-end... I'll just let standard public opinion of others, over-rule my own thoughts. Phin will take care of the rest, I am sure.