Bitcoin Forum

It was suggested by my escrow agent OgNasty that I should open this thread.

I have an open dispute with a seller of 8 x Neptunes I purchased around the middle of November 2015. He sold me compensation batch neptunes which did not perform as expected when they got in our hands. Seller suggested it was our power supplies (DPS1200FB) which may or may not be right. Batch 1 Neptunes has reliably but not at full speed when using the same power supplies. His Neptunes would in hashing power massively and cubes would die all the time. At the time we did not have other power supplies to use so we thought returning the gear back to the seller is best. Seller was adamant his gear is fine and it works. The gear got shipped sometime around the first week of December. We paid for shipping back to the seller. Out of all 8 rigs, only 4 were removed from their boxes and tested/used. The other 4 were left untouched. All units were shipped back in the exact manner and packaging the seller used.

He got the package: Wednesday,  12/09/2015 at 12:34
Tracking # as proof: H9950333319

He told me that he is on some holiday related visit back to the East Coast, so he could not get around to testing the gear until sometime the beginning of January. Here we are. He got the gear and tested it. All the rigs tested out fine according to the seller. Seller says 3 of the cubes suffered damage during transit back to him.

Our costs $35 USD per unit ($765 per rig with shipping included), Import costs $150 CAD, Shipping back to him $450 CAD.


Seller seeks compensation for his time, damage, and shipping (original shipping to us). We agree to all these terms, However where we fail to come to an agreement is when the seller asked us to pay equipment depreciation.

He seeks: BTC paid by you - present miner value + my time + my shipping costs + shipping damage.

I offered: BTC paid by me - his time - his shipping costs - shipping damage

On top of that I even offered a couple hundred dollars as a good will gesture for wasting his time. We did not enter into the transaction with the intent to screw him over. His gear did not work as advertised for us and that's that. We sent him back his gear and he has it back, so my problem is what more does he want. He has suffered no major financial loss in this transaction.

The gist of this is that I guess I need some advice or some way to come to a resolution and end this dispute. I am of the opinion that it's unfair to ask the buyer to pay for his equipment depreciation. This is a strictly an RMA transaction. The way I understand things is when you return something you get your original payment back - any expenses that are obvious and necessary. First of all he took his time testing the gear. I realize this may not have been under his control but this is the risk you assume as a seller. Second of all he would've suffered the same hardware depreciation just by holding on to the gear. Once again this is the risk you take as a seller.

Advice, comments, suggestions? Feel free to share.

bump

Perhaps a clearer timeline of events and the actual compensation amounts requested/offered by the seller/buyer would be insightful.

Seller offered no $ figures of any sort.

Did he even respond? He must of said something.

His last reponse was to blame me for breaching a "contract" and how I should be responsible for the loss due to depreciation. He agreed to take them back and at the time he made absolutely NO mention of any depreciation penalties. Funny that he does this act now that he has his gear in hand and hashing fine.

I'm still waiting for a response from him (still Sunday night here) as to what sort of $ figure of depreciation or compensation he is looking for. He is a selfish seller and that's the end of it. I would never ask what he asks if I was in his shoes. I understand the risks involved in selling hardware that does depreciate in value.

The funny thing is that it's likely due to the high BTC price his Neptune rigs have INCREASED in value, yet he asks for depreciation compensation. I bought the rigs for $700 plus shipping. $700 for 3.x (promised) TH. None of his rigs performed at that level but that is a different discussion. That price is still pretty decent given today's hw market. He should have no problems selling the gear for $700.

The reality is likely that he is just mad that he did not successfully unload his gear and now he wants to give me a hard time and punish me for it. Unprofessional behavior, even after I promised to pay him for his wasted time testing the gear when he got it back, and for his shipping costs, and I paid for shipping costs back to him. He is not the loser in this whole deal, by any means!

The miners were delivered November 6, 2015, UPS tracking: 1ZY764W66898990355. More like beginning of November, but you did not power them on until a week after.




You admitted to me twice that your PSUs were the issue. One time while the Neptunes were still in your procession and second time when I showed you screenshots of them working fine after I got them back.



Not sure why you are lying about the agreed upon price. It was $655 shipped. At the time it was a bargain, but BTC price was low. So the total in BTC came up to 17.73BTC. I am assuming he is trying to hide the fact that he had buyer's remorse because the price of BTC skyrocketed afterwards.




The reason why only 4 were even tested was because he and his technician waited until last minute before they were about to set off to Labrador to test the miners. After a very brief test of only half the machines they assumed the machines were faulty and forced me to accept the return. They then kept them for another 1-2weeks before shipping them back to me. Not sure why you mentioned the packaging. I offered insurance shipping there, but you rather avoid tariffs and self insured them. You also decided to not buy insurance on the return back, so any shipping damage is on you.


What risk are we talking about here? That a buyer would test miners with faulty PSUs then blame it on the seller? The problem is you held my gear up and tried to make me pickup the depreciation tab. The miners work fine and you admitted to your PSUs being the issue. You are breaching our agreement by backing out of it, so you should be responsible for the depreciation costs. If I chose to hold the gear under my own free will then that would be a totally different story.


13BTC


I agreed to take them back because you were blaming the miners for being faulty. I would have told you to take a hike, if you wanted to return them because your power supplies are faulty. You breached the agreement, plain and simple. You returned miners that were as advertised. You should be responsible for any losses I have incurred, which included depreciation.


Selfish? From the guy that returned working product and leave the seller holding the bag. I am a reasonable person, we can negotiate the compensation. If you don't believe I should be compensated then there is no point in negotiating. What risks? That a buyer will return working product a month later? This isn't eBay, you go do your scam there.


Find these buyers who would buy it for $700 each. I would sell it to them and we can use $700 in BTC to calculate the compensation.


Selfish hypocrites are going to be selfish hypocrites. How about this? If you think I had no loses then I offer you to be in my position. I ship the miners back to you on my dime and you release the escrowed funds to me. You can be in my shoes, as easy as that.

Conclusion:


From the above conversation, he actually says that he would return them even if he found them to be working. Buyer's remorse? You be the judge.

Be careful when dealing with Allivain. It will get ugly when the shit hits the fans with him.

Yes that is true. But I don't see how any of this is relevant. Just like you took your time testing them when you got them back we were constrained by our time table. We did our best to test them as soon as we could. End of story on this front.


The PSUs were an issue to an extent, but it is not fair to put the blame entirely on the PSUs. Those very same PSUs power batch 1 Neptunes just FINE. Your shitty compensation batch Neptunes are shitty. It is a reality. The compensation batch seem to be flaky as hell. They have no thermal pads on them and hence VRM cooling is an issue. That is why you suggested that I put fans on them and do all sorts of ghetto rigging to get them working reliably. Sadly we did not have any EVGA or other ATX style PSUs in the shop to test with so called different PSUs. They should've still worked reasonably stable even with ANY PSU. When we got them we saw that you tuned the hell out of the cores and dies which suggests that there were not reliable at stock setting for you either. Your hardware is flaky and thus only suitable for your use. We made you aware of this. We need stable hardware and not hobby gear.


Sorry, I am not lying, it was just so long that I forgot what we paid for them. I have a mountain of PMs and I relied on my memory of what I thought we paid. Once again sorry I did not do this intentionally.


You know very well that I told you this and we did not test the other ones because we wanted to avoid getting blamed for any damage that may come as a result of the testing process. We wanted to keep your miners in a pristine condition. It took 1 to 2 weeks to convince you to take them back. Look we are not arguing about shipping damage for shit's sake. I told you already I will pay for shipping damage!! It was a risk we took both ways , yes, and we will cover the damage. The sticking point is and continues to be the fact that you will want to be compensated for "depreciation".


*sigh* again with the PSUs. The PSUs are not faulty. They power other miners just fine. It's just your Neptunes that had issues with them. I told you this already. At the time we did not have any other PSUs to use or test with. We decided rather than hold up your gear for longer it would just be best for BOTH parties to send your gear back! We were trying to do you a favor. You got the gear back in the beginning of December, and you sat on your ass and did not test them until the beginning of January. If depreciation is such a boogeyman for you why did not put a greater importance on this? Were you sure that you could hold us on the hook for depreciation.


Give me a detailed breakdown, don't just pull a btc figure out of your ass cause you feel 4.7 btc is what you are owed for nothing. You want $2K compensation in total?!

I need you to justify what you think is the current market value of each rig, your "time", your repair costs.

Once again, give me detailed breakdown and I will discuss it with my associate and see if it's a reasonable loss to take to get you off our backs and never deal with you again!


I'm still blaming them for being faulty with expected settings and under normal conditions. You will see the next person you sell them to will tell you the same, but anyways, that is besides the point. It could end up being that way or it could not. We wanted to run all cubes at stock 475 MHz with PSUs that power SP20s and S5s just fine. No issues there. Just your Neptunes. I have no idea what power supplies you use. You told me you have fans blowing on them and other ghetto rigging. No doubt that is to cool the VRMS or whatever cause your Neptunes have no thermals pads and the VRMS will easily overheat and shutdown. This leads to dead dies that do not come back until a power cycle. That is what was happening in our case.

It was my fault for not double and triple checking with you every fine details. I do remember at first that I confused myself and though they were batch 1 Neptunes. Only later I found out they were compensation units. I asked you what hashrate I should expect, and you said 3.0 ~ . We expected them to hash at around 2.9 to 3.0 TH. Nope, that was not the case. 1.5 to 2.0, 2.3 were the kind of hash rates were were expecting.



How are you holding the back man! Explain!! You have the gear in hand and we did NOT damage it. You can hash!
Of course I believe you should be compensated but it should be fair for BOTH of us, not just the most you can squeeze from US. I agreed to pay you for repair costs of the 3 damaged cubes, your shipping costs, and as you said "your time". Not sure what $ value you'll put on your time but as long as it's reasonable I will pay it. If you can give me a total of how many hours you spent testing the units and getting them to hash to your liking and what hourly rate you expect to be paid I will once again pay that.

We want this behind us with no hard feelings as much as you do, but don't try to lord it over us an think that just because you are a seller the buyer gets no protection and we are at your mercy.

If you are a reasonable person than let's negotiate the compensation. Don't accuse us of being scammers. We are not. I realize this is not ebay but I think that resonable buyer protection rules should still apply. Just because this is a btc transaction does not mean we are in the wild west.


Have you tried to sell them again or not? Put it for sale and see - either here or on ebay or wherever you want. We don't care for how much you sell them for. We paid a specific $ figure at the time of purchase and we expect a refund of that amount. As you said it's $600 per Neptune rig. The shipping you pre-paid we will pay you back. The repair costs, we will pay for. The time you put into testing we will pay you for it. Simple! We ask for nothing more. I even told you we'd offer a bit of extra money on top as a sorry for wasting your time payment.


Us selfish?! That is uncalled for and you know it. If your gear performed as expected we'd would've gladly kept them and even so gladly accept them again. The only reason you're offering this now is cause you are being selfish too and you think that you will hit a windfall cause btc price is higher. We paid for them in $ terms and that's all that should be factored into this. If btc price would be lower than when you sold them you would NOT be even offering this.

You know this and stop trying to take us for fools.


Ummm, no we returned them without testing the other 4 cubes because we did not have the time to test them and mess around with them. My associate had to leave for Labrador and could not spend 4 to 5 days messing with your unstable gear. Rather than waste our time and yours further (by keeping your gear idle longer) we decided that we'd ship them ALL back including the untested ones and let you see if you can sort them out.

This decision was a loss cutting decision and I thought at the time it is what you wanted too. You never said or mentioned ANYTHING about depreciation compensation BEFORE we sent you back your gear. Had I known about this beforehand I may have never sent it back. This is unfair and a bait and switch. Anyone can see this is not a fair business practice.

I've sold and bought a ton of gear here and I've never had any problems with any transactions except YOU. If anything people should be careful when dealing with YOU as you try to do everything in your power to have everything work in YOUR favor without any loss. This has been your whole attitude.



If you want to sort this out here is what I need from you:

1) What market value you think these miners have NOW in $. We can then subtract that from the purchase price. Even though I do NOT agree that you should be compensated for depreciation we are curious to know what figure you come up with.
2) A $ figure for your repair costs for those 3 cubes that got damaged during shipping
3) A $ figure for your time spent testing them and ensuring they hash to your liking
4) Shipping costs we know and those I will cover. I covered shipping costs back to you already.

1. I got an offer from Lightlord for $400 each about a week ago. Assuming he would still buy them for $400 each then we can use that as current market value. 7.11BTC
2. $50 per cube x 3 cubes. 0.33BTC
3. $200. 0.44BTC
4. $338. 0.75BTC

My compensation = BTC paid by you - present miner value + my time + my shipping costs + shipping damage

My compensation = 17.73BTC - 7.11BTC - 0.33BTC - 0.44BTC - 0.75BTC

My compensation = 9.1BTC

You are probably going to scream about how I am using BTC value instead of dollars because BTC value skyrocketed. Remember, you held up these miners from being sold to legitimate buyers 2 months ago or they would have sold to someone else for 17.73BTC. That is part of my lost because of you.

I think there is something wrong here with you. How in the hell you expect to be compensated 7.11 btc for the miners. You want us to pay you $400 per miner and you still get to keep the miners and sell them for $400?! WTF?! Should't depreciation be the difference between $600 and $400 - ie $200 per miner?! I hope you made a mistake here cause if I am understanding this correctly what you are doing here is plain robbery!

I think your first "off the cuff" compensation request was more reasonable - ie 13 btc back to us you keep the rest.

If you want that, take it go. I will take the loss and move on.

I did make a mistake. I subtracted my time, shipping and  damage instead of adding

17.73BTC - 7.11BTC is the depreciation. Past value minus current value.

My compensation = 17.73BTC - 7.11BTC + 0.33BTC + 0.44BTC + 0.75BTC

My compensation = 12.14BTC

Should be correct now.

NO! Under no circumstance I am paying you for the miners' full market value AND you still keep them and sell them. You are either bad at math or are a plain crook.

I will pay the difference in purchase price and market value - ie $200 per miner, but nothing more. That seems fair.

You just don't know what depreciation means apparently. Past value - current value is not 7.11 btc at today's 449 btc price, it's 3.56. $600 - $400 = $200 / 446 = 0.4484 * 8 = 3.58 btc

3.58 + 0.33 + 0.44 + 0.75 = 5.10 btc. THAT should be your MAX compensation. I offered 4.75 btc compensation which is what your 13 btc refund would've meant. I accepted your 13 btc refund offer.

I fail to understand how I am the crook when you held my miners and lied about them being broken. I can only sell them for 7.11BTC now and you bought them for 17.73BTC. The difference is your responsibility, I did nothing to breach the agreement, so you should be responsible for the bill.

Listen scammer. I bought them for $600 a piece, NOT 17.7 btc. 17.7 was the btc value at the time of sale. I agreed to pay the USD $ equivalent value and the BTC exchange rate has god damn nothing to do with it now! The deal was in USD not btc. Got it?! Stop trying to wriggle your way like a worm to get 17.7 btc. Take the 4.75 btc and go. That is my final offer.

I will take the $200 loss per miner. If you sell them for $400 a piece and add the $200 on top that I give you you are back with $600 which is what I originally paid. You lose no money.

See. All my offer to your were in $, not BTC. I did not say will you take x btc for them did I??

Why don't you take a USD refund then? Why should I take a USD compensation? If you call me a fucking scammer again, I will come sue your bitch ass for defamation.

Holy crap man. You are just unbelievable. Even if I take a USD refund the remaining btc is still MINE. Where does that go?! To whom. To me!

Here is my opinion on the matter...

If the units were advertised correctly and the buyer had some issue with setting them up to run them to their full potential, then it is not the sellers fault and he should receive the units back, plus compensation for shipping, plus a reasonable estimate of what the units would have made in the amount of time they were not running at his location (as the buyer wasted the sellers time).

If the units were advertised incorrectly and the buyer is correct, then the buyer should receive their full payment back and be reimbursed for shipping. (If the coins are held in escrow much longer I would include a reasonable amount of interest as well).

That is my 2 cents, depending on how the situation really happened.

The units were advertised at 3 TH. None of them performed at that. They did not perform in fact, most cores just died and cubes dropped leading to a drop in hashrate to 600 to 1.5 TH on average. They were all over the place.

The units currently make 1.5K $ a month at today's difficulty. Seller gets that and MORE. 4.75 btc is $2118.50.

I am offering 4.75btc compensation to seller for his lost time + repair costs + shipping costs. Tell you what I will even go as high as 5.10 btc which is $2274 - Let's deal in USD terms here as the sale was from the beginning calculated in USD.

Then take a USD refund. Not sure why there is a double standard here. I am taking DebitMe's advice and get them all up and running. I am not wasting my time with you. You already wasted enough of my time.

There is no double standard man. You are just trying to swing the deal in your favor so you come out the winner on top no matter what. That is the problem here. You get a USD refund and I get a USD refund and the remaining btc is still mine. It's the same in the end man.

Well duh, of course you would get them up and running right away. I do not care what you do with them from this point on.

Accept the 5.10 btc compensation and get lost please you have already stressed me enough with your greedy selfish self-entitled nonsense. You just can't take any business loss can you. You must always be on top, right?

Thank you for weighing in.

So I guess first it comes to, what was really advertised and what was really delivered?  Do we know that yet?

I won't take responsibility for your mistakes. That is the bottom line. You got to grow a pair and be responsible for your actions. It is the principle for me at this point. I won't let up at any point, not until I get every penny of damages you caused.

I am working on it. This was so unexpected that I had to cancel my Christmas plans to come back to test these things. I am short a few power supplies because Finksy boards came defective. They are on the way back to him now.

What was advertised was 3.0 TH stable miners. What was delivered is unstable miners that hashed nowwhere near that - when they were hashing. Seller blames our PSUs. Our PSUs have no problems powering Batch 1 Neptunes, SP20s, S5s, just his miners for some reason are special. Maybe just maybe somehow our PSUs don't have the magic juice to make them work. That's why I approached to send the gear back to the seller and not waste our time and his while we wait and find other PSUs (which takes time and at the time we had other priorities). Seller agreed to this, and I though there would be no hurt feelings. We both tried to get them up and running reliably and failed. We tried all tricks we could think of. Nothing worked.

I will not let you rob me blindly. That is what you are doing. Your compensation is unreasonable. I offered to pay for everything now including the difference in price between current market value and purchase price and yet you refuse. Every time you come up with a bigger compensation number which is obvious evidence that you are just using your position of power to squeeze as much money out of me as possible. You operate like the mafia.

Please do not use emotional appeals. I have PM proof where you tell me precisely when you'll be back to test them. I doubt you missed your Christmas plans to test them.

Based on $620 purchase price (see my quote of your PM) I will adjust my compensation offer higher to $2445 to account for the $20 per miner difference. $2445 is 5.48 btc at today's rate.

What I cannot believe is how nobody is noticing how the seller is trying to get the full value of his miners (at market price) AND still keep the miners AND still hash with them! So basically he is asking for free money and nobody noticed this yet. Astounding.

Because that is only true in your world buddy.

Maybe you suck at communication. How about you put a bit more effort into it and try to make yourself clearly understood. Do I have to second guess your words?

"My compensation = 12.14BTC" You mean this amount comes back to me or YOU? When people use the word "my" they typically mean themselves. So please do explain what you mean. I understood it to mean that YOU want 12.14 BTC to YOU..YOURSELF.

If by this somehow you mean that is the refund I get than I'd be fine with that!

I'll leave this for posterity's sake. We have both come to an agreement:

syth3 receives 7.7338 BTC as compensation.

allinvain receives a 10 BTC refund.