Bitcoin Forum

Disclaimer: I'm not a legal expert or qualified to give any kind of legal advice. And I'm not giving legal advice. Anything I say should be assumed to be just second hand information or an opinion. Therefore, anything I say about legal issues could be wrong.

ALL that have lost money and/or property to bASIC/BitcoinASIC:
I wanted to start this thread so that people can organize in one place to respond effectively to the business fiasco associated with Tom Van Riper's business. I'm not volunteering to represent the thread here or with any lawyers etc... but I am tired of seeing a lot of waiting and talking about what to do.

In this thread, I'd like to initiate suggested discussions towards a possible legal course of action, and perhaps actual legal action. It seems to me, that the best initial action would be to find a lawyer for consultation. And it can be discussed how to collectively pay for this lawyer, but being careful on how that would be accomplished.

So, let's discuss what needs to be discussed first. And maybe those that lost property can achieve the first step by getting a lawyer to speak with. I will propose four topics to resolve. Anyone can provide ideas for discussion, but let's keep it on task with what will help achieve the end goal - i.e. each person being compensated for property that was taken. If anyone, that has been around the forum for some time, wants to take lead on contacting a lawyer after the discussion, that would be great.

Discussion suggestions:
(1) Who here has an interest in this?
Update: Poll indicates at least 98 persons.

(2) What is the estimated collective amount of the claims, or how to determine this? (a lawyer would probably want to know this)
Update: Poll indicates at least $825,600 taken.

(3) What kinds of evidence is there? {emails, screenshots, forum discussions, phone records, credit card reports..etc..}

(4) Where/how should a good lawyer be found.
     a. Should the lawyer be in the general area of Tom's residence/place of business?
     b. List online or other suggestions, and discuss each merits.
     c. Who will contact the lawyer, and how can we collectively pay for the lawyer?
     d. Can a large conference call be held?
[Update: Progress coming. Stay tuned.]

New topic recommended from the thread:
(5) Are there any other (better or not) ways of settling this in a different way ? What I'm thinking of:
- simply someone to talk to Tom on behalf of the group and see what's really happening
- an agency for consumer protection or something like this (small claims court ? )
- debt collection company
- private investigator/debt collector


I have no idea where this will go. My guess is that it will turn into a kluge, and simply flame out. And if it does, then we can all just sit back and forget about it. So, for now, we can at least gauge the interest in a course of action.

||bit

I started the scammer thread, so yes, I'm interested in this. Possible problems/issues: I'm not from the US & I don't know the legal situation there... So if possible, I need a proxy in the US I think :)

Same here. I'm interested in not let Tom go away with this scam. But as I'm in EU my personal and legal options are quite limited.

Due to similar limitations, I likewise may have trouble pursuing legal recourse, but I fully support this initiative and would be glad to render assistance in any way I can.

I as well being in EU find it difficult to properly get to US legal system. In my opinion, Tom is actually counting on this and I think most of us know we won't get our money back therefore a hitman would better suit, not a lawyer. You can imagine we didn't expected this to happen and in my case I also convinced two friends to join this shit hole and in total we had lost around 17K so you'd imagine if opportunity arrives maybe we won't wait for karma to do justice and fast forward ourselves, maybe not today, not in a month, but you never know. All who pursue legal case, although I wish them luck, I think will also encounter difficulties draining the money from an empty safe.

With 17k it makes sense to visit Tom and convince him to pay back your bitcoins. I think chances are much better with a personal approach than using the legal system. It's much harder to deny refund to an angry person in front of you than to somebody that is far away. Maybe a bounty on Tom's head is the right way to go?!

+1

EDIT:
How much is the support by a local MC  ;D ;)
I will contribute 30$+ to a fund

I have some legal training in the US, I am more than willing to help canvas lawyers for you guys, Tom is a Scammer and should be brought to justice.

This said finding a lawyer to deal with this case will be difficult.

The Case that will help us all is a international case tho, from I think Holland where a judge rules that WoW gold (a digital currency) has real world monetary value, after some school yard bullies beat up a kid after school for his account.

Ideally we need to file this where the majority of the fraud happened, eg. Where Tom's home is or Place of business. Unless we have a majority of users that all lived in one Metro area, (like NYC or Dallas or somewhere).

Another idea might be to see if anyone with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a bit coiner, and see if we can get them involved as this would be ground breaking and new case law. Fhe biggest foreseeable issue is showing to a judge to award damaged that any Bitcoin, transactions we did with Tom have actual real world value.

Not sure what legal recourse will yield, but we should check it out... I have access to free consultation (limited) via work program, I'll report back regarding suggestions make...

I really like the idea of taking to Tom in person, just blows my mind that he's said nothing (again, waiting for this to go away) regarding the outstanding refunds.

hi,

if there is any coordinated action from EU citizens against BTCFPGA I will participate on it. Order #1438, $8,589, paid via wire transfer, no refund yet. I ran out of patience.

thanks,
 

From Europe, too. 3.3 k$ via mtgoxusdcode/btc. Damn, that rabbit hole is getting deeper. Count me in for any legal action, if possible from the EU.

Hi,

I will also participate if there is any coordinated action from EU citizens against BTCFPGA. Anyone from The Netherlands?

1x $1099 CC and 2x $629 BTC.

Regards,

Bart

When calculating please remember these are bitcoins transacted when the value was much different, if those were still held in bitcoin now the value will be substantially higher.  Impossible for us to know of course? (Edit: Unless this were to come out in a trial, the damages could be substantially higher)

My understanding is that Tom never converted our BTC into USD, therefore we should get our entire BTC back, not some conversion where Tom profits from the jump in price vs USD.

Not sure where this would go legally (I assume the authorities don't recognize BTC) but for the record:
I paid
for order #945 88.87 BTC
             # 1375 91.8902 BTC
             # 1480 93.3898 BTC
            # 2090 90.22 BTC
TOTAL PAID = 364.37 BTC

I was only refunded 311.612 BTC so my refund was short 52.758BTC.

(I know, I know, I thank my lucky stars I got anything back!!!)  But Tom *does* owe me 52.758BTC, I could care less what that's worth in USD, I simply want the rest of the BTC I sent back, since he held it and didn't convert it, that's only fair.

You guys only asking for the USD value, at the point of refund request or whenever, are shortchanging yourselves and the rest of us. Not to mention, it validates Tom's stealing our BTC from us!   (For the record, if BTC value dropped, I would still only expect back what I sent him, not something based on an exchange rate).  USD is collapsing at an accelerated pace and has been for a long time.

when did you request your refund? if after Jan 20th, i just got super pissed off... (lucky for you though, which is awesome)

Don't be pissed off.. I was one of the first to ask for a refund (I requested it on Jan 7, just prior to the shitstorm which I anticipated).

I remember just pondering that drunken "asian benefactors" email, asking myself if I'm not falling for a scammer, then a sudden burst of realization, and 5 minutes later I was and asking for my btc back.

When I posted about it, some of Tom's other "customers" accused of panicking over nothing, that relax, I'll get my money etc. I haven't heard anything out of those peeps since.  I believe the only reason I got BTC back was Dave & LukasBradley convinced Tom, as per that epic update.  That they had to "convince" Tom to execute BTC refunds that day, should say everything, for you guys still waiting to get anything back.

I'm not complaining about the 52+ BTC so hard since I know there are many others more screwed than I.  Still, I want the rest of my BTC back and Tom can expect me to hound him for it until I have it.  I don't care if BTC is $10,000 USD at that point... he owes me 52.758BTC..

Thanks. Those sound like some good ideas.

Thanks for offering to do some canvasing. Please do so, and let us know if you find someone promising. The most I looked were around Fulton New York. One lawyer I saw seemed promising, but I noticed he was a defense lawyer.

Any victims of this that are stateside, and interested, let us know your metropolitan area. I might post a new survey above to screen for members in metro areas soon.

About the EFF. Wouldn't it be easy to prove to a judge that bitcoin has real value by showing the historical price & trade volume on MtGox? Never-the-less, if anyone is a member, let us know so that can be considered.

||bit

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=138866.0

One shiny BTC should get a comprehensive report at the current BTC price. It might be worthwhile to also look into BTCFPGA and see if it's an LLC, and if Tom controls any other companies with formal registrations.

Thanks Teal. This might be helpful. Still monitoring for interest first. Looks like a lot of lurkers considering the poll numbers.

||bit

Hopefully something gets done, though I'm not sure how much there is to recover. I'm only out about $100 on currency conversion fees for my CC order, but as someone who was pretty active around BTCFPGA I feel bad for everyone that lost their BTC in this sinkhole.

This could actually be a pretty important legal precedent for BTC if someone does sue Tom, as it's a relatively straightforward case. Tom agreed to sell a physical product denominated in USD, and accepted BTC as a payment method. He never delivered, and hasn't refunded the money or responded to request to. Everyone would have to accept that any judgement would probably be in USD, but given the low burden of proof in small claims court I'd be surprised if a judge didn't give a judgement against Tom.

Thanks. Where are you located if you don't mind answering? or Are you located in New York or near there?

||bit

Im interested in this and I also live in EU.
He owes me $1099+$60 for dhl upgrade (i paid him ~95, i expect BTC at the btcusd rate of the day i requested refound and so i want 81.9 BTC back minimum).

If it comes down to it, his bitcoin wallet will serve as evidence of if/when he traded bitcoins sent to him. I'd bet that a lawyer will push to argue that Tom pays any gains to victims if he is still holding them in any other wallets.

Maybe BFL will subsidize a lawyer. Since many of those funds recovered may turn around to purchasing BFL products.  :D

||bit

1) Very interested, I have about $3300 invested. I'm from EU as well.

Would be interested in a percentage deal as well (debt collectors with commission only in case of success).

2) I think it's enough if we just add the poll numbers/claims in posts as a first step.

3) Evidence will consist mainly of emails, I have the site pages saved, but they were probably modified in the meantime.


I believe you should update your first post as we go on, or maybe we could use a wiki or so to centralize all answers/actions.

I also believe there should  a section:

5) Are there any other (better or not) ways of settling this in a different way ? What I'm thinking of:
- simply someone to talk to Tom on behalf of the group and see what's really happening
- an agency for consumer protection or something like this (small claims court ? )
- debt collection company
- private investigator/debt collector

Anyone from BFL:
Consider contributing to any legal cost's. Likely many of those that would recover funds will purchase your products.
So far, the poll indicates more than $300,000 in losses. Not a trivial amount.

||bit

I'll update the post, but no guarantee's on an continual accurate update.

||bit

Have no idea what would come of this but...
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Edit: I think people who have lost wire transfer should 100% pursue this course of action.

8 people also chose $22,000 when that was the largest option.  ::)

Here are some possible legal actions:


1.) Contact a lawyer and get him to file against Tom Van Riper a.k.a Cablepair
2.) Gather the funds to have him served with papers
3.) Begin the legal process to shut him down.
3a.) As a part of this process have your lawyers contact his known sources of potential forms of income (i.e Bitcoin, BTCGuild ((other mining pools)) MtGox) to freeze his accounts until the legal matter is resolved as it may involve them if he continues to operate using their services.
3b.) Have your lawyers freeze any of his assets and if appropriate have him deemed a flight risk based on his actions thus far.

Right. That is why I added the greater than option. I was surprised there were that many at $22k. It's possible one or more could be a kind of  wiseguy just picking the highest number, but I left it open. At least we can get an idea on the magnitude. Even without those high numbers the losses among the less questionable are about $150k. And this is possibly the tip of an iceberg. Afterall, to the best of my recollection, Tom said he had something like a thousand or more refunds to process.

||bit

Tom owes me $2,759.97. (2 full bASICs and 1 half bASIC)

I do have screenshots of the Bitpay payments made to BTCFPGA.

I have my pitchfork and torch ready to go.

Remember $300k seems small.... when price of BTC was 7-10

If the full amount was paid in BTC, hes pocketing $600-700k from this.

$1100, but bitcoin price at that moment was around $11, so much more.

Anyone with some sense of what is needed from a lawyer, feel free to search for possible lawyers (online) in any nearby cities. A couple persons in the thread are already looking. But more eyes searching for possibilities won't hurt. For example: Starting looking in Fulton. Then some relatively near cities like Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, and New York City.

Or other nearby locations:
http://goo.gl/maps/yQiiG (http://goo.gl/maps/yQiiG)

Seems to me there has to be a lawyer somewhere in New York.  :P

Outside New York seems possible, since property was traded across state and international borders. So, it seems it could be a federal case, if any.

||bit

I am in Canada.

I ordered 1 x $1099 unit for 103.8785 btc (ouch).

I have a screenshot of my invoice with payment address.

Tom owes me more than $100K. I have a signed contract (which has not been respected) and I paid through a wire transfer. I live in EU.

what would /bitcointalk like me to ask my attorney? please be SPECIFIC! rep said, i'll be receiving a call within 24hrs (...as of 4PM MST)

naturally i have my own questions which will aid in our cause, but help me, help you (guys)


what other q's might he ask that i should know answer to? business name, LLC, city Tom/business resides in, associates, etc???

Simple......
Even for people in Europe... report it as a case of "money laundering", seems these are the words that wake banks/police Authorities up.
Please stop using the words "scammer" and start using the words  "money laundering", Google will soon pick it up.

Bokai  ::)

I can't believe it.

I just received the wire transfer from Thomas on my bank account.

So he isn't a liar.

However he never showed me any evidence he would have done it. No bank orders, nothing at all. And he stopped answering all my emails.

I already alerted half the world for this.

Now I was about to go to sleep, when I checked the account, like a ritual (in these days I did it so many times...) and ... SURPRISE. The money is there.

So I apologize with Tom to have called him a liar. However his communication was really poor and I didn't have any clue about what was happening. It seems that the wire transfer took 2 weeks to arrive.

There is still hope that you will see your money refunded.

I will write it in a new topic, so it will be more visible to everyone.

@Agath:
 

I don't intend any offense, but it sounds very scammy to hear you post that you suddenly received a refund when a thread about taking legal recourse against Tom has gained traction. If he intended to give back the money he has taken from the community, he best be more transparent about it before his financial life is ruined with legal troubles. Providing you with a refund but not corresponding before doing so is not an acceptable way to do business. It is even less acceptable when a good portion of this community has contacted him and asked him for a refund, yet they have received neither conformation of their requests or a refund. While your luck is note worthy, it is most definitely not a sign that Tom is prepared to return the money to the people who paid him in good faith. He obviously need to help to pay it back the BTC / Wire Transfers and the only way that is seemly going to happen is if it is forced upon him through legal recourse

Class action lawsuit would have to be for ALL US clients, meaning we need I think its 70%, (I think its 70%, and i forget if this is number of people or $$$)

EFF Loves to do Ground breaking Litigation and BTC is ground breaking.

Even if we win litigation in the US against him it might not be enforceable if his funds are not in an US institution, but we could seriously make his life Difficult, to use financial institutions.

Also Damages CAN NOT BE IN BTC WE MUST USE USD DAMAGES, BASED ON THE CONVERSION RATE or TRADE IN VALUE AT THE TIME OF FRAUD.... Not Today's Current MTGox Values. Or will be laughed out of court. 

We Collectively need to stop referring to the BTC we lost, and instead use the real world value in USD of our damages.

Agath, god you fail so badly.

What a coincidence...neither can we. ::)

Thanks Evans.

How could the EFF help exactly? Would their services be pro bono?

Explain what you mean about the all US clients part? Seems there should also be a way in this to compensate non US persons. I wouldn't want to see half of the clients left out.

About BTC only, it seems to me that if Tom never sold the bitcoins, AND if bitcoins are referred to it as simply "property", then it might be no different than saying Tom has accepted any kind of  property, and that he would have to return the property. But you might be right, and the point is noted.

In either case, we still need a lawyer to consult directly with to describe the options and define a pathway. Did you have a chance to do any canvassing?


BTW: there is a poster in this thread that will get a free legal consultation. He is asking for questions he can ask during the consultation. If you have the chance, consider what questions he can ask and post them here if you have time.

Thanks again.

||bit

No. The products were priced in USD, BTC was simply used as way of transferring funds.  Tom owes us USD, although it can be repaid with BTC.

mhe I feel that i paid in btc he chose to convert it to usd not me he owes me the btc that was sent.

Thanks. If it's true, then that is good for you. But until Tom comes out publicly and defines an acceptable/reasonable plan to pay everyone of the people he took property from, then this thread will remain.
And the topic discussed is regarding a legal response to Tom's business fiasco.

||bit

The product was priced in USD. You did not have to pay him in BTC. If he took BTC from people, and turned them into USD, then payback will almost certainly be in USD.

My opinion  :-\ is that if it can be proven that he never converted the BTC to USD, then there might be another argument there to recover original BTC.
BUT unless that is discovered in the legal process, then plaintiffs (victims making charges against bASIC) probably can't initially ask for BTC. Unless, maybe it can be described & determined as "property" meant for exchange, or as some other kind of legalese. But if some paid in dollars and others in BTC, then this could become an administrative headache. So, to keep the lawyer sane, it might need to be simplified (e.g. everyone claims USD). Afterall, there are already about 80 people that have taken the poll that they have a claim against bASIC.

||bit

You chose to convert your money to USD the moment you purchased something priced in USD.  bASIC was advertising $1069 ASICs, not XX BTC ASICs.  If you want to continue this discussion, take it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137026.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137026.0)

What dust wrote is correct.

What you 'feel' is not legally relevant.

well i might be in a differnt boat as a traded a 100 btc bar for a preorder not btc itself.

That thread is about BFL, who from the beginning stated they were using bitpay AND having all the BTC converted.  We're talking about a scam, bASIC, and there's no reason Tom should pocket any fraction of the BTC people sent, just because the price of it went up.  It wasn't converted.

Where's proof of this?

I suggested earlier, if this goes legal, then a discovery may reveal that a conversion was never made. This should be traceable since the wallet ID you sent your funds to was recorded at purchase time.
If the discovery is made, then that is the only case where I can imagine people getting back their original BTC - and that is still only my speculation.

Otherwise, the price on the website was in USD, and nobody was forced to use BTC to make the purchase. Therefore, you get back the value in USD.

In the BFL scenario, it's true that BFL used Bitpay as a middle man exchange. However, in the case with bASIC, Tom acted in the same way as Bitpay. He would only have needed to do an immediate conversion by an exchange on receipt of the BTC.

||bit

http://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field

They will ask you a number of questions and take down you information and provide you with a phone number. Sometimes they will provide you with a number to the field agent in charge (or assigned) to your case.

Use it only as a last resort. Exhaust all options _first_ before using this one.

P.S. Keep in mind, depending on the nature of your [stated] case, they may send someone first and if there is something worthwhile they may perform a search and seizure of property. That may actually work against you in some ways, so keep that in mind.

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

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


Get help Tom, you're drunk again.

I repeat that I am not Tom, and I am quite well known on IRC (freenode) since before the whole BTCFPGA thing. I opened this thread because I promised to leave a feedback on the forums after I received the funds. Who knows me can confirm it.

I don't hide that I became more than concerned, if not scared, until last night. I hope Tom will refund everyone, he proved to me that he is not a liar.

You might think so, but the reality of the matter is that I am agath, well known IRC person superstar extraordinaire.  >:( So is the poster six posts above. Also the one 19 posts below.

I think that this behaviour says much about the bitcoin community, and anyway I take this as an experience on how to deal with it, for my future projects.

Writing here, I just kept the promise I made to Tom, and I really don't gain nor lose anything whether you (and all the others) believe me or not.

I would be sad if Tom will not honor his word with you as he did with me. I am afraid that if you are so aggressive, you only make things worse.

In my opinion it's better to try to understand his situation, try to re-establish communication, and work with him on a plan that allows him to refund everyone.

That plan has been brought to his attention several times. It's called the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Unfortunately, Tom communicates only with new users, that just appear, get a full refund and then maybe disapear. Things start to change when the first long term users start to post their refund transactions. However I don't think there will be any BTC refund without someone to convince Tom that he cannot keep the scammed bitcoins.

Your refund is not proof that Tom is not a liar.
Here is proof:
Everybody lies.  Tom is somebody.  Therefore, Tom is a liar.

Just because you repeat it doesn't make it true.  Send some proof.
What is your real name?
Post a childhood photo.
What is your native language?
Are you a homosexual?  Is that legal in your country?
Do you have pets?
Post a picture of one of your pets.
Post an image of your electric bill.
Is your mother disappointed in the company you keep?
What is the ultimate resolution of the Israel - Palestine conflict?

Only the real agath would know all these things.

Can you post proof of your refund? Redacted of course :)

As of now total voters 85 and total value $646,600+

 :o

@||bit `Stolen` better describes the situation. We will never see our money back but I'll say revenge will be sweater.

This is correct.

Also Damages awarded in Court are always in $ not property... eg I if i stole your car, i am not awarded by the court a car, I am awarded funds in the value of the car.

RE: EFF, If someone wanted to draft a letter to them I have a friend that was defended by them. After explaining BTC to him, and the situation, he is more than willing to pass the letter to the group he knows with in EFF.

So, sending this letter can help a lot.



Spoke to about 14 lawyers.

1 said he is interested and would be willing to sit down with me for a consult, but before the sit down; Who are ALL of the members of this lawsuit, (eg need a comprehensive list of people defrauded by Tom, and his LLC, with address, emails, phone numbers, amount in USD of the fraud, and also If we win, if they will allow BTC in lieu of USD if possible), Where is Tom's residence? Where is the LLC located?  All relative conversations to promises, and so on.

Do we know anything about Tom's bank or financial institution? If we wired funds to him this under US Law may of constituted wire fraud, and is a criminal charge. Do we desire to get the Feds involved? If we allow the Feds to go after him, this isn't going to get us any $$$ but this could make our day in court easier.



As for paying for lawyers.... We either pay based on hourly rates (somewhere between $100-250/hr) or we offer the lawyer a % of the total funds recooped.

Is anyone BTC Savey can can look at total BTC received by Tom? Can we look at this and estimate how many orders were placed?


Bit we ought to make some Google Surveys to start collecting the information.

BTW: As of right now the thread that gives me hope we can get this into a US or International court is:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094887/Dutch-teen-brutally-beaten-online-game-possessions.html

A Dutch teenager was beaten up and threatened with a knife after a row about virtual possessions in the popular online fantasy game RuneScape.

The 13-year-old boy was attacked because he 'picked up' an amulet and mask while playing, which two other teenagers wanted as well.

They kicked him and brandished a knife, while forcing him to log onto RuneScape and relinquish the objects.

Although the assault happened in 2007, and the two attackers were convicted in 2009, one of them appealed to the Dutch Supreme Court.

But the Netherlands' highest court upheld the theft conviction.

The suspect's lawyer had argued the amulet and mask 'were neither tangible nor material and, unlike for example electricity, had no economic value.'

But the Court said the virtual objects had an intrinsic value to the 13-year-old gamer because of 'the time and energy he invested' in winning them while playing the game.

Evan.
Will you private message me with your phone number. I'd like to make sure that you aren't Tom :-\. LOL! Just kidding (mostly), but I would like to discuss/know more about the lawyer, and some ways to establish a basis of trust with anyone that wants to join with a claim. There is personal info involved, and understandably, many that would want their property back won't want to disclose their identities so easily.

||bit

unfortunately there is not too many people able to handle this situation the way you described..

Around $600 owed here. ~$700 if you count the money lost in CC refunds due to bank fees.

--- Poll Closing Soon ---
Last chance to take the poll. Results so far:

About how much does bASIC owe you? (this might help estimate total property claims)
$   600    11 (11.7%)
$ 1,100    22 (23.4%)
$ 1,700    3 (3.2%)
$ 2,200    12 (12.8%)
$ 3,300    10 (10.6%)
$ 4,400    7 (7.4%)
$ 5,500    1 (1.1%)
$ 11,000    4 (4.3%)
$ 16,500    2 (2.1%)
$ 22,000    10 (10.6%)
More than $ 25,000    12 (12.8%) [Note: This choice was added about a day after the poll started]
Total Voters: 94

Total owed based on those polled to present: $728,600

||bit

is it made of wool?

Not to troll you (I do apologize in advance for the weird sounding post) but every time I see your name I think I'm seeing "NachoLibre" and a picture of Jack Black pops up in my head of him saying whatever you are posting lol.

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/34805935.jpg

Tom will find out, but yes mostly made of wool..

PuertoLibre was responding to oceans - not me.

||bit

700k, man thats a shitload of money...ouch

More now. See the updates on the original post.

||bit

Final Poll Results:

Question:    About how much does bASIC owe you? (this might help estimate total property claims)

$   600    11 (11.2%)
$ 1,100    22 (22.4%)
$ 1,700    3 (3.1%)
$ 2,200    12 (12.2%)
$ 3,300    10 (10.2%)
$ 4,400    7 (7.1%)
$ 5,500    1 (1%)
$ 11,000    4 (4.1%)
$ 16,500    2 (2%)
$ 22,000    11 (11.2%)
More than $ 25,000    15 (15.3%)    [Note: This option was added about a day after the poll began]
Total Voters: 98

Summary: Poll indicates at least $825,600 taken from at least 98 persons.

...

||bit

New poll above. For those that have property claims with bASIC. Please choose from the list where you are located in the world.
It's not entirely random. There is a reason for asking this.

Thanks!

||bit

You might want to include Oceania instead of Australia, down this side of the planet (most of the planet actually) Australia is a country that does not include New Zealand.

EDIT: Autralasia is also valid, its just not used much down here.

BTC refund received here also (for 3 units).

WOW!

Yeah, with the lack of communication, I'm surprised.  I might be pulling my "Team Tommy" shirt back out of the garbage.

It is probably because he was touched by someone sending him a wool sweater. A bit of kindness goes a mighty long way.

If he was clever and held the BTC, he made 800k USD with our interest free credit when everything is paid back.

If he is not that clever, he screwed us customers even more by refusing waiting until the exchange rate climbed to 25 USD.

It's nice to see people starting to receive BTC back.. however, looking at this whole ordeal as a whole.. he is still a scammer and a sack of shit..   

The word "scam" should not just be looked at in the sense of losing money.. but the total mismanagement, lies, deceit and incompetence that Tom orchestrated.

Have a look at the following transaction, it's the BTC 345 refund I got

http://blockchain.info/address/15c3BkjkKTxVshZaQoxFWAbCAF1MDuL8ES

Can you tell where the BTC come from?

From the daily deposit of BTC 10 (http://blockchain.info/address/199ogzBses5fcz3VhKPTu6iLybR3ZHvAKQ) I speculate this is money coming in from mining?

Everyone who annunced their work on ASIC projects got problems over problems, delays, and difficulties. BTCFPGA project included. Unfortunately, a business can go wrong. If people are receiving BTC back, it's great news.

You may say he could have managed better the situation, but I don't find correct insulting him this way.

Did u get the BTC back in the amount of BTC originally paid or ... in the USD equivilant(less btc now)?

I looked at his other post (345 BTC); he got paid the equivilant.

It's the internet

It's my opinion

Get over it

If Tom's teeth were on fire, I wouldn't even piss on his face to help put it out..

Bottoms up Tom and Team Tommy!

After dumping a huge amount yesterday, hes now wealthy enough to do refund.... hes mining to refund now.

Sweet Tommy son of the motherless goat

It goes beyond mere mismanagement.  The whole CAN-ELECTRIC hoax was outright fraud.  The fact that it was so transparent that people checked with the real company doesn't change that and neither does the current wave of refunds.

Yeah, can't forget the whole site drama-bomb too - the sympathizers and team tommy supporters have blinders on...   again - yes it is nice that BTC refunds are coming in/out.. but where were they early in Jan??  Those people could have had their coins refunded and made a nice little profit if they didn't cash out and rode the BTC value increase.. 

It seems the more discussions about legal action here on this forum, with possible (unannounced) outside actions being taken have forced Tom into finally getting shit squared away.. but the damage has already been done.. people have already been majorly screwed over with this.. intentionally or not.. people/third-parties tried and even over-extended themselves to help and assist Tom out with this situation and eventual shutdown, but his total lack of common sense and non-willingness to let people help him was 100% his fault.  His inept communication skills and apparent addiction to alcohol are huge red flags..

Even if ALL the BTC eventually gets refunded.. Tom is still a scammer, period.

Agree 100%

It will be interesting to see what comes of that. The Can Electric website is down right now coincidentally, but if there really is no affiliation and Tom decided to pick a random company and pose as them, I wouldn't be shocked to see him end up with criminal proceedings filed against him.

I'm curious if people might want to go all the way and take him out legally. If he was so tech savvy, he could have distributed the BTC funds in a few hours.

Can you imagine then if he actually had products to ship how long it may have taken to ship?

||bit

Negative.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=44399.0

Who said Tom is tech savvy?

Edit: found some more:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63638.0

That one is even better, he got "hacked" and lost 400 BTC. Linking back to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21325.0

Last word from Ari was that it was being investigated by the RCMP.  If no-one actually fell for it, I'm not sure how seriously attempted fraud would be regarded.  There are no doubt a ton of US laws which were technically broken, but not every crime gets prosecuted.

It's likely that investors were also lied to and they may decide to take action even if all customers are refunded.

Just checking in because I received 72 BTC from Tom.

I had one 54 GH/s unit and one 27 GH/s unit both paid with BTC (150 BTC paid total). Seems like the price was calculated around 24 $/BTC.

https://i.imgur.com/5Gw7nKQ.png

good on you mate. what was your order #?

Gleanable from places in the forums & outside. Here are a couple outside:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110203011330/http://sites.google.com/site/votevanriper/ (http://web.archive.org/web/20110203011330/http://sites.google.com/site/votevanriper/)

http://www.satoshisuperstars.com/cablepair/ (http://www.satoshisuperstars.com/cablepair/)

But I'm really making more out of it by saying this, because it wouldn't require a lot of tech savvy to prepare a list of your customers and how much is owed. Then simply entering in the amount in your bitcoin wallet and clicking send. And it might be nice if you send an email to said person you sent bitcoins to to let them know.

I don't hate Tom. He is even redeemable. I just don't like his business practice. Makes past BFL, as many perceived it in it's earlier days, seem world class.

||bit

Something I'd like to know for sure is, can BTC sent to a unique wallet address be traced thereafter, and determined to have been exchanged for cash on a big exchanges (e.g. MtGox)?
Any BTC tech aficionados care to take a swing at answering that, at least in theory?

My guess is that only a subsequent change in wallet address can be detected. But not any type of transaction taking place. I'm not familiar with how the MtGox process works exactly.

||bit

I have received my refund.

I paid BTC 372,2799 and received a refund of BTC 138... I'm glad I got something back... I still consider Tom to be a scammer though.

scammer in what sense? it seems he is starting to refund BTCs

No communication, lies, deceit, stories of 'hacked' accounts, CAN-Electric, drunken rants, ...

Let's wait until everyone's been refunded before we get too excited.  I don't think we've had one of these clusterfucks yet where every single person has got back everything they were owed, although we've had several where many people got partial payments or some people got paid and others didn't.

Hi,

Some time reading this forum, although I had not registered as my written English is not good. Although I read perfectly. I'm in Europe and I have not refunded anything. I paid a total of 189.7048 BTC. I made 3 orders and request a refund on the night of 13 to 14 January.


- BASIC01 + Flat Shipping Rate
2012/10/22

- DHLSHIP
2012/10/23

- BASIC01 + Flat Shipping Rate
2012/11/23

+ 1

I suspect most refunds were made to those located in US. Thats because legally ;) there's little to be done for the non-US victims. I wish Tom the ripper would realize this offers him no protection.

Wrong, I'm based in Belgium

Tom is working his way down on the list he got from Dave with all the BTC refunds. He is refunding bigger and smaller BTC amounts

Same here :)

I suspected but may have been wrong. Many still haven't received the refund yet.

I had two: 3XX and 16XX. I'm presuming both were refunded.

I'm not based in the US, either.

I got no interest in this discussion, since I wasnt a customer. But has anyone ever seen this man in person?

What was your order number, or if you don't want to say, maybe approximate it.
e.g. If it was Order# 123, you could type 12x, or worse 1xx.

Let's see if there is a trend.

||bit

Same request:

What was your order number, or if you don't want to say, maybe approximate it.
e.g. If it was Order# 123, you could type 12x, or worse 1xx.

Let's see if there is a trend.

||bit

Final Poll Results:
Locations of those that have property owed from bASIC:

USA (outside New York state)    11 (23.4%)
USA (inside New York state)    2 (4.3%)
Canada    10 (21.3%)
Europe    21 (44.7%)
Central or South America    1 (2.1%)
Oceania    1 (2.1%)
Asia    1 (2.1%)
Africa    0 (0%)
Total Voters: 47

||bit

Still awaiting a refund on orders #894 and #1638.
Originally paid approximately 250 BTC.  Have screenshots of the Bitpay page where payment was confirmed.
I live in northern Virginia. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to speed up the refund process.

It's encouraging that some appear to be getting refunds all the sudden, but I'm not convinced this means all will get a refund. There are too many questionable issues with his business fiasco, and to pretend this is the beginning of a full refunds process might set up a loss of time and create apathy among those still owed.

If/when it comes down to it, it will likely go like this: A lawyer accepts the case (that so far appears to be easy - no further comment there at this time). Then receipts and contact info are collected from people in a private invitation only forum (not this forum). However, to get invited to the private forum, it has been considered to briefly screen every claimant on phone to verify that they are who they say they are. This is simply to mitigate anyone from sabotaging the case somehow. Even though I think it would be difficult to sabotage, since it appears to be pretty cut and dry legal case. I don't want to get into any more than that. If Tom wants to act wisely, he will refund everyone on he ever took money from in the bASIC fiasco within the next week, that is probably the only way he can prevent a legal storm from falling down on his home. Also, he can do himself a service, perhaps buying some more grace time, by actually communicating truthfully with the people he owes.

||bit

So, I'm willing to bet the reason for this is because most US customers used a CC to order (why would you miss out on the points?). 

Disclaimer: I'm not a legal expert or anything, and am not giving any legal advice. So, everything I say about legal stuff could be wrong.

It's an agreement between bASIC and the paying customer. So, what matters most is the value of the product (USD) offered when the contract agreement was made (i.e. when you paid him whatever), not what you gave bASIC.  For example, bASIC could have asked for tomatoes or a thimble full of salt, and promised to deliver the product (based in USD). If you gave him the tomatoes (or salt), and he failed to deliver the product, then he broke the contract and would owe you something. If you took him to court and won, you would be awarded the value of the promised exchange in USD. Bitcoin shouldn't need to be explained for a case to be effective. It seems the only explanation that might be made would be to appease a judge's side curiosity - not to make the case solid.

Maybe I missed your point though. Sorry. And you might be right, since there will need to be proof of delivering bitcoins to bASIC. That will be figured out if/when it comes to it, and shouldn't be too difficult to prove. There are a couple people in the area that might be able to do this, or maybe someone that can travel there. Thanks for the input on that.

||bit

BitPay receipts are proof enough. They have the value in $.

Good point. Though, I don't know if Tom ever setup to accepted BitPay. Did he?  I thought he only took bitcoins direct.

||bit

What about setting up a payment plan with Tom? From the little I have read it sounds like it was all a terrible mistake. Had he been able to complete the herculean task, he would have been a hero. Doesn't exactly feel right that when he falls apart miserably everyone goes for the jugular. Demanding everything within a week might not be possible with him. Why not work out some sort of over time payment?

I think that's cruel. This forums is merciless and expects constant replies from people regardless of timezone or personal situation. We also have no idea what someone might be trying to do to him outside the forum- harassing emails, phone calles, brick through the window. I can imagine no one would want to sort through all the hate just to respond to the few reasonable attempts at contact.

Toms has FPGA's and seems to be processing some refunds. Perhaps if people laid off a bit and stopped threatening to ruin him he might not go off some emotional cliff and sieze up. Rather then demanding responses to nasty posts, why not construct a positive, sensible plan to see if he would agree to it? He does have some mining equipment maybe he can slowely dig himself out of this hole?

Dave (and I suppose Tom as well) have already made another scam. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140366.60

The BTC is gone, and we should act. These people wont stop, unless stopped. This picostock scam, was in the making when Dave was still "processing" our refunds. Clad he had time and money.

LOL - The "sensible plan train" left the station a loooooooong time ago.. I invite you to go back and look at ALL the threads and history before trying to advise people to issue warm fuzzies rather than the cold pricklies... haha..

It's not necessary to bring the nature of Bitcoin into a breach of contract action - in fact, if you read the California action filed in respect of Bitcoinica you'll notice that they've been careful to avoid making the nature of Bitcoin an issue and kept it about the USD value owed.

What might be an issue is people not having acceptable proof of their transactions.  If Tom has adequate records, this shouldn't be a problem.   If he doesn't, though, it's much more difficult to obtain independent evidence relating to the transactions than it is with bank, CC or PayPal transactions where a disinterested third-party can provide information relating to the transactions. 

Does anybody have an address for Tom? I have some free time this week, maybe a road trip is in order.

Those of you wanting to revisit the old bASIC forums:

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

Ah the memories...


http://gfyi95.com/bASIC/bASIC%20Forum/www.btcfpga.com/forum/index3f55.html?topic=1034.msg3051#msg3051

Do your research.  The owner of PicoStocks (tytus) had put $200k into bASIC and AFAIK hasn't seen it returned.  He was already working on a larger process ASIC, but decided to get into bASIC because it looked like Tom was further along.  When bASIC died,  he partnered with BitFury (who designed the 100Gh/s FPGA rig seen at bitfury.org) to make a smaller process ASIC that could perform at an attractive power consumption within a reasonable timeframe.  Look around - BitFury's ability is well respected.  Les is moving forward with ASIC because he ran the numbers and sees it as viable.  Read the business plan here: http://picostocks.com/businessplan/19.

I'm sure we'll see lots of good details from Les as the 100TH mine moves forward.  You can decide whether to buy shares of 100TH at any time - even after the units begin mining.

My role with Tom has been well documented - I don't need to detail it here again.  I am no longer involved with bASIC and therefore no longer involved with Tom.

I agree that scammers plague Bitcoin and everybody should do their homework before they invest or get involved with any project.  I also think uninformed trolls and conspiracy theorists plague forums like this one and reduce its usefulness and value to everybody who comes here to learn about Bitcoin.

dve can u post the refund list so we can see who is getting refunds and if its in any order or such. since there are a few ppl claiming they have recived. ty if you can

ahhh Dave, come on... your attitude is totally in line with that of #btcfpga. this is very simple, we preorder a product -it never came, and I (along with many others) havent received a refund. if Tom's working on refunds, great. until i get mine, he's a complete ass hat scammer.

I know its been asked many times, but can you release YOUR complied refund list (minus any personal info... simply isnt relevant)

"do their homework before they invest or get involved with any project" ...we all invested in Tom, you too, and its wasnt even an INVESTMENT, it was a gd preorder.

Did you even bother to dig through my previous posts? my order was #299

No. Simply had no reason to consider it probable that you put your order number in another post. Anyway, it's a little bit promising that your order number is somewhat low.

Thanks.

||bit

Actually the fact that my order number was somewhat low (one of the first 30 ordered units) is not promising, it just means I was on one of the top spots of the list... far more people below me, still waiting for a BTC refund...

That's about what I thought. But didn't realize you were in the top 30. Anyway, my perspective was that maybe it means Tom started from an end of the list (among the first) and is working his way down the list like a plan. However, I haven't heard anyone else claiming to receive a refunds lately. Then again, I haven't been paying close attention this weekend.

||bit

On second thought, this may not be very hopeful at all. If he is starting at the top and you're order was maybe 30(max 200 something) from the first preorder, that would seem too indicate Tom has only just begun with the refunds. He said there were "thousands" to do...so why did it take this long to get so few down the list?

||bit

Because they (he?) is playing for time, so by the time we morons are woken up to the fact that they are not going to refund even most victims, they are long gone and tracks are cold. With all probability they (Tom, Dave whoever) are not even who they say they are. They are just stolen some poor bastards identity, and fucking us around.

Possible, but I don't think so. If it were true, they would not likely have refunded anyone. I think the images and addresses used by Tom were real. Even his vehicle license plate number which we know from photos :P The only question is, when/if to start legal action. Many seem ready. Already at least 80% of polled people owed are ready to do something if asked to cooperate.

||bit

Tom's claim of "thousands" of refunds still to be processed is dubious (it may have been thousands including the CC refunds which were already processed by Dave).

Dave's post of 27 January is probably more accurate.


In Dave's final post on Tom's forum on 2 February, he said that about 40 people hadn't responded to requests for a Bitcoin payment address.

Ahhh. even more "get rich quick" schemes.

Read the prospectus very clearly, even an absolute beginner can see the massive holes in it.


Tom was a scammer.
He has been reported as such and I believe actions are being taken to close current and any future "credit card"  processing opportunities.
The rat is soon to find his Maze is very much reduced in Size.

Wrong, 40 people weren't notified of a request. I was one.

There was no email in my inbox; a ignorant buyer could have easily had forgotten and not gotten a refund.

Same.  I was watching for it and never received one.  I sent the email regardless.

No email received here either. However, I logged into the account on the website and saw a note there from late January. The note said to respond to the email message with a payment address. But there was no email, and the message in the account didn't include an email address to send a btc payment address to... so, I simply emailed him using the email address Dave said was the best he knew about.

||bit

I wonder if it would be worth seeking justification to search his records or accounts if we take him to court. B/c if this was more than a business fiasco, then he needs to be taken down completely by the legal system. No sense in letting him get away to rob again, if that is indeed what he intended. And if he did, then lock him up, liquidate his assets, and redistribute to the victims.

||bit

Same here.

still waiting  >:(

Same here.  I provided all of my order information and and refund address in a Jan. 12 email, then the status changed to "Payment address Requested" in late January.  I added btcfpga@gmail.com to the 3 emails I was sending the request to and resent it.  I wish there was a way we could confirm we are on the list.

I also received no email. I noted that status had changed to "address requested" and sent that information on my own initiative. Communication was dreadful and if you didn't check status of your account you could have been excluded from the refund list entirely.

I am baffled as to why he would run with the coins considering the massive uptick in price?

If he indeed did not convert them to USD, it seems he would easily have funds to pay back everyone and still profit from some basic arbitrage.

I see people want their 20,30,etc. BTC, but he could make a case easily to state he offered the product pricing in "USD" and merely "accepted" bitcoins as a payment option at current conversion rates at time of sale.

This would satisfy any court in the world and it seems he could settle all and still make out.

I don't know if this helps anyone's pain, but I did get a credit card refund and since I'm currently getting a divorce and stuck with my own debts, that refund has made a pretty crappy situation much easier than losing nearly $27,000.

For the record, I initiated my refund last November.

So...at least you're not getting a divorce with young children to think about.

Bets of luck to everyone here, I hope you guys get your money back.

Been there. Sucked.

Best of luck to you sir.

Thanks.

didn't have time to properly read, but i'm interested.
Purchased using bitcoin, one of the first preorders, just down single BASIC01 worth fortunately

I need a count of people who are ready to take legal action to recover their BTC purchases.
If your ready to take action, PM me, (DO NOT POST in this forum)
I need a count to give to the NY Lawyer I have working on this.

-up-

I want to at least let people know that, I've not communicated with Mobius about this. I'm not saying anything bad about Mobius, because I don't know him. But apparently he's taking his own action.

It may turn out that more than two groups of people with lawyers work similar lawsuits against Tom. That might be good, but it also might be bad (for some).

That said. Three of us have discussed by phone how to pursue legal action. One is currently in communication with a lawyer in New York state. We have been waiting for more feedback on this before inviting everyone interested.

@||bit

thx for the info  :)

Update: I have spoken to the Atty in NY, he is reviewing the set of paperwork I submitted. He is also aware that several people have PM me with an interest in pursuing legal action. I also mentioned that there are several people from outside the United States. When I get the go ahead from him, I will PM each person with the contact information for the Atty and what he needs from you to move this action forward.

I have not spoken with ||bit. I do not know where they are at.

Mobius. Perhaps, we should communicate. There are at least two potential problems if we pursue separate similar charges. PM me your contact info if you want to discuss those and any other ideas. It might turn out that we endorse working with your lawyer or you can join with the lawyer we have identified. It doesn't matter a lot to me, my loss is not great. I just don't like seeing this bASIC fiasco just get ignored and everyone lose. So, no sense in dividing ourselves this early. Better to work as one, than be divided at any level. This will also be important when it comes to distributing lawyer costs or any other cost(s) that might come up.

||bit

Any updates yet?

Not sure about Mobius. But I should be talking with one of the guys from here tomorrow about a lawyer update. No promises on revealing that here though. I know it's slow. I don't push things. I'm kinda keeping tabs. Also, Mobius never contacted me, maybe he missed my message above or doesn't want to talk group mergers or other options.

I think what will happen from the people I know is there will be a private thread off the forums. Public invite will be posted in this thread. And people wanting to group up will probably be called to verify basic identity (i.e. screening out people without an actual claim). For now, maybe you can just find your receipts and scan them (or screen shot them). And maybe a page with minimal contact info, and save it all into one pdf file, or just zip it. Have that ready for when there comes a time to compile everyone into a nice little army for the lawyers to serve. If there ends up being two or three different groups of people with different lawyers, they will probably require that much anyway.

I sent a PN to Mobius a few day ago, but received no reply..

any other refund discourse maybe through the bank?

Mobius and Bits have joined? Which do I choose?  ???

No. Mobius never communicated with me on anything. I'm not the one driving this. Just opened the discussion thread. However, if people I've spoken with in PM or by phone want to move on what they have learned from a lawyer, then I can help guide that along by posting how/where to go. And screen some of the people. BTW: It's Friday, let's see if Tom actually does pay refunds today or not. Refer to the thread that it looks like he started March 3rd in the 'Custom Hardware' forum titled 'Friday Refunds'.

Poll closed.
-----------
Those owed by bASIC: Are you willing to pursue group legal action to recover property? This would require you provide evidence (a receipt) & contact info. Select member(s) would deliver it to a lawyer. Info would be deleted on request or cancellation.

Absolutely! (Yes!)    37 (49.3%)
Yes, but who are you guys?!    23 (30.7%)
Unsure. I want my stuff back, but I might just call it a loss all the same.    5 (6.7%)
No, I wouldn't trust anyone here anymore.    5 (6.7%)
No way! Tom is going to deliver! I just know it!    5 (6.7%)

Total Voters: 75

It is mainly meaning "Yes" we would like to pursue a group legal action but we would like to know who you are (organizer of the whole action) so I'm sure I can send you my btc and they will be used for this action ( Btw I'm not a customer of basic...)

Most likely an action for restitution will be applicable here:

The basic purpose of restitution is to achieve fairness and prevent the Unjust Enrichment of a party. Restitution is used in contractual situations where one party has conferred a benefit on another party but cannot collect payment because the contract is defective or no contract exists. (compensatory damages)

The goal of restitution is to restore the non-breaching party to his or her pre-contract position or to "restore them" to their position. The court would normally not be interested in speculative gains or opportunity costs associated with the holding of funds, but would rather attempt to restore the non-breaching party for the the amount in value at the time the contract was entered.

The most likely valuation of the contract breach would be the value of bitcoins when the contract was entered into. If the non-breaching party sent in 100 bitcoins in, at the then present value of $7 per bitcoin, they would be entitled to $700 worth of bitcoins in return plus any incidental damages( costs incurred from legal fees or other reasonable sources needed to recover from the breached contract) and Consequential damages - lost wages, etc

If this person did indeed hold all the bitcoins, he could have easily converted them usd and covered all of the breached contracts and still had extra. Now the court may find issue with him benefiting from a willful breach so they may assign consequential damages or even special damages in that area but all of that is speculative based on the court and subject to a factual debate.

many thanx for your explanation of breach of contract. from what i understand as long as we can prove the intrinsic value of bitcoin, this case could be won with little effort. however the drafting of documents needed to file suit against Tom may prove costly -especially is he mounts any kind of defense (one has to assume Tom's retained a lawyer). Or you can try to sue him via small claims in his county (oswego) 1000.00 max :(

I know its a super lame cause for EFF (as they have much more serious concerns), but I think they could help, at least provide some insight.

...if all is lost, perhaps some nifty/shady way to drown Tom in legal defense?

You could all file a small claims suit  - if you can justify jurisdiction for your case in your local court - did the contract for sale include any arbitration clause or other legal forum selection? If you can get personal jurisdiction in your local court then he would have to show up or risk getting a default judgement. 50 or so small claims would definitely tie him in a bad way

here is a blurb about jurisdiction: 

Personal Jurisdiction Personal jurisdiction is based on territorial concepts. That is, a court can gain personal jurisdiction over a party only if the party has a connection to the geographic area in which the court sits. Traditionally, this connection was satisfied only by the presence of the defendant in the state where the court sat. Since the late nineteenth century, notions of personal jurisdiction have expanded beyond territorial concepts, and courts may gain personal jurisdiction over defendants on a number of grounds. However, the territorial basis remains a reliable route to establishing personal jurisdiction.

A person who has a civil claim may file suit in a court that is located in his or her home state. If the defendant lives in the same state, the court will have no trouble gaining personal jurisdiction. The plaintiff must simply serve the defendant with a summons and a copy of the complaint that was filed with the court. Once this is accomplished, the court has personal jurisdiction over both the plaintiff and the defendant. If the defendant lives outside the state, the plaintiff may serve the defendant with the process papers when the defendant appears in the state.

If the defendant lives outside the state and does not plan to re-enter the state, the court may gain personal jurisdiction in other ways. Most states have a Long-Arm Statute. This type of statute allows a state court to gain personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant who (1) transacts business within the state, (2) commits a tort within the state, (3) commits a tort outside the state that causes an injury within the state, or (4) owns, uses, or possesses real property within the state.

Quite aside, yet on topic.

This thread has 179 posts with 7080 views to date. Why is there only 12 votes total in the poll? I'm finding this tidbit rather odd.

Maybe because not everyone wants to sue Tom?

You'd be getting nothing if any other business folded... at least he's trying to refund everyone.

Did he file for bankruptcy protection?

Maybe he should have. Obviously trying to send customers refunds ASAP isn't making people happy.

was the poll also included from the start of the thread?

If he intends to pay everyone back, then people may want a judgement to secure that promise. If he is paying back everyone, what is taking so long if he did in fact hold all the btc?

lukejr, he misrepresented his product from day one. if i were an investor, i wouldn't be pissed off.

look take you tommy boy train and go play somewhere else the fucker lied. id have some consideration as to him trying to pay back asap if he did what he said and started refunds on the 23rd like he said he would.

even so wither he sold out at the 15 dollar price like he said and he clams to be paying back the usd value why the fuck not buy back in and give the customers 1100 usd value what happend to 1 million of refunds money he gots.

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w8/dmcurser/tomspost_zps8eb7e645.jpg


he didnt do anything that he said he would hes setting on our money and just telling us lies and string us along

The claim that he held Bitcoins is a troll myth. I'm not aware of any evidence he did.

Fair enough. If he then used the btc and has no product how does he intend to pay everyone back? I have no interest involved other than curiosity. If what you say is true then in my opinion legal action may be a good course of action to protect ones interests.

I don't have any inside knowledge. From what I understand, he's been mining to pay people back.

What happened to all the money that he took in?

That, I have no clue on...

Well, he did claim that he had a good friend with millions of them:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/off-topic/789-writing-style-comparison-cablepair-posts.html

... or perhaps that was the hacked account talking.  You'd think this good friend could expedite the BTC purchasing a bit...

Its odd because the vast majority of people have been refunded.


I'm labeled a scammer - yet I have refunded over a million dollars customers

yes OVER A MILLION DOLLARS.


would a scammer refund this large amount of money? I don't think so. I work every day to get people refunded
i have several people i am talking to over email daily to try and work something out.

this fork has made it very difficult

When .8 came out I installed it and It immediately corrupted my wallet (thanks devs) :P


originally i thought my hard drive was bad, so I bought a new one and painstakingly backed everything up and moved everything over
now FINALLY after many days of release the devs decide they should tell us they fucked up (thanks)
today I downloaded .7 and have been patiently waiting for my blockchain to download, im not sure if I will continue refunds or just buy a big crack rock and smoke it in a cave some where

but I am totally offended by this scammer tag. Anyone who knows me or knows the history of Btcfpga knows it is NOT warranted

I am NOT A SCAMMER. and anyone who knows me, knows this.



if I was a scammer I could be living it up easy some place warm instead of braving the same upstate new york winters I have been for 30+ years


btw: while we are on the topic who gave me the tag? What small dick mini mod gave me this without any proof what so ever??????????????

i would love to know....


anyways

you can email me at btcfpga@gmail.com and we can either work something out or you can be a part of the bankrupcy case - which should be interesting considering the recent fork.

my attorney has compiled an immense amount of proof that this was nothing even resembling a scam and I welcome anyone who should attempt to prove this wrong to show up to court. I will certainly post the details of the bankruptcy court date as soon as we have one set.


one issue i have to face . i promised payments every friday and I kept those up until I ran out of bitcoins. If anyone has any idea how I can buy a large amount of bitcoins please message me. The largest amount I can buy from bitinstant is $500 worth ive looked and looked and its near impossible to make a large bitcoin purchase anywhere. IF anyone has any Ideas I would love to hear them.




i have contributed more to this community than most ever will. By isolating me you are losing someone who really cared about Bitcoin and worked every day to contribute to it. I am truly sorry the bASIC project failed. I would do anything to take it back. BFL has failed as well but at least I have the balls to admit it and not pretend like everything is OK and continue to hold your money for what amost a year now?   Sonny is a ball-less bitch and Josh, James and all of his other lackeys should be ashamed of themselves for promoting a TRUE scam. Maybe I was not able to do what I claimed I could do, but at LEAST I have the balls to admit it and am working my ass off to make it right.

To the ignorant assholes who have no fucking clue about this true Bitcoin man who contributed years of his life to this cause I got a message for you....  FUCK YOU.

to everyone else .... PEACE AND LOVE

to my customers dont worry - if you havent received your refund yet either work with me on it or Ill see you in bankruptcy court.

Take care and good luck Bitcoin - this fork is one of the best things that could of happened to me.

Sincerely
Tom

I have not received a refund.

And why not buy from Mt.Gox? Are they scammers too?!

This oughta go over well................................

I'm one of your first bASIC customers (low order number) and did not receive a refund. Pay that damn refund instead of posting bullshit.

+1

Still waiting for that BTC refund too Tom. May I suggest you stop talking trash, refund everyone's BTC as you should already have done, and then work on getting the tag removed?

Tom, you owe me $4,309.96.  That is what is says on my receipt.  You do don't need any bitcoins to pay me back.  Mail me a check.  You have my name and address.

Your own words here on this forum are sufficient evidence of scamming.  You took money for a product you could not provide.

would love to see my refund cablepair. you stated in an email to me that it would be a friday or the friday after from the date of that email, and 2 fridays have passed since then. the ones who are pissed are people like me who paid you in bitcoin because we had faith in you. i even went so far as to support you and dave on your own btcfpga forums, telling people that bitching you out was a bad idea and isn't helpful to anyone; now i can see i was the idiot for believing in you. the btc i paid you for 3 of your bASIC's would now be worth over $10,000, and you can't even refund me the $2,759.97 i'm owed.

to the people who believe tom had kept the btc from the beginning of preorders, this is highly unlikely, the payment method used at the btcfpga website was bitpay which, if i'm not mistaken, immediately pays off the merchant in USD, not BTC, so tom received USD.  what is extremely likely however, is that tom bought a bunch of coins and continues to mine them as refunds start to go out, and now he's decided to sit on them as value has more than doubled since the start of refunds, so that he doesn't have to pay out as much. my 250ish BTC will probably be more like 50 BTC when and if the refund actually happens, and i'm more inclined to believe that tom is doing this on purpose. tom, you have used up your 'benefit of the doubt' pass. send my refund for orders #894 and #1638 to 1CYZtxqNFNJ4x7RGDCohro3PQuFhV5e9fi

it would cost me less than what you owe me to hire a private investigator and find out where you live. don't make me resort to measures that we'll both regret.

I use 0.8 with my hot wallet and I use 0.8 for my 500++ connection nodes. I have no problem with 0.8 corrupting the wallet and the block storage format is the same on 0.7 and 0.8. No need to download the blockchain again - and no need lie here.

Don't spend your time lying at us. Use the time to pay back our pre-order money.

BTW, with Bitpay you can choose wheter you want the payment converted into Fiat or you diretly get the bitcoins. Getting the bitcoins is cheaper with Bitpay than the conversion into a Fiat currency. Using a blockchain browser you can follow the way of your bitcoins.

Well Tom fucked us customers over and over and he is still fucking us. First he was lying about the ASIC status, then he did not refund the pre-orer money as he always told us and now he sits on our money and let us watch the bitcoin price climbing higher every day. If someone has to be pissed about this it's not Tom, it's the pre-order customers still waiting for their refund!

yes tom use mtgox or send everyone a check and dont send bad check as it would be check fraud.

But could you answer me one ? why didnt you start repayment of btc when you yourself said yuou would why did you wait over a month and a half????

How should you work with someone that does not answer mails? Communication with you is a one way road and your mailbox seems to be a black whole. I did not receive a refund and I have the feeling I will never get a refund from you - but maybe at some point in time you will get what you deserve. I never forget people that are scamming and fucking me.

what about: scammer tag can get removed when he refunded everyone

, i dont know what is true/false, just that many people including me haven't received their refund

Nah - he should still be classified as a scammer regardless.. I can see the tag being removed or not even placed on him if he would have refunded people within 3 business days of their original request at the current BTC rate at that time (early-mid Jan).. he failed in this aspect along with every other..

People do not understand the costs that were involved while developing the project, and most people who are commenting on things have no idea what the hell is really going on.

I am sorry for my angry post last night and I apologize to anyone I offended, I was upset that I was being portrayed as a scammer when that was never ever my intention.

I have been paying back little by little every Friday because I was making a decent amount of bitcoins a week mining and I was also buying Bitcoins anywhere I could.

After this 0.8 debacle I had to re-download the block chain - right now it says 42073 blocks remaining so hopefully it will not be much longer.

By definition a scammer takes your money and runs. I have not gone anywhere and I am not "sittting" on anyone's money,when we were accepting orders  I was cashing those coins out quite regularly due to the violent nature of Bitcoin (I can't imagine any Bitcoin business that doesn't do this) and this was pre-bubble as well. Now I am in a situation where I have a bunch of angry people who justifiably want their money back. You will get your money back. As soon as this block chain finishes downloading today I will see what I have left and I will make as many payments as I can. I have also been contacted by someone who is willing to sell me a large amount of Bitcoins and I am going to work on a deal with him.

alternatives to payback:

Sure I could file for bankruptcy but I rent the house I live in and drive a 2005 chevy equinox worth maybe 5000.00
(on a good day) so its a much better situation for everyone for me to just pay everyone back,  and although we are prepared to go in that direction it would make much more sense for all parties involved

The percentage of people who have not been refunded versus those who have been refunded is minuscule.

please work with me. I have all the amounts and addresses on a spread sheet, and please when you receive your refund please post to the forum about it so people know that refunds are continuing to be made.

theres really nothing left to say if you want to continue to bash me go ahead, but I will continue to make payments until everyone is paid, that's  really all I can do.

I am also still waiting for my refund, albeit not patiently anymore.  With order #280 I was one of your first believers, now I agree with the scammer tag until you work off your debt.

I expect $2169.98 in USD or BTC equivalent as soon as possible.  If you need more details check the order.

sorry cablepair, as defined  in "Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged"

scammer [ˈskæmə], scamster
n
Slang a person who perpetrates a scam; swindler

It states nothing about money or 'running'.
For example you could "scam" a beautiful girl into marring you, it has nothing to running or money.

The scam was that you willfully dragged on  the 'proposed' delivery of a non existent product, going so far as to state "you have my ABSOLUTE word that goods will be delivered in March"
Plus there was a complete lack of details once the project took a turn for the worst.

There are more than enough people on these forums that have access to advanced equipment and engineers that could have helped IF you reached out.(I myself have access to advanced chip bonding equipment from Taiwan & Korea...... basically for free)

That is why so many people are pissed, not that the project failed...

Tom, your a fucking liar. You lie consistently. You misrepresented bASIC from day one. Why would your refund process be any different? Why the fuck are you not processing refunds in an order? (either date of purchase, or date refund was requested), for you to just arbitrarily choose who gets refunded is pissing alot of people off.

btw all email correspondence i've shared with Tom, just bleeds of arrogance/fuckyou attitude.



...think its fair to assume the 'majority' of his refunds were credit card. 1 million refunded, fuck you Tom. Even you knew you had little choice to refund these type of payments.


where is my btc cablepair?

It sounded like you were trying to come up with a way not to pay everyone else back. And it was just lies. You have a history going back long before ASICs where wallet corruption caused problems with you repaying people. You would have figured a long long time ago that you could have figured out how to make a wallet backup. Especially before changing any versions. You can be better than that if you choose to. You're just not making that choice.


Let's see some proof when you make such bold claims. Let's see a list of what you owe. Order numbers and amounts. No personal information. People can make sure their refund is on your to do list. And see if your time lines for paying back are real. But that would make things transparent. It might just be easier to pay back the maddest people and hope that some people have already given up on you refunding them.

That again, would be your choice.

Do the right thing this time.

because you post only "everything is fine, don't worry bullshit"
no answer to mails...



+1


and without the chargebacks? How much % of BTC orders you paid back?
in Number/value



by the way, no refund here

There's a reason why no one has any idea what's going on.

You stated previously that you weren't using preorder funds to pay for development; that obviously is no longer the case. Given that our money was used to fund the development of the project, many of us had quite a vested interest in it. Handwaving about the blockchain and how you're working pay people back will not get you any respect at this point. If you want to try and regain a measure of respect on here, it really wouldn't be that though.

1. How much money was brought in?
2. How much have you paid back to date?
3. How much is left outstanding?
4. What the hell happened to the project? What milestones were reached, how many chips were ever produced, what were the roadblocks and showstoppers encountered? Basically, what happened to all the money?
5. What assets are left, in any form (IP, test product, etc) that could be liquidated to pay the debt?
6. What is your debt repayment plan? Are you mining for the coin, do you still have fiat left to repay, etc?

Answer those thoroughly and honestly and my opinion of this whole situation would improve drastically, even if the answer is that you still owe a million, there are no more assets and you're mining at 60GH/s to pay everything back. It would at least give people a chance to judge their own likelihood of seeing a refund instead of being strung along.

I think we have Tom's latest bullshit posting trends down to a 6 step science:

Step 1:  Claim you are not a scammer, reference online dictionaries for bonus points

Step 2:  State previous BTCFPGA history in hopes of supporting Step 1

Step 3:  Make some vague, borderline retarded excuses as to why you are proving your incompetence regarding project management and/or refunding

Step 4:  Mention BFL and point out already well known delays and flaws..

Step 5:  Reassert / promise that everyone will receive refunds, but give zero details or plans/COAs.. be as vague as possible.

Step 6:  Mention once again how you were some kind of BTC pioneer and are important/vital to this community.

Optional: Chug beers between each step or shots of whiskey..

Rinse/repeat

ROFL!!!! OMG I just about joked to death while laughing.

Pirate was a pioneer too by his definition.


My previous post in this thread may be ignored, but worth repeating. This "pioneer" doesn't know how to back up his hot wallet? Doesn't even cross his mind before upgrading to a new client? Come on...

You know for a small fee, you can hire someone to pay a visit right?

I dont give a shiet about scammer. But this fcktard will get his family involved with this attitude.

You have no evidence that he didn't.

Another email sent to tom. The scammer shall vanish, but only if evry1 is repaid. I was not refunded yet.

Wow... BURNED!

I'm sorry your angry. I fucked up. I poorly managed this business. I completely fucked it up and its my fault but I did not do it with the intention of scamming anyone.


I will admit that although my FPGA business was going well until they became obsolete, I was way out of my league when it came to making an ASIC - I fucked it up, I ruined my business and if it makes you feel any better I feel like a piece of shit every day.


I should have a couple hundred BTC by the end of the day - the entirety of that will go to refunds.

There's nothing I can do other than pay people back and believe me or not I will continue to do so util everyone is paid.

I am sorry about my attitude, I did not mean to come off like that - please everyone can you find it in your heart to forgive me for my poor attitude. This is a very humbling experience for me.

When I feel like  I am being attacked - I tend to act immaturely and fight back and I am truly sorry.

Your right its no ones fault but my own that this happened but you can ask the people I was working with I never once had the intentions of scamming anyone. There's no point in it for me, I made nothing from this and I am spending my own money to pay it back.

I don't want you to feel sorry for me I dont want pity I just want you to work with me.

thanks to those who can feel at least some empathy towards me. My wallet has 36920  blocks left to download and then the refunds will begin.

So instead of doing the right thing and showing what is still owed and the plan to pay it back, you whine that people are attacking you.

You're so deserving of the blue ribbon. Does that make you feel better?

Credit Cards that were charged backed and 100k to one person who did a wire transfer (if you didn't it could be considered wire fraud).
 

Have them post here. You haven't communicated to anyone directly that you still owe BTC refunds to. You have all of the email addresses. The only communication I have seen are your post here, apologizing for you failures and trying to convince people to have sympathy for your position.


Another chicken dung excuse. You've been around long enough to know how to back up your wallet.


Your actions or better yet, your lack of action is what gave you the scammer tag. Try reading the thread - it clearly shows who tagged you as a scammer.

The recent fork will have no bearing on it,


You again show another one of your statements as false.

I do not care about your opinion of BFL or it's people, good for you and your contributions, you can add them to your resume, this is strictly business.

Your arrogance precedes you.
Again, another attempt to negate your obligations.

I am sorry if I left this out, I have purchased a couple hundred BTC and have some more on the way - As soon as my block chain downloads
34700 left to download now I will begin todays refunds. If anyone emails me I will reply today.
Everyone will be refunded starting in 3400 or so blocks - people will post confirmations today. I hope this is enough information for you
Im not going to bicker with anyone Im just going to refund them, I dont care about the scammer tag anymore have a nice day.

And you still won't consider posting order numbers or even amounts that need to be refunded? Because... ? You're hoping some of the people have given up and your debt is no longer valid with them?

Yes, we are angry, we are also very disappointed in how you have behaved.

No it does not.
Give us a plan of action.
The only way to forgiveness is atonement, time to act like an adult and face people directly and honestly.
You used the pre-order money after you stated that you had not or would not. In my book, that's embezzlement.
This is business, you wanted to play with the big boys, you failed to follow up and hid like an abused child. Time to man up and make things right.

Glad to see people are willing to take legal action, will this be the first bitcoin suite? (apart from bitcoinica's which appears to be going nowhere)

EDIT: you could one more poll option - I am just an observer curious how it ends.

Try posting the order # each time you refund someone.

Update: I submitted more information this past Friday to the lawyer I have hired in this action. No further news is available at this point.

Tom, what keeps you from posting a list of order number with a refund status and maintain that list in public?

If it wasn't already clear, I pointed that out. If he does that, the list of refunds is probably larger than those that are bugging him. If he can get a few people that are really mad calmed down, likely some people have given up and their orders never need to be refunded.

Also, 100 BTC on the way. Woohoo! A whopping $4500! It would be interesting to see how long the to do list is. If it's 1000 to go, and he can do 3 a week, everyone will be refunded in 6 years. Not too bad.

To get the ball rolling, for those of you who have had enough, here are some places to file a formal complaint:

I do not believe there is a requirement to be a citizen of the United States to file a complaint at some of these offices.

Federal Trade Commission:
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?lang=en (https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?lang=en)

NY Dept of State
https://www.dos.ny.gov/consumerprotection/form/complaintform.asp (https://www.dos.ny.gov/consumerprotection/form/complaintform.asp)

NY Attorney General Online Complaint System
http://www.ag.ny.gov/internet-bureau-online-complaint-form (http://www.ag.ny.gov/internet-bureau-online-complaint-form)

Internet Crime Complaint Center - Read the FAQ https://www.ic3.gov/faq/default.aspx (https://www.ic3.gov/faq/default.aspx)
https://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx (https://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx)

Reminder:
Invoices were from:
Thomas Van Riper
BTCFPGA
PO Box 246
Hannibal, NY 13074

315-514-0269

btcfpga@gmail.com

anybody searching for Tom, this will help you identify the correct one;

Thomas Van Riper birth date: 02-xx-81

Hello Tom/Cablepair, since your ASIC project fell through. Please show us evidence that you actually had started with the project. Any details will help of course. You always kept quiet about the entire project, did you have an ASIC protype that hashed until they didn't hash anymore (died). Can you show us any proof at all that you actually had anything other than good intentions?

I had an order with you for 1 unit, which you did refund. I would just like to see proof you actually had a project, and it wasn't all just words to get more orders. If you actually showed proof of your project, even though it failed. Maybe people would be a little easier on you.

Maybe this time you do, lets see. Last 5 emails got ignored, like always

Tom actually answered my email today, so that worked.

What I'd like to see is an explanation for the "CAN electronics" stunt.

The fucker will say .... "it was hacked"....

Has anyone seen his youtube videos? the way he talks is shady like hell. The fat fck jaw doesnt like to move.


Btw, i have found his church. Gonna send more info of his action there.

No shiny e-mail here yet.  :-\

My order #764 for 2x54GH/s miners hasn't received a BTC refund yet...

Now I'm as mad as everyone else in this thread.
I'm interested in pursuing legal action against someone who has willfully stolen money from people.
I have friends in the field and can call in some favours from them at no cost to me. I'm not at that point yet...

I know how much it costs to buy equipment, pay staff for their time, and deal with bootstrapping a brand new business, so **IF** this has occurred, I can understand where the initial funds went. Tom says he's trying to pay people back and I wish I could take his word as truth.

Now, I am not a "tommy lover" nor am I a "tommy hater."
I'm simply one man who is owed over $2,000 that I paid to another man in good faith that he would be shipping me a product. That didn't happen, and I've requested my refund. The man has said he would refund me, and we'll see if he's good to his word.

One thing HAS changed in the last week, I don't know if everyone has noticed.
We were complaining for about two months that Tom wasn't saying anything and that nobody could get any communication from the man.

Well now he's communicating.

Sure, it could all be BS, but the man is actually TALKING to us. This is a huge step up from last month.
Yes, we're still mad, and yes he still owes us money, but the man has repaid some people and says he is intent on repaying everyone else.

Throwing insults at him will not get your money any faster. The only thing it *WILL* do is alienate him, possibly causing him to stop posting again. Then we'll lose the communication we finally have gained.
I don't want that, and I'm sure you will all agree that you don't want that either. I like that he's finally communicating about this issue we all face.

Anyways.

Tom, like everyone else here I'd of course like my refund too.
Are you a scammer? I don't know. But I'm glad you're talking to us again and I'm glad you are saying you intend on paying each of us back. I'd like to take you on your word, but only time will tell.

-Tigereye

What email did you use? He hasn't responded to me, either via email, PM, or unannounced BTC refund.

lol - No - sorry, nothing has changed.. Tom's "communication" levels are on par with a retarded gorilla throwing a temper-tantrum while flinging his own feces around the room. 

That example would actually be considered almost an improvement regarding "communication" and Tom during the entire abortion project of bASIC.

Also - odd how it took a BTC-talk "scammer" tag for him to come "communicate" with us..  hrrrmmmmmmmm

Just so everyone knows I am ignoring all hostility and lies. I will not respond to them.

It's all about business now and getting this situation resolved and behind me.

My block chain will be finished downloading today for sure

I thought it would of been completed last night but it's taking forever.


The most recent transaction is 01/22 so we are getting close...



I already have my spread sheet setup - with who is getting what and to what address.


If you need to speak to me please email btcfpga@gmail.com


if all your interested in is being hostile with me - you will not get a response.

For those who want to work this out like adults and get their money back. Let's get this done.

thanks.
Tom

So providing a list of order numbers and amounts, is hostility? Because it isn't a lie... I'm confused. Anyone else?

For the record I do not think I have been hostile at all through this.  I am still awaiting a positive response to my e-mail from yesterday, thanks.

blockchain takes more than 3-4hrs to download? ehhhh, da fuck? ...not that i'd expect you to, but you could have download majority of block via shared hosting/torrent/etc -much faster, then just sync'd the rest via p2p.

...not sure why i even mention this, you know how it works. Just buying time with your lies. i understand.

Tom if you don't have proof that a SINGLE refund was processed by today, i'll never believe anything that comes from your fat fucking mouth ever again.

Work things out like Adults???? lmao.. how about you try that shoe on yourself sometime...

Actually I can understand this particular problem (I still don't understand why the refund process isn't more transparent though...).
 
I fucked up myself during the fork: I reverted to 0.7.2 on my p2pool node instead of waiting the fork to be resolved. The 0.7.2 resync wasn't finished when the 0.7 chain took priority over the 0.8 one and resolved the fork. I then upgraded to 0.8 again (which fortunately could use what was already downloaded by 0.7.2). My node spent nearly 18 hours to resync (which is more than I expected).

Admittedly I could have tried to make this faster with a torrent but I've never tried it and had other things to do.

I tried to contact you several times, you did not respond at any given time. Are you ignoring me? Seems to me you find time responding to others, along the past 2 months, but never replied to any of my mails (i tried all of the emails, multiple times)

#512

No CC refund, not BTC refund.

http://btcfpga.com/pics/blocks.png


As soon as this is finished I will begin refunds. Should be today for sure.

Dani I will call the CC processor right now about the refund. They want all customers to be refunded.
send email to btcfpga@gmail.com it will not be ignored.

Dani your CC refund will be processed today for sure not sure how it slipped through the cracks but its being taken care of right now

ill bbl when I have the block chain and start sending out refunds.

So, what was up with that whole CAN-ELECTRIC bullshit Tommy McScam? Huh?

Just some friendly advice, Should Be and For Sure don't mix. Saying this kind of stuff is what has gotten you in trouble. What happens if your computer stops functioning or your HD catches fire? It's gonna be viewed as another excuse to buy time. Keep it simple and do what you can. Good luck.

Thank you, I appreciate that a lot.

I did a reinstall of Win7 2 days ago,my wallet just finshed DL'ing the blockchain,so 2 days is about right.I am not defending or supporting,just stating a fact.

Of course I have no need for speed myself,but I do have 2 "spare/backup" wallets on other PC's that are always "caught up" just in case.All I do is swap my dat & I'm in my main wallet.

Hope you guys get your BTC/money back soon  ;)

What version are you using? Use add peer and any recent computer can download the whole block chain in less than 4 hours with 0.8 and decent bandwidth.

As someone who has had to bring up new nodes from time to time I cannot stress how simple and speedy the bootstrap torrent is now.  I am currently seeding with others on my 25Mbps connection if you need it.

I placed the torrent on a VPS with a gig connection to help seed and the initial download was at greater than 100 Mbps. There is plenty of bandwidth for boot strapping.

This image shows that cablepair is mining at about 2.9 BTC/day.  At that rate he will be able to pay me back in about 2 months.

[/quote]

This image shows that cablepair is mining at about 2.9 BTC/day.  At that rate he will be able to pay me back in about 2 months.
[/quote]

...you neglect all his sweet ebay offerings.

It also shows that his mining payout address is 199ogzBses5fcz3VhKPTu6iLybR3ZHvAKQ (http://blockchain.info/address/199ogzBses5fcz3VhKPTu6iLybR3ZHvAKQ), that he has mined almost 2,000 BTC, and that he has 40 BTC left (in the mining address).

And actually, it shows that he's been getting a 10 BTC payout more often than every other day, with 60 BTC received in the last 9 days, so he's generating around 6.7 BTC/day.

Which is about what you expect if he's user 111 on BTCGuild hashing with ~60GH/s.
Those 10BTC payments come from BTCGuild, BTW.

Man you guys are on the ball.  Colour me impressed.  8)

concur.. impressive gents...

Tom,

I don't really care how you feel about people's attitudes or the way they're treating you (Not really like you can blame them). As I said in my email you've got until this friday to provide me (and everyone else) a refund. The next communication you're going to get from me is a summons from an officer of the court.

Regards.

This image shows that cablepair is mining at about 2.9 BTC/day.  At that rate he will be able to pay me back in about 2 months.
[/quote]

...you neglect all his sweet ebay offerings.
[/quote]

...and his full time job and computer repair business and wife's daycare business and his stash of bitcoins.

sending out refunds now...

if you think for some reason you are not on the list Dave compiled awhile back please email me right away...

btcfpga@gmail.com

senseless please PM me your order # unless you are sure you are on Dave's spreadsheet

I've been on the spreadsheet since Jan 6

ok well there are no names at on the list just addresses and amounts if you want to provide your address Ill make sure you get yours right now since you are right here.

I am still waiting too.

That's fine, just do them all. I'm on there.

im not sure if I have enough bitcoin to do them all, today - some might have to wait another week -  but if you want to take the chance thats on you

LOL


Nice try Cablez, you paid by credit card and you were refunded in full on 01/12


but im the one with the scammer tag.  ???

You were the one that combined my orders. It was one unit by CC (#280) and 2 by BTC. Check order #757 then.  I have the bitpay receipt if you would like it.


EDIT:  by the way don't impugn my honor before getting the whole story.

How many individual btc refunds did you process?

I just got this: d7afab0b378427f822cf407d2f77156f71df8ecdb5dd17e31a9da2442f113a2c (http://blockchain.info/tx-index/60430350/d7afab0b378427f822cf407d2f77156f71df8ecdb5dd17e31a9da2442f113a2c)

That is my $4,309.96 refund at an exchange rate of $47.8884 $/BTC.

My order ID was: 794

Thank you Tom.  This shows that you were an honest businessman all along.   The crazy man act had me fooled.

Cablez I wish you had explained that to me before I put my foot in my mouth

remainder of refund on the way :P

thank you for reporting this

I have refunded  nearly 100k worth of Bitcoin refunds but people dont like to report when you do something right. They usually only like to report your screw ups.

thanks again and sorry that it took so long.

You wonder why you are a scammer?  Holy shit balls...   :o

PROCESS the REFUNDS in order from when they were requested... or start from the BEGINNING (lowest order number) and work your way down...

Your stupidity amazes me more and more every day...

This is definitely going to start another mini shit storm for the people who have been waiting endlessly but are not sitting here on the forum this very minute to beg you for a refund... which you seem eager to process for someone hours away from actual legal action... amazing...

what is your order #?

How'z that refund for order #1345 coming along Tom? I have a lot of investors that would like to close the book on this whole sad affair.

Tom, you seem to be proving yourself to be a decent man by continuing to provide BTC refunds to the best of your ability, kudos to you for that. Everyone makes mistakes... being honest and accepting responsibility is what separates adults from children, good folk from lowlifes.

I hope you get everything back on track in the near future, and are able to pay back all debts without bankrupting yourself. I wish you the very best.

I just got this: 3c535be8ea17ca379952a3a92bb454f0e6f9731ba9770e76d5db902f4dd9aeeb (http://blockchain.info/tx/3c535be8ea17ca379952a3a92bb454f0e6f9731ba9770e76d5db902f4dd9aeeb)

That is my $2,169.98 refund at an exchange rate of $49.3177 $/BTC.  Seems a bit light considering today's high was only ever $47.98. I think your exchange rate calc. was incorrect?

My order ID was: 757 I guess.


EDIT: I get 45.25BTC at a rate of $47.95.    PM sent.

ive been using mtgox last to calculate refunds

either way its only going to make a difference of a dollar and some cents - it fluctuates frequently
thank you :)

pm me your address please


miter_myles you didnt even place an order did you? your just a mean nasty person who enjoys putting people down.

Good luck with that. Unfortunately for me I believe in karma, making these refunds was not an option for me.

Negative dipshit - I did place some orders luckily not with BTC (careface if you don't believe me)... good thing you believe in karma.. you're getting a slight dose back these days hopefully...

I just received my refund for order #832

23 BTC for my order of 1 bASIC 54Gh/s  of initial value of $1099.99

Refund transaction id: 2a2b2edc0164bb2e33d2b0ace59437b3e169d66a796a09522377d755f3ce5e4f (https://blockchain.info/tx/2a2b2edc0164bb2e33d2b0ace59437b3e169d66a796a09522377d755f3ce5e4f)

Thank you Tom!

what was your order number? why are you so hostile? I love you man. I wish I could give you a hug.

must be the jack daniels kicking in... almost time for stories about "The Asians", "Chinese New Year" or even better "CAN-ELECTRIC"...

Refund received. Thanks Tom.

Thank you Theymos.

Tom. What movie is your profile image from?

HOLY SHIT YOU GOT UR REFUND?!?!?! NICE MAN!

1000 BTC Paid out today.

Next friday hopefully I can take care of the few remaining customers who did not get refunded tonight.

This has nothing to do with a scammer tag and the pic is just a generic pic that comes with the forum software - you can have it too if you want to look like a strung out kurt cobain.

as always contact me at btcfpga@gmail.com

see you next friday for more refunds

hugs and kisses

-cp

What is the transaction id of every payment?

I have a feeling this is just another "crazy tom" series of posts. I intentionally didn't give him my bitcoin address via email or PM knowing that I'm on the list to see if he's honestly trying to work through it. Without proof I wouldn't say that he refunded more than a dozen orders from users who messaged him today.

Thanks! Yeah bonus funds for the company's next purchase.

No refund here.  I'm glad to see you are making progress though.

Many have been posted in this thread.

got also 23btc's

Could people refunded post their order number. Got nothing and I'm on the low #300...

No refund for me either...wow, if i would have watched today and sent the order number i would have gotten my refund earlier? I am disappointed. this sux. Reads like a bad joke.

order no #11xx
date added: october 05th 2012

refunded: march 14th 1013
refund: 23 btc

I'm inclined to believe him.  Just jumping up the chain from the transaction posted by JakeTri, I found 792 BTC that looks like it's been completely paid out.  https://blockchain.info/address/1B52oZ77rGktCAsMST9JbH6dFvHvqaGdJR

not necessarily.
I sent him my #. got nothing

I paid with CC first and you merged 3 BTC orders to it (like you did with cablez), now I'm worried I'm not on the list. Nothing received.

CC was #512
first BTC was #840
second BTC #1589
third BTC #1596 i think, not sure which was the third (need to research my emails)

dear tom still waiting on an response to me email sent yesterday at 3:42 pm est.

#1554 .... still waiting

Created an updated  thread for the refund list (the "dozen" refunds left):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152980.0

Let's keep this thread on topic about legal action.

I will make this easy on you, any information I have I am willing to share. I never meant to scam anyone. If I did I would of kept the money, this is like scamming 101. If your going to scam someone you usually keep the money. I lost everything with this failed business venture and If there were any way I could pay every single person back right away I would.

Latest news:

Last night I paid nearly 1000 btc in refunds to 32 different individuals, and also resolved a 26k debt.

Today I am sending nearly 10kk in western union payments to resolve some other larger debts.

I am going to be accumulating more Bitcoin and will be making the next batch of refunds next friday on 03/22

I understand the anger of those who did not make it into this refund batch, and I am sorry that some of you think that somehow I profited from this. I am now refunding people from my own pocket. All items on the website were listed in a USD price. I used Bit-Pay to process the payments. The items we sold on our website were priced in USD not in BTC therefore When you purchased the items the USD amount was calculated into a Bitcoin amount based on the current exchange rate (mtgox). This is done by Bit-pay and this is the reason that when you purchase something from Bit-pay you only have a 15 minute window to pay the amount before the transaction is canceled. The same things goes for refunds. When you purchased something for 1000.00 you are only going to get that 1000.00 back, and because the refunds in this case are being done in Bitcoin the USD amount is calculated back to the current exchange rate (mtgox) at the time of the refund. Any other Bitcoin business would do this the same exact way, unless something is specifically priced in BTC, you will get back what you paid in USD.

Contact me:
btcfpga@gmail.com

this is the only email address I am using to handle refunds and I have been answering emails every day. I have Zero unanswered emails at this current time at that address.

About BTCFPGA
It's legal status remained as being a sole proprietorship which means the entire liability is with me and me alone. I know we had called ourselves LLC pending at one time and We had LLC papers produced but never filed them .

This is not about the scammer tag. This is about doing the right thing. I urge everyone to please be patient, if you have any thing you want to talk about or you have a special situation or if there is anything I can do other than what I have been doing which is paying back what I have please email me.

I will likely not be posting back here again until 03/22

I will be available everyday at btcfpga@gmail.com

Everyone will be paid back.

Why on earth did you wait THIS LONG to start "communicating" again?   While "nice" to see this "do righteous for all" Tom, we have seen this in the past where you provide an update or attempt some simple sentence structure... then you disappear..

If you are willing to share "any" information.. you could start from the top with details of what went "wrong" with bASIC.. as the people who gave you interest free loans have the right to know...  You can also attempt to explain why you bailed or walled yourself up when people were trying to help you out (visits from Luke and Dave)... Plus, you may want to even try explaining the horrid final act of bASIC with the CAN-ELECTRIC fraud... this would be information that people have been asking for.. and if you say you are willing to share and do the "right thing" this would be a start along with consistent refunds...

I really do not want to sound ungrateful for what Tom has tried to do but I cannot say I am whole just yet.

For some reason while the exchange rates were around $47.85ish while he was paying everyone back my transaction received has an apparent exchange rate of $49.31.

This means that for a USD cost of $2169.98 for 2 units he paid back only 44BTC instead of approximately 45.34BTC.
I do not know if this was because of clerical error or what but I believe I am still owed at least 1.25BTC.

I cannot wait until payments start again in a week as that minuscule amount could be wiped out in exchange gains for his benefit.


I put it to everyone here, should I still hound Tom for the remainder or just lick my wounds and be done with it?

If you guys will notice, he just ignores me. I've said that he needs to post a list of refunds that are owed. And pointed out, that he won't and that it is easier to refund the people complaining in the thread. Why should he refund people that aren't complaining or threatening to sue him? He might get lucky and keep $50k for all of his investments he made into R&D.

To prove the point, the look right above my post at all the people with lots of ???? in their threads asking where their refund is because they still have nothing. Unfortunately for them, they weren't complaining while CP was doing his last couple of refunds.

Over 1000 BTC? Maybe, but transaction ID's sure would make it more believable.


I don't know what kind of karma you believe in. I don't it's any kind of Hindu or Buddhist karma, but probably more a Hollywood style karma. It doesn't really matter which one you believe in, but eventually paying back what was paid to you doesn't make you even. You've got a lot of good to do to make up for how bad you've handled everything.

It's you I wish I could hug. You're the one that really needs it. And your poor wife.

Perhaps he waited until he saw that legitimate legal action was being organized.  Then he had an "oh ****, better do something about this before I'm sued" moment.

I think that's exactly what happened...

Absolutely what it sounds like. Instead of the karma thing, it sounds more like he has fear. In all reality, it's probably not fear of being sued either. It's probably more along the lines he's afraid someone's going to hurt him or his family physically in a permanent way.

Anyone think it is coincidental that he is mining around 60Ghs? Who thinks he took preorder money and bought an Avalon lol

Tom answered me via email again. He states, he will pay me on 22nd. Lets see what happens. Thats the last time I am willed to wait, after that i will pursue legal action.

I'd probably complain once or twice and then let that one go as it's not enough to lose sleep over.

The exchange rate I got was $47.78 btw.

Tom you still have not replied to my email

Tom still owes us $200k, but I know people he paid back > $100k. I believe Tom has the will to refund everybody but I am not sure Tom is in control of what is going on around him :-) Before pursuing legal action we could try to find somebody who would be willing to visit Tom again and who would be accepted by Tom and let them discuss the plan to refund everybody. If there is nobody near Tom we could in fact consider asking a local lawyer to do this for us so we save on the travel costs :-) I am in Europe and I will not travel myself :-)

I am "near" tom

Great. Last time Lukas visited Tom they did not come to any conclusions (in fact Lukas did get very little information from Tom about the project). It would be good to ask Tom if the trip will not be a waste of time and we probably need more trips than 1 :-) Also I assume Tom does not repay people because he has not funds. We have to think what we want to do if we find out this is the case.
I am willing to support the trip financially. We should think about the budget for the mediation steps.

All,

I apparently just received my refund via BTC. TX https://blockchain.info/tx/fa475b83c51d496f7ea3bf4cba7dfc80da7da53b5d5dda4790ae5f611a6cc3c9 (https://blockchain.info/tx/fa475b83c51d496f7ea3bf4cba7dfc80da7da53b5d5dda4790ae5f611a6cc3c9) for BTC45.

It's a lot less BTC than I originally paid ( BTC175 https://blockchain.info/tx/bfbff222cb7705a0fa123c979f009a799b441e64227738634e4882e70c67083a :( ), however at the time of transaction, BTC45 works out to $2,159.10.

After receiving full refund for my bASIC order, I'd like to request to the mods that they remove his scammer tag.

Yes there was a significant amount of time with 0 communication, and yes that lead many to jump to the conclusion that he took people's money and ran. However, his posts on this forum since the incident all claim that he is in the process of refunding people, and as evidenced by my transaction posted above, he is making good on this claim.

While I'm still not super-happy about the long silence, I am most definitely content with Tom's return to posting and the refund he processed for me this morning.

I encourage everyone who is waiting for a refund to hold off on hurling insults at Tom as it's clear he is making some kind of effort to return people's funds.

Good, you got yours, let's remove the scammer tag.

However, there's a list of 20 people and growing that haven't received their refunds yet.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152980

Along with Even just above you saying that they are still owed over $200k. Not quite time to remove a scammer tag.

Am I sensing a team tommy resurgence ?  scammer tag should stay indefinitely, period.  Among other things possibly outside this forum, it actually seems to have helped get shit rolling in a more "positive" direction, if there is a such a thing...  

Sorry I bolded and italicized the sarcasm tags. Of course he doesn't get the tags taken off because one guy got a refund....


WTF :) lol

If you want maybe send him an email to see what can be done. Other than that be happy with what you got, and move on. If there is any truth to toms claims consider your self lucky.

i have sent tom two emails and no response yet

3 emails now and still no reply

He replied to me, one day later than he said, but he got to it anyway.  :)

Failed businesses don't make a person a scammer, I'm sorry.  Your logic is flawed.  That's probably why I have you ignored, miter_myles, and can only read your text in quotes.

PS: Please don't quote miter_myles.

Oh noes!  My E-feelings are hurt!! 

Dumbass.. failed businesses are one thing, but lies, deceit and incompetence are another, which tommy mcscam achieved on high levels.

this is a lie i have emailed you 3 times and still not received a response. i hope that me asking when my orders will be refunded isnt to mean or rude that you arnt going to answer me

So this is just SOP for a failing business?

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT - "Tom" or "Dave" is no longer affiliated with this company in anyway. We are a specialized devision of a huge corporate electronics manufacturer in Canada and we want you to get to know us before we take even 1 order. Ordering has been suspended for now and we are sorting out the banking and tax issues with Tom. Hopefully he does the right thing and for his credit he has givin us zero indication that he does not have full intention of doing the right thing. Luckily for everyone Tom seems to be doing the best he can to refund every single customer in a timely fashion. Now I know we lost most of our customers and that is fine. We plan to show full video proof before we take 1 single order and unlike some competitors these shipments willl be coming from the USA and will include USPS tracking numbers (DHL for international customer) Now for the hard truth We have strong reason to believe that BFL has been stringing you along all this time beause it needed your money to cover their R&D / NRE costs, its quite likely they are even using Pre-sale orders to pay their employees saleries which i am not sure of US law but is illegal in Canada. BEWARE OF BFL. ITS ALL LIES. Their terms of service contract is basically setup so they can legally take your money and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes Finally! Avalon comes out with the first ASIC device but how many will we actually see in customers hands by months end. How about the end of Febuary, March? These numbers will be very low. The sheer unprofessionalism of the supossid leaders in this industry is down right appaling talking about Bitcoin in general it's mind boggling - how these companies like BFL and bASIC can just string their customers along for months and no one comes out with anything better. My company has been developing custom ASIC and FPGA based solutions for decades we work in the military and telecommunications sectors and can accomplish this task at ease. We currently have a full functioning and hashing prototype which we plan to bring to production next week. We understand time critical solutions and it is our specialty. Instead of a full Standard CELL ASIC whch takes AGES to complete low success rates and extremey high NRE we are using FPGA hard copies of what is probably the best FPGA Bitcoin mining core in history (no it is not open source sorry ). Our ASIC chips can mine at over 2 gh/s comfortably and at a very low clock, which will ensure excellent heat disapation as well as chip longetivity. The inexpensive nature of the manufacturer of these chips will allow us to build machines that will use a large number of cheap chips and still keep electrical rates down to a reasonable level. These will be fully enclosed devices, not as cleaver as as our friends at Avalon with their stand alone wifi devices but they will include 25 FPGA hard copy ASICS which will use a maximum of 200watts per device. They will however require a host computer. The best part of our device is the speed at which we can develop them. We have a fully functional PCB fab and electronics assembly as well as a fully functional SHIPPING DEPARTMENT in house and we have already begun this process. I know it's a bit late in the game to introduce a product such as this but we wanted our news to get out there in the main stream. Tom is out. We are in. the bASIC is officially DEAD. Get ready for a 50Gh/s ASIC Based device shipping from the US with tracking and no none sense. There will be no deadline back outs and no B.S. We purchased this company from Tom for many reasons but the main reason is his un revealed completed design that can easily be converted to support 25 hard copy ASICS. The hardest work for us is already completed , Believe it or not, this IS happening and like I said before you will see a youtube video of this device hashing along before we ever ask for one red cent from the community. We cannot give an exact date at this time but It would not surprise me in the slightest that our first device ships before BFL. Professionals have taken this over and professionalism which is long over due in this industry will make all the difference. Please watch our you tube channel (coming soon) for a video of the device hashing by next week at the latest. Once the video has been shot we have decided to ship the device to conman who in my opinion develops the best Bitcoin mining software available. Please check back for more updates.


If he hadn't crossed the line yet (that's a huge if IMO) he smashed the line by a country fucking mile with this one.

Why do so many people choose to ignore the Can-Electric situation when proclaiming this just a normal failed business attempt?

+1

well its friday again...

I just sent out several refunds,

I have to go do something- but will be back later to resume refunds.



BTW: miter_myles is not and has never been a customer of BTCFPGA/BitcoinASIC

I don't owe him a penny.

he is just a mean nasty person who enjoys seeing others suffer.

Awww... Tommy "CAN-ELEC" McScam... I really do like how you try so hard to deflect things... you almost look like a victim when you say stupid shit like that.. lol

Actually, and rather unfortunately, I was indeed a sucker customer at one time (multiple orders even, omg!)... thankfully I did not pay via BTC.. still had to ride out my chargebacks and lost time and money following your little donkey show bASIC..

Good luck on your ebay sales!

Time to take action:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=143496.msg1616612#msg1616612