Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

Sorry for this, but I've had enough...

I've been waiting for my BTC refund for orders #538 & #539 done via the btcfpga.com site (later transferred to order #490 on the bitcoinasic.net site). My order was put on 'refunded' last week with the message that I would receive my refund in 3-5 days.

I have not received anything yet, hence this post.

+1

yep

This does it for me....
https://www.bitcoinasic.net (https://www.bitcoinasic.net)

And the fact that the guy does not have the common decency to reply to the community.

I was about to make this thread a couple days ago.. but kept getting side tracked..

Tommy Van Ripper = Scammer

+1 cant believe its taken this long...

Tom, your a thief.

+1 I have been waiting 2+ weeks for my refund still nothing..

Ironically, I came into this community right when a Tom took a lot of people's money. I left and came back right when another Tom is doing the same thing.

It's sad that he won't be clear about what is going on. He may have spent the money on misc. business functions and can't refund it. Think about what the charge backs cost. That's purely speculation of course. Obviously he didn't set out to scam people and he probably doesn't have a dime in his pocket for all the time and effort he has put into this whole thing. He probably got screwed by someone promising him chips.

The whole thing is very sad. But he does deserve a tag for sure. People have paid money and not been delivered to or refunded.

I put in a refund at least two weeks ago, for a BTC order. Still nothing :/

+1

Thomas Van Riper aka (cablepair (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=10804)), you are a piece of shit.

thomas@thomasvanriper.com - Make sure to let him know he can fuck himself.
(315) 908-2693 - Seriously, tell him to fuck himself.

Thomas Van Riper
CNY Media
PO Box 246
Hannibal, NY 13074

Can anyone find his home address from this info? Google voice phone number, PO Box address... This scam should've been more obvious...

Dave also profited from this scam and should be labeled as a scammer for his PR role in this scam.

The bolded is out of line, if Dave was just an employee. He was the one that told everyone to chargeback instead of submitting refunds.

The rest is fine, Tom has had more than enough time to return everyone's BTC or let us know what's up.

I believe Dave (buzzdave around here) did his best given the circumstances... Hence, he's not mentioned here.

There are two statuses that apply to BTC refunds:

"Refund Requested" - means I got your payment address and put in on the master list of refunds for Tom to pay.
"Refunded" - means I verified that your payment address received the number of coins on our list (using blockchain.com)

If you had a CC order:
"Refunded" means I triggered a refund using the credit card system.

This had to happen, only question of when.

What's the connection between Dave & https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140366.0 ?

Seems the 100TH Bitcoin Mining project popped up right when Tom closed up the bASIC scam and Dave seems to be the middleman in both. Is that the next Tom scam, buried behind aliases this time?

Dave seemed pretty open and truthful about his actions, or at least wasn't caught in a lie (yet). I hope he's clean and will be still transparent in case Tom decides to become a felon.

I still think Tom has a choice to clear his name & everything. The window is closing though. This community has seen to much bullshit and I'm sure there are ways to involve the police in such cases, without costly lawyers and all that stuff.

Dave,

We talked on IRC, you changed my initial orders (#538 & #539) done via BTCFPGA.com to order #490 on bitcoinasic.net. You gave me store credit for the amount of the initial orders & I had to pay with a CC and a sum of $0.50 (because the webstore wouldn't allow anything else). I have been refunded for exactly $0.50.

Where is the rest of my money that was originally paid in BTC?

The fact remains, Tom is a scammer. He can still fix this by refunding everyone...

You have/had contact with him, what's going on?

+1 ... knew 2 weeks ago Tom and possibly even dave are fucking scammers.

Again, not a bad word about Dave...

I have absolutely no idea, tbh. As best I can determine the OP is just confabulating unrelatedly.

Possibly, or Tom & Dave scammed enough coins selling vaporware to fund this new MegaBigPower.com scam. If that's the case, I assume plenty of sock puppets will be defending Dave vigorously here...

So Dave has confirmed his involvement in an ASIC project no-one has heard of before which has nothing to do with bASIC, honest. Not fishy in the slightest.

I'm in IRC quite a bit and can say Dave has been nothing but tolerant of the grief he is catching on Tom's behalf and has followed up on what he says he will do.  Keep in mind that he is the one that did the CC refunds, even the last ones off the clock.  Tom is the one behaving badly. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. He was just an employee dealing with a crappy situation.  He also did all he could to get the btc customers paid back, WTF do you expect him to do if he doesn't have the btc wallet? 

X Customer

Sorry Tom, but +1 for Scammer tag.  (You still owe me $ Tom, not for a refund, for time you agreed to pay me for.)  I've been private about it but you are acting like a scam artist.  If you cared about your reputation you could have talked to your customers, kept your word and you'd still be in business.  Hiding is not what honest people do.  It's just not.

Cablepair = scammer

The last time I checked BlockChain, it seemed to me Tom II was moving a mess of coins through various wallets.

It's FPGAs, not ASICs.

Dave's involvement is as a hosting provider.  See the megabigpower.com thread.

BitFury was around before anyone heard of bASIC.

Sry you fail so much.

I was just an employee, working for cheap to try and help Tom be the first to market with ASIC.  Initially I had the idea of establishing hosted mining that would go really well with selling bASIC's.  Even though bASIC failed and I'm no longer working for Tom, I decided to proceed with the idea.

The 100TH Mine popped up right after bASIC because when one of Tom's big investors got the news that bASIC failed, he decided to keep moving forward (despite not receiving any money back yet himself).  I'm not working for Lescek (100TH Mine, picostocks.com) - but I like the odds here.  BitFury ASIC design, realistic timelines, actual information, a real business plan, etc.  And yes, Les likes the economics of having me host his mines.

As far as stealing coins - its an easy accusation to make.  You can throw out those accusations without having to provide tangible proof, while damaging a person's reputation.  Building that reputation is much harder.  I personally insured that over $1M was refunded to bASIC customers who paid with credit cards.  I spent hours & hours painstakingly assembling the master list of BTC refunds so that when Tom starts refunding, he won't have to collate all that information.  All this effort to do everything I could to help bASIC customers get their money back. 

I hope that shows my integrity.  Believe me it would have been far easier to distance myself from bASIC and just leave the mess for Tom (and his customers).

Absolutely. Leave Dave alone, he's done nothing wrong. The bASIC mess would be even bigger without him.

I concur!

i also althought i do think that you should of let tom deal with the shit storm himself that way you didnt free him of his responsibilitys. wityh cc stuff out the way he is now more free to move about without owrrys.

There isn't enough bitcoins to pay out refunds

Every credit card chargeback has a chargeback fee. Guess where that comes from - BTC refunds. Guess where Tom's wage came from.

"Currently both Visa and Mastercard require all merchants to maintain no more than 1% of dollar volume processed to be chargebacks. If the percentage goes above, there are fines starting at $5000 – $25,000 to the merchant's processing bank and ultimately passed on to the merchant.
In all cases, a chargeback will cost the merchant the chargeback fee, typically $15–$30, plus the cost of the transaction and the amount processed."

no i was still flamed for saying he shouldt do them all i ever said is to do the right thing and use the exchange rate at time of refund request
thats all i wanted but looks like were sol anyways

Has anyone received a BTC refund?

yup your right lets do the unsecured befor the more secure doesnt sound like a bad idea oo and by the way you forgot the part where i said do all refunds in order as they came in befor toms post of everyones getting refunded

Wow, I feel bad for defending this scumbag scammer.

Out of all ASIC vendors, I thought he was the least likely to be a scam.

I guess there are many who did not get the memo.

No-Refunds is nowadays 100% totally accepted operating policy with enthusiastic support from core developers and The Bitcoin Foundation as well as huge majority of community. I have not heard one even slightly critical voice against this from anybody in any kind of position of authority, only from a couple of trolls.

It is simply totally unfair to demand that some companies should store the customer funds for being able to pay out refunds when there are other companies competing in the same field using totally different set or rules that give huge advantage to any company following them.

"No Refunds - your funds are gone. Refunds therefore are impossible." is totally acceptable and the new norm or doing business.

Nobody should be given scammer tags for operating according to an 100% totally accepted policy and any old scammer tags given out for breaking a rule that nowadays does not exist should be lifted. Why wear scammer tags for something that is nowadays totally accepted and others are doing it out there in wide open?

It doesn't matter what other people think, it's your money and if you don't like the terms of a vendor then don't do business with him.


I think you're referring to Avalon here. Tom was adamant that anybody can have a refund at any time.


There are so many scams going on around here and if I were in charge then I would hand out scammer tags all day long. Tom broke his promise of 100% refund at any time and he should get a scammer tag for it, period.

....this guy. wow. i'm betting this guy has an arts degree. we (i mean you) are the 99% right? dick face.

Give this guy a scammer tag before anyone falls for his new bitcoinasic lies and gets conned.

Why are the mods waiting is what I am curious about?

It's now been confirmed by Ari Asmar - owner of the real Can Electric - that they have no association with the re-branded bASIC.  A scammer tag needs to be applied right now, IMO.

Good grief.

Ahahahaha this is rich.

theymos, we need a response on this.  There is no doubt whatsoever now that BitcoinASIC.net is using the name of Can Electric without the permission of its owners and that Can Electric has nothing to do with Ehasher or other aspects of bASIC's re-branding.

Would guess the website was "hacked" - in the same way Tom's account here was "hacked".

If that's Tom's claim, then there's no reason at all not to label BitcoinASIC.net a fraud.

If he refunded in a timely manner, everyone would of been paid back long before this 'hack' happened of bitcoinasic.net.

I formally request that whomever owns this site, sue me: https://www.bitcoinasic.net/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=5



Sue me on two counts! I modified the above by changing the first two words and making it one--Website. Also, I permanently downloaded said material by placing it on a public forum.

If I don't get sued, then that means their Terms and Conditions are worthless, ergo their entire operation is bogus as well.


I guess that's one of the benefits of creating an omnipotent entity. You can have it occupying three locales simultaneously--Canada, Iraq, and now New York.

Maybe it's usefull to merge the information from this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140411.msg1509686#msg1509686) thread ?

I STRONGLY urged Dave to leave BTCFPGA after my meeting with Tom.  I thought he had nothing to gain, and a ton to lose through "guilt by association."

Dave insisted on trying to complete all the CC refunds, so people would get money back.  He did not, and never did, have access to the BTC.  He and I both attempted to have Tom transfer BTC to Dave so he could handle refunds, but that never happened.

Dave tried his very best, beyond what I would have done (and certainly beyond what anyone else in this forum would have done).  To insinuate he was a part of Tom's behavior is ridiculous and unfounded.

Thanks, Lukas. Do you think it was a scam from the beginning or did it simply go wrong at some point?

If it was a planned scam from the outset, they surely would have just run off with all the moolah, yes?

Maybe. I'm asking because Tom said he had a working prototype and Lukas said he couldn't see any value in it (or something like this, I don't remember what he said exactly).

PERSONALLY, I don't think Tom started this venture with the intent of stealing money.  However, the end result is the same: Lots of people are owed money, and Tom is missing in action, with zero accountability.  What is most troubling is there were several of us who attempted to him help to varying degrees, and all he ever did was avoid and deny the need.

Tom has lied to me several times on several things, ranging from white lies, omissions, fabrications, to downright boldface lies.  I would say there are more untruths to the situation than hard facts.

I'd like to reiterate that I find the "doxing" of his family worthless and detestable.  That information will not help those who are owed, and only brings you down to that level.  I found Tom in about 4 hours on the ground.  Pictures of his baby won't help you do that.

It really pains me to write all this.  From a business perspective, I should walk away and keep my mouth shut, but I'm really struggling.  Those of you who are owed BTC have been wronged, and it's childish for Tom to run and hide from it.  On the flip side, Tom desperately needs help in his personal life, and I sincerely hope he pursues it.  All of these things are bad for the community and bad for Bitcoin, and that greater effort is what this is supposed to be about.

Maybe a scammer tag will help drive Tom back to the fold so he can share, honestly and completely, what happened and how we can all move forward.  Frankly, I doubt it.  He is not behaving rationally at this point, maybe hasn't in months.

Thanks for that, it explains a lot. Get help Tom.

The two are not mutually exclusive.  I think people are well aware of the fact that Tom's personal issues are greatly compromising his ability to do the right thing here.  While not an ideal solution, the best option at the moment would be for Tom to hand off processing the BTC refunds to someone else while he pursues whatever personal help he needs.  Maybe there aren't enough funds to refund everyone in full at this point, but even partial refunds would be better than nothing.

It's really not acceptable for only one person to have access to the funds of a business.  There always needs to be a plan in place where someone else can quickly grasp the financial situation of a business and move money as necessary.  People get sick, they have mental breakdowns, they get hit by buses, they decide they've had enough and walk away.  Tom's reluctance to let anyone else handle the BTC refunds concerns people because it raises the suspicion that he has insufficient funds to make those refunds.

People can have compassion for Tom's personal circumstances and still believe that doing nothing isn't a viable option.

Frankly, is raises a hell of a lot more than that.  I have many, many suspicious about Tom, but my conjecture might be completely off (though I don't think it is).  I don't think his issues are an excuse in the least, and I personally, face-to-face, offered him an out specifically crafted for him, with exactly what he wanted.  He left town instead.

Well written, Lukas. I'll do my best to bide by your words in the future.


Bitcoin 100 is structured in such a way, and will remain so. I've never had control of funds, and there's a backup person in place, in case.

On a side note, Phinnaeus, I very much respected your work (and calm) during the Pirate fiasco.  I feel as if that scenario is a bit different than this.

Tom previously mentioned that the bASIC project was funded in part by people from the "Lenders club" and has referred to "old Bitcoin money" being involved in the project.  Some people belonging to that club are no longer in good standing in this community and I continue to find the silence about who else was involved in the bASIC project concerning. 

One would expect legitimate investors to require regular reports and evidence of progress on the project and to be aware that it was in trouble, demanding answers and solutions.  Hell, I even wonder whether those "investors" existed or whether they were a fiction created by Tom to lend credibility to his project.  Are they silent now because they don't want any responsibility for the failure of this project falling on themselves or because they never existed? 

Too much about this whole situation stinks to take anything about it at face value now.  I think this community needs to try to find out whether those investors exist and establish whether they have any legal liability in relation to this clusterfuck. 

Just a "heads up" on this case......

I have just received  an  encrypted email, one where I had to log into THEIR system to read the email and reply.
the Bank have been following this case/new-site & the forum.

They are STRONGLY of the opinion  that a 'Card replacement' is in order for any CC related to this case.
Since the original cards were processed and the 3 digit security number was supplied to validate the transactions, there is nothing to prevent the CC being re-billed or the card details being 'used' illegally.
Since the details  (address & cardholder details, card number & security digits) are in the possession of a 3rd party

Might be worth cross-posting this advice to the threads in the Custom Hardware forum, too.

which bank?

CitiBank

Fruck !@##

I think he is only stealing BTC @ the moment as he sees this as an easy untraceable crime etc ...

Its a big step to Upgrade to CC fraud as in major jail time....

Will change my card .... :(

Hopefully Citi has contacted whoever provides the merchant account and filled them in.

They can also sell the numbers on the blackmarket.

Was this out of the blue because of suspicious activity on your card, or is it just SOP is cases like this where a chargeback has been done and the cardholder says that the merchant might not be reputable?

Bump

Have notified theymos for his verdict here.

NB4 verdict.

I got a email and call from the bank as well, they couldn't tell me exactly where the card numbers were compromised from or what even happened for that matter, but i thought there might have been a connection. I have also been issued a new debit card (the one I used to pay for my bASIC). They said that they will update me with that info once the investigation has been finished. If there is a connection I will update.

I want to wait a couple more weeks and see if any progress is made.

There's no hurry in this case. He can't even access his account, so a scammer tag isn't going to help anyone (other than making some people feel better).

Can you explain the "He can't even access his account"?
Has his account been locked?

His account was compromised a few weeks ago, so I locked it. He needs to send me a PGP signature or some other strong identity verification if he wants the password reset. I've exchanged emails with someone claiming to be him, but he hasn't sent me a PGP signature yet.

Tom has a history of losing access to his machines by getting hacked.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21325.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63638.0

This'd have been prolly useful six months ago.

Hmm.. real shocker here.. he's obviously screwing over a lot of folks, but let's go ahead and slow roll this one some more.. 

True, that tagging him as a scammer for forum users to see is sort of moot at this point, but why he still gets any benefit of the doubt is still amazing, regardless of what he has done in the past.

I still don't buy the compromised/hacked account crap either... perhaps it should be "account is suspended due to being an incompetent drunk".

Bottoms up!

I think this is my first scammer accusation. I don't believe he did this on purpose but the fact of the matter is he not only stole my money; he absolutely fucked my chances of being an early ASIC adopter.

So, his user name was immune prior to changing it to Cablepair. That explains why he's used it elsewhere on the net.


Bold, just about sums it up.

From the last post of the same thread:


That being the case, guess it's time to close this thread.

Tom = scammer! Waiting STILL for scammer tag or at least to be recognized as a scammer!

The official site is DOWN and taken!

Cant do much about the bitcoin orders but the one consolation is that banks have LOTS of lawyers to go after scammers who pull pre order scams such as this using traditional banking systems. inb4 Tom's ass is mining cocks in prison.

Wait till you learn how Pastor Tom fucked his flock.

http://www.onlinepot.org/mailing_scams/hallofshame.htm

man how come this shit only comes out after bASIC folds?

Great.... so maybe the CC company has MORE on this guy than they let be known......
But WTF would they issue a Credit card terminal in a situation like this?

He may have started with the best intentions, but he ended with the worst of actions. I actually recommended a disabled guy with a limited government social income to use some of his last savings to buy 3 units from this guy.

Scammer tag?
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/256/402/27f.jpg

Nice find Phin!  Up until this point, I was giving Tom the benefit of the doubt.  It was very plausible that bASIC was just a failed business, and I accepted the risk that the project might fail when I preordered.  Really, the only part that bothered me was that CC customers were given preferential treatment. If Tom had been extremely transparent about the project's finances, announced the project failed, and then paid back a good chunk of the preorder money, I wouldn't even be too mad.  With the rising BTC price, it might have been possible to return a good chunk of money to customers even if a large amount of USD had been spent developing ASICs.

However, if Tom really does have a history of scamming... I can't sympathize with him.

Tom owes me ~$8600 (8x 72Gh/s, paid in BTC). I will contact a lawyer this week.

You think it would have made any difference if it came out earlier?

One of the top BFL guys is CONVICTED of scamming yet people happily send them funds.  If it came out he'd just say it was a mistake in his past / he'd been misunderstood / his email was hacked and everyone would just send him money as before.

Pastor Tom: Walk Like an eChristian!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ROGq9yFFzA

Pastor Tom: Black Friday Bad! mkay?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drbPAcBAphU

Great title for a book: From the Pulpit to the Penitentiary.

That's exactly the reason why no-one should ever invest more than he can afford to lose. The dirt almost always comes to light only after the money has disappeared.

Can you let us know what the outcome is?

Very much this.


The reason is basically here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101902.msg1516695#msg1516695). Before the scammer actually runs with the BTC, his shills are active and the bystanders are "giving the benefit of the doubt". When I pointed out that pirate was a scammer back in April 2012 people threw a fit about how "I'm unprofessionals", and pirate shills a la gigavps were trying to convince MP to fire me because of it. Meanwhile I was proven right but the same shills are still here repeating that "I'm unprofessional". Why? Because I've professionally blown their cover off with some regularity on numerous occasions, and their profession is lying so that's what they do. They're greatly helped by the fact that most people involved are both new and naive, so they're more likely to believe a lie they see from five sockpuppets than to use their heads and discover where the truth lies.

No offense, but that was a terrible idea no matter what vendor he bought from.

Well, to their credit, you are a horrible troll.


To be a little more specific, he had made up his mind that he was going to start mining to supplement his paltry income. It was back in October, so at that time I and others told him to stay away from GPUs because of the impending reward halving. So his option was ASIC. Again he asked for advice on who to buy from. At that time Avalon was not taking orders and BFL was acting super dodgy about their missed dates. Tom was saying the right things and offered a clear cancellation policy, so I said that he was the most likely to deliver on his promises and others chimed in with agreement. Given a guy who was dead set on mining, it was the best advice with the information at the time.

if tom is still mining on btc guild cant we contact eleuthria and have him put a freeze on his account and any coins he mines have him put into a account to be used to pay us back lol.

+1 Maybe if you weren't such an.... asshole, maybe people would listen to you?

While I do enjoy a good witch hunt, the one user to contact me about freezing funds provided a user ID which has absolutely nothing tying it to Tom/bASIC.  The account is almost 2 years old, which predates the first FPGA sales he ever made, and heavily predates ASIC offerings.

The email and username do not have anything resembling something Tom/cablepair has ever used on the forums.  Unless there is proof that the user is mining with stolen hardware, there is very little I can do aside from blocking the account from continuing to mine.  I'm not the internet police, and all it would accomplish is freezing a FEW coins, which I am in no position to distribute to any party, nor do I want to be.

It comes from a post Tom made back in October, but then again he could have been lying. If the IP connecting to your servers if from NY it's likely him though.

Still it doesn't really mean all that much since you can't recover funds for his users.

But maybe eleuthria can reach out to him?

What's the 'official' BTC Guild policy on letting a known scammer mine on your pool? (If indeed user ID 111 turns out to be Tom...)

Real stand upish of you to look into this at all, particularly so quickly. Much appreciated. Anything that can be done to make Tom less comfortable is a win at this point.

That may be true, but on the other hand you really can't go around inconveniencing random third parties just because you gave some coins to a scammer.

True that, that's why Mr. Teal's evidence is important as is the importance of ensuring that the IP being used to mine is originating from NY state. Tom is as I understand it, a family man, and is not likely able to uproot on short notice and relocate out of state.

What are the odds that someone with a sizable mining footprint is using the same login Tom used in the past on BTCGuild from a NY IP that isn't Tom? Infinitesimally small? 

There really isn't much point. I would expect that he, like most miners, has regular disbursements to his own addresses, and once he realizes the funds are frozen, he'll just make a new account or switch pools entirely.

The minute any Bitcoin business starts freezing coins we're back to the whole "taint" argument, and all its implications. Even simply refusing to do business with known scammers only works in an environment where proof of identity is required.

Taking possession of earnings for distribution to someone else is dodgy legal ground (you need some kind of court or statutory authority to do it in the real world) and I doubt any Bitcoin businesses want the potential headaches.

I disagree. While I don't think the action should be taken lightly there are instances in which confirmed scammers should be taken to task by anyone with the ability to do so. If it's possible to confirm that it's indeed Tom mining on that account I'd seize it and return the proceeds to those he stole from were it up to me.

...but then I'd delete Giga's BFL orders as well.

I don't disagree with the sentiment.  I just think that if you have a business which is toddling along very nicely and where you're not attracting any undue attention then you need to make a risk/reward assessment before you decide to play vigilante. 

The amount which would be available for return to Tom's customers would likely be very small but the pools would be with-holding those funds from Tom and redistributing them without any legal authority (your employer can't just give your wages to a creditor because they don't like the fact that you haven't paid your bills - they need legal authority in the form of a garnishee order to do it).

You also have the issue of how a pool is meant to validate claims.  Without access to Dave's list of those who are still owed refunds, there is no way to verify that those who claim they are owed refunds by Tom are legitimate.

I have no issue with services black-balling known scammers and refusing to do business with them - it's just problematic to enforce given the large number of services which allow their customers to remain anonymous.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Tom is effectively "judgement-proof" and has no significant assets beyond whatever is sitting in his BTC wallets - and we really have no idea of how many wallets he has or their addresses.  Unless he has BTC-related accounts which are tied to his real life identity, denying him access to those accounts through civil law means is going to be difficult (law enforcement has far more options in this respect).

I think it's wise to remember that at least one criminal complaint has been filed in respect of Tom's activities and more will likely follow.  The scope of those investigations may well extend to his earnings from mining pools, so it's in the interest of pool operators to maintain "clean hands" at this point.

I hope you're joking.

Funnily, 'Tom' in my language means 'empty'.

I received the refund.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=143667.msg1523200#msg1523200

agath: Registered January 24, 2013, 12:00:12 PM

cablepair: Last Active/Banned:  January 23, 2013, 06:16:33 AM

I hear it's really easy to receive refunds if one just asks oneself to refund oneself. I also just gave myself a million euro. In 10 euro notes.

Good catch there.

You only catch the dust. Please turn back to your porn exchange and don't talk about things you don't even know.

Who shot who in the what now?

Post a screenshot of that. Remove your name and your account number, but leave Tom's intact. It won't prove much, but it can be useful for legal action.

Unfortunately and embarrassingly, I am not (http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMining/comments/13jspi/i_am_new_to_bitcoin_mining/c74ro1i?context=1).

Guy said he bought nothing. Good thing.

Yeah, I was pretty relieved about that. Tom is still a piece of shit.

After reading through that, I wouldn't beat yourself up over it.  You actually spelled out the downsides for him as well, mentioning that the future is highly speculative, declining returns due to difficulty changes, etc.  In the end, it was good to see he didn't get scammed but I don't think you misled him any.

I have received a refund on Feb 13th of BTC 138. I initially invested BTC 372,2799.

So I guess Tom's still a scammer, but at least he has a lot more money now after all the refunds are done...

Prices were in USD, not BTC. How much did you send/receive in USD?

Sounding to me like Tom isn't a scammer, at least in your case (and probably everyone else eventually).

Wrong - Tommy is still a scammer... like I've posted in other threads.. even if/when all BTC is still refunded he owns the scammer crown whether officially given by this forum (whom has his back a lot)... or not. 

The whole CAN-ELEC fraud/drama takes this to another level as well..

The reason I still consider Tom a scammer is because of no communication, the lies, the deceit, drunken rants, 'hacked' accounts, the can-electric saga, etc... I don't think he had an ASIC design at all otherwise he would've accepted the help from others.

And he (probably) made a lot of money because of the price difference (but this wouldn't be a problem if he had done everything right... Yeah, this last point is debatable :D).

+1 winner winner chicken dinner

Lies and misinformation were presented to Dave as well, at least from public information. We don't know the whole story, that's for sure. But I agree that was the problem from the start (or the second part) of the project. I remember counting for a shipment in December and received a mail :
"Your order has been updated to the following status:
Ready To Ship"

I was really glad, only to see this was going to happen only after "your bASIC has been assembled and released from test." Only to find out it didn't get to the assembly line, while Dave was stating in the forums something that he'd seen one hashing already... Too much contradiction, I wish I had the presence to get out then and there. I accepted the risk, now we must deal with it, and get the money with some effort.

About the BTC price going up
tnksflx, if Bitcoin was going down to $5, I'm sure you wouldn't like your 300 bitcoins back, this is not an issue. If somebody bet on BTC price going up, good for him. If it was Tom, even better, we might get our $ back. I agree this is not an issue.

Really?! I must have missed that. Otherwise I pretty much agree with you.

Easy to miss stuff that gets constantly deleted. Conveniently enough, Something Awful has a good collection (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3517639&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post411805887) of Tom's posts that somehow disappeared.


That's okay, I'd much rather all the idiots make a point of not listening to me. As time goes by that will make them both poor and frustrated, which I'll greatly enjoy. It's not an aesthetic choice of whether to like me or not like me. It's an economic choice of whether to submit and live or play the smartass and go the way of the Kludge. Each his own fate, it has absolutely zero bearing on me. Take Fjordbit for an excellent example of that thesis: he's the sort of imbecile advising desperate people to "invest". Fortunately for him he's not taken seriously. Illustratively of his mental limitations, he still thinks he's in a position to judge his superiors. Daily life in Dumblandia.

I can't seem to find a cached copy of the exact page, but here's one that quotes it:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TnTaN7CaHbkJ:https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php%3Ftopic%3D751.15+%22as+I've+already+posted,+there+are+chips+hashing+away+in+the+engineering+lab+-+I+can+see+the+stats+for+it%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari

Scroll down to reply #21, about halfway down the page.

Seen the unit hashing and having seen the stats for it hashing are two different things.

Where is dave on all this? Last we heard from him he was talking to one of the cc compnanys or somthing what came of that anything?

Yeah, when caught lying that's Inaba's line too, he didn't exactly spell out the obvious implication that everyone read. He just didn't impede them from it, totally legit.

Actually no, he was pretty clear that he hadn't seen it. You just had to ask.

True, though they still mean some prototype was working, which was not the case. Somebody lied, could be that Dave just passed it forward, we'll probably know more about it.

Here's what he actually said:

"as I've already posted, there are chips hashing away in the engineering lab - I can see the stats for it."

He stated as FACT that there were chips hashing away.  He didn't say "Tom tells me there's chips hashing away" or "I can see some stats which I guess are chips hashing away".

His statement also says that the stats he could see were for chips hashing away - not that he guessed that they were for chips hashing away.

His statement unambiguously claims as fact that chips were hashing away - a statement he could only truthfully make if he had actual knowledge that was the case.  At best he was passing on second-hand information as though it were first-hand - which is misleading and deceptive (even if not intentionally so).

Oh please. He probably should have said that he didn't see the chips in person, but the fact he said I've seen the stats for it as opposed to I've seen it should have been a clue, along with the fact that he's never met Tom face to face.

As for the bolded part, people make statements like that about things they don't have first-hand knowledge of all the time. Your point is ridiculous; if a client asks you how many unit of product XYZ you have in stock and they check the inventory system and confirm the number with the warehouse manager, are you deceptive and misleading if you say "We have 37 units in stock" even though you haven't seen it with your own eyes?

If Dave wants to explain what stats it is he saw that convinced him they had ASICs hashing away then he can.  That would be far more credible than having apologists make excuses and weak arguments on his behalf.

Agreed, and I would love to see a more detailed explanation of this entire situation from his perspective. I wouldn't count on it given that he might be investigated as well of Tom does get charged with fraud, but it would be nice if he could.

For those wanting to revisit the lies, incompetence, and overall mismanagement of bASIC:

http://gfyi95.com/bASIC/bASIC%20Forum/www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.html

The old forum has been uploaded is seems.

Ty for that.

Pretend to change BTC to USD then pocket the difference in the exchange rate.

We are almost to that "couple more weeks" part.. can we finally get a "scammer" tag put on Tom and bASIC?  Or, do we continue to slow roll this whole sham?

*whistles*

Since they don't seem to have posted here on their own accord, a number of bASIC customers have popped into the IRC channel to report having received their Bitcoin refunds.

That's great to hear about people FINALLY getting some refunds again.. golf_clapping.wav

However, Tom should STILL be classified as a scammer.. slow rolling refunds doesn't vindicate him at all..

He lied and mis-led people at almost every turn when it comes to bASIC (lol and CAN-ELECTRIC).. lets not sugar coat this pile of dung..

https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?topic=1048.0 toms own words
exchange rate should be average on the 23rd or january

Here is an EXACT post on the same subject:

PLEASE see the statement:


So it is VERY clear that BOTH a unit AND the performance were seen by Dave, and NOT a relay/assumption based on information from Tom

Unfortunately because BOTH people were admin, many of the posts were edited/deleted/re-edited/re-worded,  as a result some posts have absolutely no relation to the material that was originally posted.....

This is also WHY Tom should receive the "Money launderer/Scammer" tag even if he does "pay back" the BTC, because there was a deliberate attempt to mislead the customers, and he  went out of his way to deliberately "break the toys" when he could not get his own way.

since many irc users are team tommy i will post here.
tom request a btc address from everyone for refund and he gave a date of which he was intending to use for refund the 23rd of jan. so dont we as a community have the right to hold him to that dates exchange rate.????

post of him saying he refund everyone https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?topic=1048.0

How do you get that Dave has seen a hashing unit with his own eyes from that statement that he's seen the hashing performance stats on a working pre-production unit? If he'd actually seen the unit, don't you think he would have said so rather than just saying he's seen stats?

Ahhh finally got back into my hacked account. This does not mean I will be a regular on this board anymore it just means I can make some statements that will hopefully be helpful to you.

1) I do not deserve a scammer label. We sold FPGA Mining products since may, when BFL announced their product MONTHS early just to try and squash the competition they lied which was a total lie and dis-service to the community but we wanted to keep our business alive, this led us to begin developing out own ASIC basic based prodcut. Our latest attempt at making the huge leap to ASIC failed. It was never our intention to scam anyone. Anyone who ordered a FPGA mining product has received their unit or their unit is on the way (2 orders slipped through the cracks when shit went bananas but we found these orders and we shipped them out this week.

2) I have paid back over 1 million USD to credit card buyers and BTC buyers alike. I am liquidating assets like a madman and still mining at about 60 gh/s with my FPGA rigs, which brings about 10 btc per day. Every week I gather what assets I have obtained and I distribute them to the customers starting with the earliest customers first and than working my way up to the later buyers. There are many people who can attest to this. One of our largest orders who spent over 100k was refunded by wire transfer just last week and I am sure if you look you can find that thread.

IF you are interesting in reading the actual definition of a scam you may do so here:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scam


Instead I am doing everything I can to make sure every single customer gets a complete and total refund. Unfortunately some people do not like the fact that they are returned less coins than they have sent. Although the fact of the matter is - these units were priced in USD NOT BTC and it is appropriate to use the current exchange rate when converting USD to Bitcoin to make these refunds. Any one who knows what they are doing in e-commerce would agree totally.

3) See a scammer would of taken all the money (over a million dollars) and disappeared, instead I still live in my same house and still go to my regular job every day. I am a family man and the last thing I want is any kind of trouble. You guys have no idea the sleepless nights worrying about this thing, but I am going to keep on this and make sure every customer gets his refund.

4) I am sure its hard to believe but this has hurt and will continue to hurt myself and my family far more than it will hurt any of you, But that's the gamble I took when I decided to make an ASIC device, and take pre-orders, we just could not make the damn thing work (for long) and the chips were clocked wrong or something because they had a very little life especially when you pushed them to any degree.

At any rate that is all behind us. Like I said I have paid over 1 mil in refunds and continue to do so every friday night (20k just last friday) this list is shortening and shortening and before you know it every single person will be paid back in full.

I just hope and pray you give me the time to make this all happen, I sold most of these coins at around $15 and now am buying back at $30 - its very difficult but as the last 2 weeks showed you , you will continue to see 10 refunds every friday until every single person is paid back.

I have been a very strong member of this community for 2 years, and I have always fulfilled my promises - please have a little faith in me is all I am asking - I WANT to do the right thing. Think about what a true scammer would of done with over a million at his disposal??????


I have four kids and I am just trying to get by - I am sorry I was not up to meet the challenge of bASIC but I assure you all of you will be paid back.

thank you for listening

Thomas Van Riper
BTCFPGA
P.O. BOX 246
Hannibal NY 13069

(any correspondence sent to any other address other than the business addresss of BTCFPGA will be returned. My house is not my place of business nor is it the address for my business)

i have changed my numbers due to the hundreds of calls I was receiving a day - if you need to get ahold of me email btcfpga@gmail.com
and I will get back to you within a couple of days at the latest

again thank you for reading this and for those who have it - thank you for your compassion and empathy.

Tom
BTCFPGA

p.s. BTCFPGA will continue to sell FPGA based devices to hobbyists and all others who are interested in this device.
http://www.btcfpga.com

You seem to have totally ignored addressing the whole CAN-ELECTRIC hoax, which was outright fraud according to the real owner of Can Electric.

That's all well and good, but have you stopped drinking?

Did you try adding some buffers? You probably needed more buffers.

Thanks Tom. I'm guessing BitcoinASIC.com was liquidated and whoever bought it was behind the CAN-ELECTRIC scam? Would probably be good to clarify this for the benefit of the accusers here.

Wish you and your family the best.

sorry tom but in your own post you set a time frame of when you would be paying. so why is it not theortical to use the exchange rate of that time. if you would have refunded at that time it would of been at the rate you sold so there would of been no lose i dont see why your customers should pay for your mistakes. you chose to sell out and instead of imdeatly refunding like you said in your post you chose to wait till 30+ exchange rate that was your chose not ours

Tom can certainly claim that, but the "Tom is gone, Dave is gone" post which claimed that bASIC's new owners were a large electronics manufacturer has been quoted all over the place and bears a striking resemblance in style to some of Tom's past "meltdown" posts.  Can Electric isn't an electronics manufacturer, but Tom still needs to explain why he told people that an electronics manufacturer had taken over bASIC if that wasn't the case.  

I hope Tom does continue returning people's money and that he finds peace and stability in his personal life but it's naive to expect that simply returning people's funds is going to restore his credibility given the shit which has gone down in relation to bASIC.

Perhaps Tom's "millionaire friend" could lend him the funds to pay everyone out now and he could repay that person over time.

You're getting the time frame wrong. The CAN-ELECTRIC scam was long after all hopes of the project completion were off the table. It's quite likely that Tom would have liquidated the domain during the time it happened. All it took was some scammer to offer him a reasonable price, then set it up that way. And by writing the rant such a way that it "sounded like" Tom, they could basically frame him in the eyes of everyone who saw through it, while themselves collecting from those who didn't.

And people will likely pretend to believe that Tom was framed because his past response to people not giving him warm and fuzzy reactions to his "that's all behind us" posts has been to melt down and go incommunicado.

People need to stop giving Tom excuses to use and let him explain himself to the community if he has any hope at all of returning to it.  I for one would like to hear the complete story of how bASIC failed.  We now hear for the first time, from the horse's mouth, that the chips as designed were failing.

Er....
I have a private email from the people hosting the domain.........
Their comments lead me to think that this is NOT what happened, also remarks from the CC company again lead me to believe this is not what happened.
I have also spoken to a couple of people connected with Bitcoin In Hong Kong.... an offer was made to Tom, where funding could have been provided and he would still be lead, they were even prepared to let him bask in all the glory of being the first to bring  Asics to bitcoin.


From what I can make out theses people were interested more in leveraging bitcoin as a payment method by moving it forward rather than actually getting into the business of manufacturing product, but they were prepared to assist Tom because the connection would have been beneficial to both parties.

When presenting such business opportunities to Asian investors, it would be strategically beneficial to have a well known member of the community on board, the plan was to leverage the association into other business areas not including mining or manufacturing.

The offer was made because he was the lesser of the other currently available evils, that is to say other companies were not considered either because they were illegally operated and were prepared to breach Export regulations or consisted of people with serious Criminal convictions neither of which is acceptable to be associated with when offering business opportunities to investors, because once the press start digging it all comes out.

At a personal level I find it highly suspicious that someone with a 'finished' product  was not prepared to enter into negotiations to save a pet project, especially after the claims about all the work that was put into it.

The problem is that after you've given empty assurances several times, "but I'm really telling the truth this time guys" no longer has any credibility - kind of like BFL's estimated delivery dates.

This was a big project where the risk of failure was high from the outset.  It's not the kind of project which should ever have been a one man show.  When something goes wrong in any project, there's always a point when you need to decide whether to keep quiet about the problem and hope you can resolve it without anyone becoming aware of it until after the fact or whether you should announce its existence straight up.  Making the wrong call on that decision can be fatal to a project and to your credibility as an enterprise.

LOLface

Tommy still has to mention BFL in any reply where he tries to "explain himself" or "apologize" for his incompetence..

Still a scammer.. with emphasis on unacceptable/risky business ethics with a dash of possible (likely) fraud (CAN-ELEC)

You still took a lot of interest free loans from a lot of people.. to whom requested refunds back in early Jan.. and on the BTC side - they very well could have had their BTC back and would have made a nice profit from that point alone.. which would have made this whole bASIC drama bomb abortion a little less harder to swallow.

You lied, deceived, disappeared (lol again at "hacked" accounts) and completely lost control.

http://imageshack.us/f/687/tom22jansummary.png

lol i like how the forum for btcfpga is down glad i quoted tom before he could take it down and say he never said what he said.I think the community needs to keep tom to his own words of repayments. we should use a exchange rate that would of constituted a timely refund from his post on january 23rd.that is the fairest way and the right thing to do to prove your not a scammer. stick to your own words

You've told us how much you've already refunded, but the value of refunds still outstanding is also important.  Your mining activities might be bringing in some funds right now, but it's not going to be bringing in much in a couple of months.

Based on your current plan, how long do you estimate it would take for you to repay everyone?

Any more refunds or is it just a token gesture?

Been well past a "couple weeks" now..

Why isn't Tommy listed as a scammer yet? 

Same reason Giga isn't...connections.

Because he bought a lot of advertising here and that gives you a license to defraud the community  ::)

Tom needs apostilles too nao?

Bump for scammer Tom

Still no refund here.  I vote scammer.

scammer +1

scammer +1

I thought he paid most people now. Has he not?

No.
It's difficult to know without a list being published, but of the six people I know personally that have BTC-based ASIC orders with him, five are still awaiting refunds.
The credit card orders did get refunded but we're all still waiting for our asic money back.

Has this been added to the pending scammer list? should it be?

yes.

He should already be flagged as a scammer since mid-Jan.. but he has a protective blanket within these forums..

scammer +1

We are still waiting for our BTC refunds!

Oh I see. So basically what I have been seeing is that the whole site is corrupt from the top down, Is that accurate?

Looks like if your a "buddy" or "donor" you can scam.   

More like a blind faith / forgiveness to their good-old-buddy-tom, who had a hard time (*snif*, stealing our money is not easy).

link to his profile he will be added to the pending scammer list.

what ever happen with this? did he give you a refund???

No, he did not repay me yet. It seems like he did not pay most people by now... big 100k refund, but nutting for me...

At this point scammer Tag +1

This sucks.

Only a few...

Quote from the site:

" Scammer & Blackmailer 
& He is Back Scamming Again 12-01-06
Thomas Van Riper..
address: 6811 Creek Road # 1,
Chittenango, NY 13037

or  this  address
Tom Van Riper
105 S. Berkey Drive
Chittenango NY 13037
unclejohnsband 
unclejohnsband 


He went by the name "lohnlennon" on an auction site,
Recently but he got banned from there.

Also Has a Young Nephew That's Around On The Boards
& Is Just About As Bad As His Uncle Is


email names: tomvanriper@yahoo.com

and unclejohnsband2k3@yahoo.com.

He offers to trade you high grade Canadian buds for pain killers, 
you send him the pain killers & he never sends you the buds, &
then he try's to blackmail you that if you do NOT send him more
pain killers he will turn you in for mailing narcotic pain meds with
out a prescription!  "

This should have being dug up BEFORE people brought FPGAs.

Well.. finally making progress on my chargebacks no thanks to Thomas McScam

Have two paper checks FINALLY being ripped and sent via mail...

Opt'd to keep a negative balance on one card and just use that one more..

Thanks for all the hassle Tom McFuckFace!

What are you talking about? Last I heard, 100% of credit card orders were refunded a long time ago.

I went the chargeback route the day after the drunken shit hit the fan..

Ugh oh! He's been drinking again!

no I'm sure his communication was "compromised".. theymos will be round shortly to clean up the mess.

Lets see what happens today, i haven't received any BTC at the moment.
But anyway, the scammer tag should have been given to him and be removed when and if all the refunds are finished  :)

GOOD MORNING, BITCOINERS!

http://melgibstein.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/vietnam.jpg

It's Friday! And we all know what happens on Friday, don't we boys and girls. That's right! We play the game "Who gets a refund, and who doesn't".

If you recall, last week I didn't send out any refunds because I had to pay two big investors. But that won't be the case this week, for I've had all week to come up with another story. You'll goin' love this one.

Stay tuned! I'll be back later today after me and my hungry family raid the refrigerator. During the interim, please don't read too much into my word choice--raid.

Another week and no word of refunds.  Can we close the books on this now?

Hold your horses there, bud! Can't you see the refrigerator light's still on 'cause the door's still open? The family's still eating. If we've learnt anything, Tom works best with a full belly and cold beer when at his desk. If it were NASCAR season, you'd then have reason for concern.

::)

And you don't deserve to hold other's funds that's been proven you still have.

Has it been proven that cablepair is holding the money?

There are still many ppl waiting on a refund.
And if you take into account his own post it seems fishy he posted  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137876.msg1562513#msg1562513 where he states he sold at 15 dollar price. and if you go back to his forum the one he took down right after i posted his post over here he stated refunds will be issued starting today https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140472.msg1562507#msg1562507 he would of only had to buy back in at the 16-18 dollar range. thats from his post not mine noone else so hes proving hes a scammer by holding on to the btc and issuseing when he feels like it. I belive if a man says somthing he is to be held to that and nothing less.

since he is not paying out refunds on fridays, as he promised himself, it is proven that he is holding on to it

Or at the very least some nearby bartender is.

What's more likely is that one sizable portion of the money has gone to :

• the rent for the place where bASICs were supposed to be tested, packaged and shipped from,
• employees salary (at least Dave)
• chip design and prototype

Tom has claimed to have invested some of his own money in this.
He said recently that he was using BTC from his own mining operation to refund people.

This makes me think that the money he invested was most probably less than the aggregated costs above.

But anyway, what's more likely:

• he sits on a pile of BTC that skyrocketed since preorders which he could use to refund everyone right now at the current USD value and keep the rest but choose to keep all of it and wait for jailtime?
• he doesn't have enough cash to refund anyone at this time and is still in panic mode?

But what I believe or what you believe is still speculation and will get nowhere.

The only thing people can do is ask for an independent audit of Tom's books to find out for sure if he profited from this or not. If he did and doesn't refund everyone he is in deep shit, if he didn't and doesn't refund, remaining customers are in this shit with him and they (in fact "we": I have 2 bASIC01 pre-orders) lost their money without recourse (lookup how debts are handled when a business fails if you still believe in Santa Claus).

Has it been PROVEN that he is NOT a scammer?

NOPE!  How long are you going to slow roll and drag this out?  Anyone else pulling shit like this would be tagged almost 2 months ago already...

I just don't see why the burden of proof is always to get a scammer tag installed instead of getting it removed.  It is not like it is a permanent fixture.

Cablepair/Tom always said that everyone will be refunded.

Also i think the way his refunds are done is scammy, he is refunding some customers to the full, and other customers wait for a cent.

Also he does not answer to emails, no answer like: You will get a refund.... or an answer like: You wont get a refund.

I actually did not receive any email of himself this year, just Daves.

Then stringing along the customers, saying he has some prototype chips in december etc....

Also I heard that using pre order money for funding r&d of a product is not allowed in the US? Where are the funds?

Theymos... I start disbelieving in this forum totally, newbie angry nerds everywhere, and now you start to cover cp?


TOM WHERE IS MY REFUND?!!!

I scammer-tagged him.

Probably makes zero difference to him.  He's done with this board - he's a millionaire now.

Thank you theymos.

Theymos, what will you be doing with your piece of the pie? (I.e. the revenue from the bASIC-scam adverts on this forum.)

How much did he spend on advertising here anyway?


What a shame, pray this verdict will serve to deter those who would do the same.

Faith in bitcointalk.org restored.

??  Get a scammer tag on here in exchange for becoming filthy rich?

Where is the deterrence?

Based on his last post, he intends to continue selling FPGAs.  I believe there's some value in trying to make potential FPGA customers aware of the bASIC clusterfuck.  Tom may be done with this board, but perhaps his being scammer-tagged will make newbies less inclined to deal with him.

Yes. Exactly. Where indeed?

Thanks.. 

At least this is something.   :-\

Do you have proof of this?  Blockchain analysis?

Following the bitcoins: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135301.msg1451578#msg1451578

Seriously now...what sense does that make? If three months down the road you want to start a business and advertises yet thermos goes "fu, i don't trust you, you can't buy advertising here" what are you going to say?

Can't have it both ways simultaneously, this isn't quantum physics. Either open and open or else nazi and nazi.

Well, this exactly. How would theymos know in advance that bASIC would turn out to be a scam?

Agree.

For what it's worth, I was refunded.

Likewise.  http://blockexplorer.com/tx/81da3b502bd33604fed6b5d289d3856c189c8ddb31184615d12a41d83f386459#o0

This is a friendly bump. Good luck, Tom!

Later, bud.

~Bruno K~

I confirm too. Tom has rounded down all BTC amounts refunded lately (for me 0.15 BTC) but it's less important.

However, there are still some things to be explained, especially (1) the lack of proofs of what was done to construct bASIC and (2) Can-Electric hoax.

Anyone get any "Friday Love" from Tommy yet?

Nope still ...

waiting on BTC from mr. T

waiting on BFL

waiting on DHL

waiting...

mee too.
i'm still waiting for my refund from Thomas Van Riper (alias cablepair)!!!

Order ID: #466  Refunded 2/22/13   $1099.99
Order ID: #1590 Refunded 3/29/13  $1099.99

I emailed cablepair at btcfpga@gmail.com on 3/28/13 asking about my 2nd refund and he paid me my 2nd refund on 3/29/13.

Update Cablepair has paid me back in full !!

I never believed Tom was a scammer for the record.

Now Pirate is a different story... NO ONE WAS EVER PAID 1 BTC BACK!!!
Thank You Cablepair!

Also got my refund today, not an april fools' joke.

Guys, I got repaid in full today.

$4,300.  Settled.  I hope that you all are made whole.  God Bless Tom and his family.

got my refund today

damn you exchange rate.

also guys I'd mail Tom just to make sure your on the list

Nice to know that he's working on repayment :)

You go Cablepair!

The increasing value of bitcoins allows for paying back many USD denominated loans and general debts. If even Trendon were to agree to pay the USD value of the coins he stole, he could completely pay everyone back right now and still be rich.

Also just got mine.

Thank you Tom!!  :)

I emailed him earlier today and was refunded within hours. Yay!

That's only assuming he hadn't sold the coins so far. Wouldn't be surprised if he had been selling the coins when they were worth $10-12.

From what I've heard it seems like Tom is making a serious effort to repay all who were involved.

Tom repaid me BTC today.

So we good.

still owed .8 btc for one oreder and he hasnt even tried to repay second

Still waiting for my refund as well as for answers to my last 2 emails.

edit: email response received

Order # 2035 Paid in full
Thank you Tom

I received an email from Tom and a refund yesterday. 

So I am paid back in full, based on yesterdays BTC/USD rates.  My order # is 1794.

Hang in there guys, I think he will get to everyone eventually.

My order #76x was refunded in full today.

I was refunded in full today. Tom is not a scammer and never was in my opinion.

Nice way of getting free loans, scam a bunch of idiots (like yourself), repay a year later, all is good.

Wake up dummy. He's still lied abjectly. He still defrauded customers and investors alike. Paying back does not change the past. Grow a little self respect.

True but he could've run like all the others ....

This was said a billion times before your account was even created. MtGox, MyBitcoin, etc etc. Each time it's "you haven't heard the last of us! We're a smart and evolving community!". Two days later, someone on the lending subforums is bumping a thread "Are you still going to pay me back? Hello?".

I told the entire community* that I'd pay a million dollars if I lost a bet (without even using escrow) and hundreds of people not only believed it, but made their financial plans around it. This community is not as wise as you think it is. Just wait until the Nigerian scammers find out about these forums. In fact, I wonder if it'd be a good idea to speed up evolution and just let them know right now.


*I know this was an idiotic asshole thing to do and I've been paying for it ever since.

Isn't about the time to untag Tom?

I think we should first wait for the following to happen before we can start talking about removing the scammer tag:
- first every single order to be refunded
- full explanation about refund delay from January until March
- full explanation about what went wrong with bASIC project
- full explanation about the CAN-ELECTRIC scam
- what happened with all ASICs ... if they ever existed ...

+1

He asked me to reply to this thread that i would have received a refund, while i have not.
Shortly after that e-mail he sent me a bogus transaction confirmation, with wrong to address etc.

After a while he e-mailed me that he needs to find my order asking AGAIN for order information.
So looks to me like he simply replied refunded hoping i take the bait :(

I hope i'll be seeing the refund tho.

Finally, Got my Refund today, Thanks Tom!

Fully refunded today..

Also posted in the refund list
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152980.msg1917788#msg1917788

Does anyone still have claims against cablepair? If not, I will remove his scammer tag.

There's still a lot of unanswered stuff... (scam from the beginning, how far along where the asics, the lies, the drunken rants, the can-electric saga...) Don't you think it's a little early to remove the tag?

yes there are still claims against him he still ows me .8 btc and for order 200 that he says isnt mine but oo well hes a low life in my book guess it should just be written off plus alot of ? unanswered

Hi @ all

I've just got a my full refund.
So Tom IS NOT a Scammer!

Best

Many scammers are caught by law enforcement, given judgements of large amounts of money, and forced to pay by the courts. Are they no longer scammers because they paid? Are murderers no longer murderers because they served jail time?

I'm still waiting for my refund. For me it's a scam and Tom is a scammer.

Don't see how this is relevant. Nobody forced Tom to refund. Seems people like a good witch hunt...

That depends on the society you live in. If they served their sentence they are legally free .... and Scamming money isn't like killing somebody.
You yourself would be considered a scammer (forever) then to? ;)
(You are trying to do kind of the same with the silly bet you made)

He could've run like a pirate .... but somehow he didn't. That deserves some kind of acknowledgment?!

I never took anyone's money and my bet was a prank to fuck with people I had considered annoying at the time (I know, a horrible thing to do and extremely poorly thought out).



Or it just means he might have been caught and realized he couldn't get away with it (death threats, etc). We don't know. I guess the previous poster asking for answers to questions is right on target.

I know and i (until today) do not understand why someone took you serious with it..... I'm going so far to say that i think a scammers tag would not be the right "Title".... but you put that burden on yourself (OK i didn't have a stake in this bet.... maybe if i would my judgement were different?!).....

But thats derailing the thread!

AT least people are getting their money back! 


You are right, it doesn't make him a better person! But he, like you or any other person around here isn't without flaws and can produce major fuckups. Same goes for criminals in general....

Actually i would like to know what happened! Tom if you are lurking (and you are) how about some public explanation?

Pirate got away really easy...
BFL gets "away" on a daily basis...
... and so on ...

This is BITCION :D

me too!

order no #230* and #2338 are not refunded yet.

since a few weeks i can´t login at btcfpga.com
so i can't even see the "Status: Refund Requested"

 :'(

anyone know whatever became of cablepair and btcfpga.com?

I fool heartedly got into an email convo with the poster of this CL ad:

 http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/bar/3758244601.html

last night and was sent a custom coinbase checkout link to send them 1BTC for this item... of course today there is absolutely no response to multiple emials asking about shipment.

You should have reported it the second you saw it. Any craigslist ads asking for money up front (including bitcoin) is a scam.

So this tom/cablepair guy has videos of these little "mod miner quads" all over youtube. is he just making fake props and showing fake stats on the screen? I mean what the fuck? The shit that people come up with.

no the mod miner quads are real is was his asci advantures that failed

You sure weren't in a conversation with cablepair, you were in a conversation with a west coast scammer who successfully scammed you.

The ModMiner Quad units are going for around $1500 or more on eBay.  Anyone selling them for $110 or so is a pure scammer.  Especially when they accept your bitcoin without meeting up and showing you the device.  You deal in cash, in person, with Craigslist.


Nope.  The ModMiner Quads are totally real (I have a few), but they're a lot more expensive than what was listed on Craigslist.

Thanks for the info... I guess I learned my lesson the hard way.
My apologies to tom/cablepair for jumping the gun on my assumptions; was going off of reviews I'd seen here and other places.

which guy
cablepair of this forum is not the craiglist person of the previous posting
this thread was about ASIC's
if you have an issue make a new post in a new thread and delete this message

Just wanted to let you guys know that Tom still owes me $580 for order number 1841 on btcfpga, paid in bitcoin. Never got a response when requesting refund earlier this year. Are some people receiving refunds now? How can I contact Tom?