Topic: Re: Black Arrow 28nm 100Ghash Bitcoin ASIC from $0.49/GH/s - page 109. (Read 96796 times)

pretty much sums it up.  these things are useless before they even ship.  I have no idea when that will be, although I'm pretty sure I know when it won't be.  May 1 looks totally impossible to have these delivered in quantity.

read the early posts in this thread and BA is scoffing at the Feb date as if they've got it in hand with room to spare and assuring people it is a conservative date.  here it is mid-april and not even a prototype. 

Had they shipped even close to on time, these would have ROI'd and everyone would be happy and lining up for the scrypt miner.  Customers would've been happy, distributors happy, BA happy.  Instead, they've totally managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in spectacular fashion.  Instead of happy everyone is totally fucked.

This has been the a total flop, difficulty ratcheted up insanely during this delay period and their customers are dead meat.  I'm not counting on that 6 mos of hashing as I don't think they'll make it that long.  I've joined the ranks of refund requesters and can't wait to see how they try to screw me over on that.

I don't know who is running this, but whoever it is should be fired.  What a total shit-show.

I agree that BA seems to be legit if we are talking about working to make a chip and release something.  What I am horribly pissed and let down about is that not only did they completely miss their first shipping date, but they completely and flat out lied about being on track to hit it until a month before, and we still have not even heard so much as an apology for...
1) Missing the shipping date
2) Lying about being on schedule (and they can tell you all they want that they did not know, but less than a month from shipping with no tape out tells a completely different story which if they truly believe that they should be on the same level as Mark Karpelas in terms of stupidity)
3) Giving us some shit compensation package that still will not make us break even, much less turn a positive ROI, on these things, meanwhile telling us that it is none of their concern on whether their customers break even.
I truly do not believe there is any hope of them hitting this new deadline.  Chips should be out of fab in the next couple of days per my calculations and the only chance they have is that everything is perfect (like literally perfect where they do not even have to test the chip, but basically start dropping them into boards and sending them out the door).  I just do not see that happening, but I could be wrong.  Even if I am wrong though, I will just buy another X-3 when they start shipping that should be delivered at the same time as everyone elses...ehh I am just ranting again, trying to get people to see how much they have been screwed.

I think a more likely scenario is, we will see another couple week delay, at which time they will deliver a very well made device that is practically worthless in the world of bitcoin.

My refund was for a single X-3, and my heart goes out to you, please know that as this is a very unfortunate circumstance.  I know that is a lot of money that you put out for those, and to have to go through all of that, when more than 20K was on the table is troublesome to say the least.  I wish their was more that I could do, unfortunately I am just a bystander in this, same as you, who apparently got lucky.

Please know I will be praying for you, as well as anyone else who is looking for a way out of this mess.  It pains me to see others get screwed as much as they have.  I am not even blaming MinerSource, as I do not believe this is their fault.  I have ordered with them before and will order with them again.  I have nothing but pleasant experiences working with them, but unfortunately, I think they are getting screwed just as much as everyone else by dealing with BA.  I truly do not believe that BA has malicious intent at heart.  But as we are talking a ton of money, and I assume they had to pay BA to get your order in, we must assume it is BA that is holding this whole thing up.  Not to mention that not a single person who ordered straight from BA has gotten a refund.

So please, I know it is tough not to blame MinerSource, especially with so much money tied into it.  And yes, the laws in the United States protect people from this very thing and you could easily take this to the justice system for resolution, but remember who has really screwed you over here!  MinerSource did not lie about where the production status was back in January, MinerSource has not kept an interest free loan, and gambled on the price of bitcoin with your money, and MinerSource did not use your money to fund development of other projects (scrypt chip).  I agree it was not professional making you wait that long without an explanation, and I assume they take responsibility for doing that, but I think they are under a lot of pressure right now from BA as well.

I will take this opportunity again to explain my feelings about refunds.  GET THEM NOW!  In another day or two when we find out that the devices will take anywhere from a few more days to a few more weeks because something is wrong with the chips, or they cannot manufacture that many devices so quickly, there will be a flood of refund requests, and you will more than likely not get served.  I highly doubt they will be the first company in bitcoinland to provide a chip out of fab that exactly meets their specifications.  In the event that they do end up shipping on time and get orders out, you will still be happy you received a refund, as they will immediately drop the price of their machines and you can buy back again, as they are still selling miners that will presumably ship on the same date as everyone else's orders.  The price drop will far outway the measly 25% compensation package they are currently providing, putting you in a better position.  1 TH/s machines are approaching the $2500 mark (I think I saw someone selling for $2800 ish I think) which is under their current price point.  GET A REFUND NOW OR LOSE OUT, that is my piece of advice.

In addition, I did the "forgot password" command as a test to see if my email is in the database. This is what I got:
No account found with that email.

Are we supposed to receive an email? Your login page doesn't even have https whereas the previous two stores did. Is this supposed to be an upgrade? I'm not logging in over http.

Update of my refund:

I received a check yesterday from Minersource in the agreed upon amount and brought it to the bank today.  The teller cashed the check and gave me some cash and put the rest into my account, so I do not think their was any problem with the check.

I appreciate the refund guys, keep up the good work.  For those of you still waiting on refunds I wish you the best.  I will be one of you again if the price keeps going up and I need to unload my bunch of X-1's.

Thanks,

DebitMe

Please read a little more before randomly posting about things.  It has been confirmed that they held a certain amount of paid orders in bitcoin instead of converting it to fiat like they originally said they would.  They tried to play the market with customer orders and lost, and are refusing to give the same value of currency back (which is how their goods are priced on their website) from when people ordered the items.

It's beginning to look like deliberate deceit, like they never had any intention of honouring their delivery schedule.

They are so far off the pace it could be next year before some folks get their hardware.

 

I have said many times that I am warning people to go the refund route.  This debacle will probably get worse as you pointed out there is no working prototype and they are 3 weeks away from delivery time. They are betting that the chip will be absolutely perfect and to their specifications, which as far as I am concerned, has only happened maybe once in bitcoinland.  Every manufacturer has had to go back and tweak things.  IF there is another delay, there will essentially be a bank run on getting refunds and I doubt BA will be able to afford to pay all refunds, leaving some holding the ball of worthless products.  Get yours before its too late!  That is my warning!

Another question.  It seems that AsisMiner has gotten sample chips on a bullet run in order to test the chip before ordering a mass production run.  Did BA not run a bullet run?  Are they betting everything on these chips to work and have paid and run the entire first two batches on a chip that hasn't passed all tests?  That seems pretty scary to me.

That is simply stealing, as far as I'm concerned.  nobody's fault but theirs if they didn't convert the bitcoin and lost money as a result, and yet no surprise either.

Being a BA customer is like renting the downstairs apartment in an outhouse.

I didn't take that comment to mean they were improving anything in terms of the compensation package.  He cited a past promise (one of) which was that if someone else in the marketplace was selling something for less/GH they would beat that offer.  I'd have to dig back to dig up the exact stuff, so if I'm off, someone can go right ahead and correct me.

There has been no citation of such a company, product or benchmark upon which they would have to act, as far as I know.

I took that as a whole bunch of nothing.  This statement, to me, meant nothing, as it seemed to be a promise to keep a promise that they do not, at this point, have to act on.  Again, if I'm wrong, I'm happy to be so, so someone can correct me if they have better information.

What I would be more interested in is a statement on ROI or making up of the lost BTC due to this delay and what exactly they plan on doing about that.  Solid words, followed by solid actions.  

They made numerous statements early on about how they would be on time, that they wouldn't promise dates they couldn't deliver on, the project was started in June and February delivery was all but a lock, that they might be able to deliver sooner actually, yada, yada, yada.

That's what people based their decisions to buy from these people on and they got fucked but good.  

we're at  ~8-9 BTC lost and counting per X-3 because BA didn't keep it's former promises on delivery after swearing up and down that it was not going to happen.  Those are the facts.  I couldn't give a fart in a CAT 5 Cyclone if they continue to blabber on about some smoke and mirrors bullshit that they may or may not have to deliver on at this point.  

We're getting crushed because they couldn't back up their former claims, so their word is worthless as far as I'm concerned.  Don't tell me, show me.  Make solid statements and fucking back them up.  After months of BS and broken promises it's high time they did exactly that.

Well if I have learned anything from this ordeal, it is that BA has members of their team working on different continents all with different jobs.  They have, "hired" somewhere around 3 or 4 people to respond to questions and I dont believe it was ever someone from their main office where the chip is actually being designed.  Contradicting statements have been released within days of other news being posted by, "official" BA spokespeople.  And a new name surfaces every couple of weeks and posts updates then just fades away until a new one pops up a week or two later.

This is the first instance that BA has said anything about improving the compensation plan.  Please note, they have not provided a deadline, details, or even a hint that it would even happen.  In fact, it is pretty obvious they have not even thought about it themselves as they choose not to address until they start shipping.  (I am happy I am getting my refund check, but kind of pissed that they waited this long to announce that they would possibly take a second look at compensation after saying to vehemently in the past that they do not care about customers making a positive ROI.)

In all, I am skeptical on whether they will actually provide anything more for their customers, they also have not had anything in announcements saying they are working on the large scale upgrading of their website to accommodate their hosting packages.  They will need to allow people to manage their hosted devices remotely, which is quite a bit of coding and work to set up and test.

Just my two cents on the issue.

^This.

Read it again and again, read it and know it's true.

Blackarrow are filth.

 

These guys knew they couldn't make the Feb 24th shipping date yet they still continued to sell pre-orders for that date. This makes it fraud an the TOS are no longer valid. The revised April 30th shipping date is also bullshit as it's the 10th today and they still don't have any chips yet.

Fucking lying sack of shit scam company!

That's exactly what I did with my refund on 2/7/2014    Got 1TH in Ants running now!! Good luck folks!!! 

Does a $349.38 exchange rate change anything?

As least you'll have a strong case against them if you use my 300+ posts on this thread... Oops! Forgot. They were all deleted.

I have received a shipping number for my refund for the full amount (minus $20) through MinerSource.  I expect the check on Monday.  Just FYI

From here:
http://minersource.net/blogs/news/13162513-new-website

Today is the end of 2 weeks since that was posted. Another self-imposed deadline come and gone.