Topic: Recieved 50GH BFL Single Today! - page 11. (Read 51113 times)

Don't see Werner in that picture...

When I did the math, the amount came to be about 1 cent. I'm not going to bother wasting my time. In any case, I ended up with an extra cent, so I'm not the one with the grievance.
The way you can interpret the statement on the Paypal site is rather interesting. By the looks of it, the refund exchange is done at the rate used on the purchase date. This means the loss or gain (if any) appears to be eaten by Paypal rather than the buyer or seller in the transaction. This might have to do with Paypal being a financial services organisation, or might just be because they're being as nice and fair as they can. It might also be why the exchange rate spread is so high.

In essence, if this rule were applied across the board, BitPay/BitInstant would be the ones to suffer, not BFL, as the refund exchange would be done at the purchase date rates, which would be considerably lower than they are today.

You will get a refund according to the price it was stated at. If the item was listed as costing 80000Yen, taht is what you get back, weather the dollar have gone up or down.

It's often that prices are denominated in one currency, but you can also see the price in other currencies aswell.

Here is a real-world example: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/60-GH-s-Butterfly-Labs-Bitcoin-Miner-BitForce-Single-SC-ASIC-SEP-17-2012-/140999993104?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20d4412710

You should have received back what you paid, minus any Paypal fees. From their website
Refunds are performed using the exchange rate which was current at the time of the original payment.

According to Paypal's website, you have a grievance.

Exactly, Paypal is acting as an escrow which is precisely what BFL assured their customers was happening with their funds.
From Paypal's website
Refunds are performed using the exchange rate which was current at the time of the original payment.

BFL chose to hold for 12 months instead of 45 days and apparently did not hold their customers BTC in escrow as they promised they would.
BFL should not have promised to escrow and refund every one of their pre-orders. But since they did, they should abide by that promise.

Totally off topic
Radryan huh? I have a friend who goes by that name. He is a DJ.

Maybe if Josh spent half the time working on Asics as he does on this forum trash talking everyone that questions BFL they probably would have been shipping 6 months ago.

What he sees in front of him is a herd of ignorant sheep waiting to be fleeced.

But those eyes are evil. He knows he must hurt them emotionally before ripping off their skin for profit. You can see the disgust in his eyes for the, as he calls them, "monumental assholes" that he's about to rape. Muahahaha

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the possible/inevitable? end result.

If this does go to trial, and the judge rules for the plaintiff taking K9quaints view that the original amount in BTC should be refunded then BFL will end up going out of business the next day.

EVERY bitcoin pre-order that hasn't yet shipped will demand a refund which I'm assuming BFL can't pay.

I'm not BFL, but I'd either be a) reinstating this guys order and apologizing or b) stepping up production to get the units out before trial.

Say what you will about BFL customer service and delivery failures but I for one don't want to see them go out of business.  We need more Asics in more hands and BFL fills a niche that nobody else is serving.

edit... This would also end up having far reaching ramifications on the bitcoin ecosystem as bitcoin is inherently deflationary compared to USD.  A judgement like the one proposed here would seriously hamper bitcoin adoption by your normal business.  K9quaints logic seems sound to me and I think it would seem sound to a judge as well.

But that's because Paypal acts as an escrow of sorts, it's also why they only hold for 45 days, i.e. their buyer protection.

And take a guess how that works? I just pulled up some of my deep Paypal history to find a refund from a year or so ago, and it goes like this.
Add funds (local currency)
Currency Conversion (local to destination currency)
Payment (destination currency)
Refund at a later date (destination currency)
Currency Conversion (destination currency to local currency)
Temporary Hold (local currency)
Release (local currency)

In my case, the refund was a partial that occurred a day after original payment due to a reestimate in shipping costs, so the amount was pretty small. However, the currency conversion rates DID change. I actually ended up making maybe a fraction of a cent on the refund amount. What does this mean though for everyone here? It means you can win or lose on currency conversion. You don't get the exact amount back if you perform a currency conversion on Paypal either when you request a refund.

Hopefully this will end the currency conversion thing once and for all.

If you paid via Paypal 100 GBP for a product priced in USD and then asked for a refund, you would receive 100 GBP back.

This is why Marines point with a knife hand. Ooh Rah

http://www.blackfive.net/.a/6a00d8341bfadb53ef0167695541e8970b-pi

Remember, originally BFL was only going to hold the BTC for 4 months while they designed and manufactured their ASICs (June 2012 to Oct 2012).
BFL offered full refunds, and said they held the funds they received from pre-orders in escrow. How they manage their currency risk due to that escrow is their business.
I am not saying they should hold all their funds in BTC. I am saying they should have held the BTC they received from customers in escrow until they shipped the product. If they want to bet on another currency while holding their customers funds, that is their business. If BFL bet on USD over BTC, they lost and should not pass that loss onto their customers.
If BFL wanted to spend the BTC on operations and parts, they could have said that is what they were doing with it. Avalon does that. Avalon offers no refunds because they are spending the order money on operations and parts. BFL chose to offer full refunds to all customers, so they couldn't very well spend all the money they got.

If they chose pay in BTC, they were shown how many BTC they needed to pay. This wouldn't be an issue if BFL did not claim to have all customer pre-order funds in escrow and offer full refunds to any who wish it. If they spent the money on operations and parts, I would be fine with it if they would just come out and admit it.

Looks like a lot of the "Refund me in BTC" stuff is greed motivated. I paid in BTC because I don't have an easy source of USD and don't like the conversion rates of Paypal. Had I held on to my BTC I'd have been able to afford at least ten times the number of Jalapenos than what I ended up ordering. Do I regret it? A little. But I do take responsibility for my actions and decisions. It was my choice to pay using bitcoins, at the known exchange rate of the time. I even felt I was doing well as the price had quadrupled compared to where it was less than a month before.

When I buy things from the US using Paypal, it does the conversion on the spot (at ridiculous rates I might add, the spread is large). If I ask for a refund, chances are they would just throw USD back in my paypal account. I'll admit I haven't asked for any refunds on anything recently because I don't make many purchases overseas (I hate shipping costs more than paypal exchange rates) and those I do make are of a suitable quality or what I expected.

I can just imagine the outcry if the bitcoin price halved or worse and refunds were paid in bitcoin rather than USD. Imagine how someone who paid at the ~200 range would feel if they got a refund at the exchange rate of today?

Seriously, do you people complain to the exchanges when you make a trade decision and it turns out it was unprofitable? That is the nature of the beast, and the risk you take when dealing with a new currency that must be exchanged to local currency. I'd be surprised if BFL didn't convert a majority of the bitcoin orders into USD, despite its problems the US dollar is a lot more stable, respected and widely used than bitcoin at the moment. After all, the US dollar doesn't halve in value overnight because of some lag on an exchange somewhere.

Or because they didn't want to base the entire future of their electronics manufacturing business on a highly volatile currency. The USD is probably not going to crash in price overnight, but bitcoin could and has.  You're telling me you'd trust a company *more* if they kept their holding entirely in BTC?


The price in bitcoins is shown when you get to the checkout screen having chosen "pay with bitcoins".