Bitcoin Forum

Interesting... I added my name to the class action suit.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3034977/butterfly-labs-cant-afford-the-39m-fine-to-settle-charges-it-duped-bitcoin-hopefuls.html

I almost placed an order for a miners from BFL but the "pre-order" put me off...

Maybe they can pay back in bitcoins?

Sorry guys, doesn't look like you're getting anything back... at least for a while. It's almost like, if you're a corporation, the more you steal the more you're able to get away with.

this is greed fine i guess  ;D  , i dont think they are planning to settle the amount ,but made a good rep with this case  :)

Sadly, they won't pay it.
What was lost by people is lost forever :/. Hope u didn't invest there.

Hashtrade send BFL the $1M via BTC downpayment to a newly created bitcoin wallet address. The funds were then moved to another address. Then moved again to the infamous 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs bitcoin wallet address eventually taken over by the FTC, later to be returned to BFL. It was that address that BitPay, HashTrade and BFL showed the world proof that the transaction was legit, alluding to the address belonging to HashTrade. BitPay remitted $1M USD to BFL's bank account.

The other problem with that $1M worth of BTC is that what was processed was not even HashTrades bitcoins, but of those earlier mined by BFL, with BitPay acting as an exchange and not as a third-party payment processor, the latter of which they're only licensed to do. You, I nor anybody else can send $10 USD worth of bitcoins to BitPay and have them send you said amount to your bank account. Yet, BFL did such to the tune of over $10M USD over the course of over a year, stopping the practice hours before the FTC locked the place down.

Saying that the FTC fucked up is an understatement.

I learned my lesson w/ these guys back in the 2013 summer and this pre-order BS. Don't do it, just save your coins - I mean it with all sincerity. I wasted 13 coins at that time on this garbage; want to be me? Profit: .3 in today's dollars. All newcomers should not look to mining to gather more coinage, just spent more of said coinage for naught. The difficulty goes sky-high during pre-orders (and normally during any period) and beyond so your miner that may come in the next few-to-6months will get you nothing. Buying and holding is precious and not part of some BS talk, can't stress it enough. You're saving BTC and money by checking out what I'm saying, not trying to cut you out of easy BTC. Don't do it and fall for it, I wish I had back my 13 and another 20ish that I spent on mining contracts from back then. Saving/holding is way undervalued in this BTC world - never let them go to anyone or you're gonna fail.

Prices are getting too high at this point to be able to play the trial and error in the mining game and be able to recover ever and have a decent BTC stash as prices keep going up in this next bull market. Hold and do not play around; this is your final advice as there are no ez fixes to getting more money here. If I placed my address below like others, I'd expect many coins in general from onlookers but I want none of them, just due diligence for newer types to do what's right for them in this crucial period. Mainstreet won't be able to keep up after this next rally upwards, so now is your chance and do not squander this opportunity. You can thank me later, just buy and hold (don't invest or mess around w/ your BTC as you go forward). Any Q?, ask (PM) before you screw yourself on a fast faulty mess-up that just profits the traders and the like.

These people made big promises and could not deliver, well I think they knew they would not be able to deliver, but they still took the orders. I also nearly fell for this, but a friend pointed me to a friend that had problems with them and I decided to hold out.

It would have been a huge mistake and could have drained all my funds at the time. Strange how greed clouds your judgement. 

These scammers fully deserve what is coming for them. You can't just expect to trick so many people and think nothing will happen to you.

The one thing all of these main-ish-stream media stories seem to have in common is that they don't have a word about Zerlan (or whatever his name was.)  Ten bucks says that that scroungy little weasel sung like a cannery.

---

In case you didn't figure it out, Aime is closely related to Josh Zerlan. How close, you ask? They share the same master bathroom. I would show it to you, but that may get me in trouble since I have a restraining order to not come near his rainbow poodles.

Raise your hand if you still believe the story of how Josh Zerlan looked out his office window and realized that BFL's original office was across the street in a Section 8 housing project. With that same hand, used its fingers and poke your fuckin' eyes out.

Shocking news as I only got interested with their newly made efficient chip and was looking for a group buy to join in and order some but after seeing what just happened and also their history (only found out now), I won't be doing so. The sad part is, their inability to pay back and their reputation won't be fixed too unless they repay first (wrong move by them).

Thanks for sharing your experience and advice I am almost tempted to invest all this cloud mining sites the key here is to really hold your bitcoin ,because holding it alone is an investment itself,but of course bitcoin is a currency that should move around..

Thanks to my Google-fu back in the day, a lot of the history you speak up stemmed from my research. Sadly, Leroy Fodor's MENSA son wasn't yet old enough to conduct the research himself, but is making up for lost time helping his pretend dad, Leroy, investigate the Cryptsy matter... at the age of three. HAHAHA

LOOOLZ, that is excellent detective work! But I guess poor Aime just puts the poodles up Zerlan's ass in that master bedroom?

Old "Box of Fans Laboratory" finally has to shut down... Amen.

I'm guessing we can expect them to have had "flew the coop" a year or two from now. To wit (a few days before the raid):

I would let you slap me on my ass for this great find, but I have a boil.  :o

Since Josh is working as a trainer at iFly, if an old BFL pre-order dude show up just to see if Josh still have a straight face would be great, hahaha!

"Oh hai Josh, does iFly accept bitcoin payments IN ADVANCE"?

Such arrogance, much fail, wow!  ;D

Can't afford to pay with all those Bitcoins allegedly mined on customers machines? Wow...

So they settled for a whopping $15, 000... son of a bitches got away with it.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article62022452.html

They were always going to get away with it - because FTC. It's not like a real agency was investigating BFL. I wonder how many coins were mined at various pools with customer equipment. It would be so easy to spread the hash rate around and hide thousands of bitcoins. Chances are they got away rich. They just need to fake poverty for a few years and then retire to a little island somewhere.

Wow like 6 months ago I still had a pre order open there,
It took really long so I asked for my bitcoins back.
They did send them to me so I guess i'm lucky then?

Unfortunate but i remember visiting there site and i was like wow these guys are the best
I guess they where really good in promising things and not delivering it's a shame

http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article62022452.html


What are the odds that BFL lied about its financials?

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/60/60653c4d9cbf62ec01ab9bde21ef414ed371ca2b47fed9bba1e50b962b2ee8ce.jpg

http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article62022452.html


Sonny Vleisides: Hello, BitPay. Hey, I know like everybody knows that you're only a third-party payment processor and NOT an exchange, but I need you to process a million dollars worth of bitcoins we received the other day for the sale of Monarchs from an industrial client of ours that we've bumped to the front of the queue ahead of singular monumental assholes orders. Can you do it?

BitPay: What's in it for us?

Sonny: Glad you asked. We've already moved the bitcoins once, then moved them again to the 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs (https://www.walletexplorer.com/address/1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs) bitcoin wallet address. We'll send you the coins and you get to pen a press release declaring that you're the first to process a million dollars worth of BTC to fiat (I'll later let you know what bank account to send the money). We'll all pretend that 1QAHVyRzkmD4j1pU5W89htZ3c6D6E7iWDs belongs to HashTrade but it's really ours. You game?

BitPay: Sounds like a plan, but make sure word doesn't get out that this is a ruse, mmmkay?

Sonny: Mums the word. We even have Josh Zerlan in on it via a 10 BTC illegal bet with the ONLY dude who's wise to us at the moment, thus shutting his ass up till January of next year. Here's the funny part. A year from now, we here are BFL are going to send him a 1099 for services rendered, thus deducting Josh's bet from our bottom line. We may even send him a foam pitchfork for shits and giggles.

BitPay: Okay, it's done, but I don't feel too comfortable about doing this.

Sonny: Hey, you may not feel too comfortable now, wait till you we extort your ass in doing this exchange thingy on an ongoing basis over the next year or so to the tune of over nine million dollars more.

BitPay: Where are these bitcoins coming from?

Sonny: We mine them with ... wait for it ... miners that are customers already paid for and are waiting for them to be shipped, but we have them on hold believing that the machines aren't finished yet and that we're still testing them, with each test HAHAHA failing, but we're working hard to resolve the issues.

BitPay: Where the fuck do you have these miners?

Sonny: Some here at the office in plain site, some at my house, some at my family's homes, some in a cave, and even some in chicken coop.

BitPay: You guys are so bad! HAHAHA

Sonny: Yeah, we know. The other bitcoins came from the ones you already sent us for purchases which we've been sitting on till the price rises which has and continues to do so. We're simply returning them back to you in exchange for fiat (again, I'll be providing bank accounts info shortly).

QUESTION: How the fuck was I, Bruno Kucinskas, able to figure it all out and provide proof via ONLY Google et al., but the FTC couldn't do such with its unlimited resources, arriving at a tens of millions dollar fine, but reduced it to umpteen thousand dollars to the same dude fined ONLY $100 USD for ripping off tens of millions from the elderly with his lottery scheme, not counting never changed with stealing tens of millions via his LFC and online gambling (with Jeff Ownby) schemes?

Y'know what really, really, really P**&*&*s me off about the BFL scam?

Don't get me wrong, BFL _owes_ me, but I would have been in profit except
for the greed and stupidity of people who bought from BFL well past the day
it became clear that it was too late to invest in mining equipment.

Even today, it's the same lemmings, different cliff.

Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large numbers.

And thanks to all who have added to this thread, and made the world
a shade better. FU_BFL!

The prospect of getting 'free' money by buying heavily overpriced mining equipment could skew the judgement even of very prudent people haha. I mean when the greed kicks in you don't think rationally  ;)