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I'm one of the Icarus trade-ins. I am also supposed to be getting two regular order units in the second batch. I live in the Midwest, so I'd be a good "longer than average" guesstimate on the time it takes to do an Icarus trade-in and regular Avalon order. I pledge that I will update the forums with every communication I receive and action I take, from notification to the sending of two of my Icarus devices in, to their acknowledgement of the receipt, to their email confirming the Avalon has been sent and/or the tracking number of the device, to my receiving the unit and initial burn-in testing on a pool (Not sure which one yet, I might even split them). I'll also track the time between each step of the process as best as I can.

I think if a handful of us do this, it'll help out with the transparency and give folks an idea of what to expect from their orders. I was kind of hoping the guys in Batch #1 would do this, but at the very least I think I can do it in #2.

1) Time of initial regular order : February 18, 2013 08:25 AM CST
2) Time of Walletbit confirmation: February 18, 2013 03:24 PM CST (There were several messages after this, but this was the first)
3) Time of BitSyncom regular order confirmation: None (I'm not sure when/if they will be doing this, anyway?)

4) Time of notification to send in Icarus device(s): April 15th, 2013 3:40 PM CST
5) Time that Icarus device(s) are shipped: April 16th, 2013 10:45 AM CST (Price: $220. They guaranteed delivery by Friday, April 19th)
6) Time of verification that the Icarus was received: April 19th, 2013 3:06PM CST
7) Time of Avalon trade-in order (or confirmation thereof): Will never happen
8) Time of Avalon trade-in order shipped per BitSynCom: Will never happen
9) Time of Avalon trade-in order received tracking #: Will never happen
10) Time of Avalon trade-in order arrival: Will never happen

11) Time of Avalon regular order shipped per BitSynCom: June 29th, 2013 8:32 AM CST
12) Time of Avalon regular order received tracking #: June 29th, 2013 8:32 AM CST
13) Time of Avalon regular order arrival: July 3rd, 2013 11:30 AM CST

Part of this is for my own record, but I figure if I do it publicly, it'll help people make a more educated decision on what to expect from an Avalon order.

EDIT - 9/11/2013:
Well, it was a fun ride, but I've given up on BitSyncom providing the Avalon replacements or providing a credit for the Icarus shipped back to him, or making up for the lost Bitcoin revenue from the last ~5 months of mining revenue. I will never do business with Yifu again.

I have given both ngzhang and xiangfu positive ratings for transactions scaling several hundred in BTC, but I have left a negative non-BTC rating for BitSynCom for failure to provide a refund for my Icarus.

In the interest of full disclosure:
Total lost in estimations for shipping costs and refunds was ~18 BTC based on the prices at the time of estimated shipment of the devices (~$100 per BTC). Lost mining revenue on the Icarus I estimate to have been around 13 BTC over the last 5 months.

It should be a warning to those of you contemplating future business with Yifu & Company that at least one "old miner" has lost ~31 BTC in dealings with them.

A word of advice to future mining companies. If you make a customer service portal... USE IT.

This will be interesting... thread watched.
https://i.imgur.com/ygZSd.gif

Here is what to expect.


Your order, shipped in the given time-frame and an update if they is a delay.  Looks like units are hitting the U.S.  That makes me happy.  Everyone wants to know everything about everything and they get upset then they are not in the drivers seat.   Units are shipping and they are working hard to ship them by their deadlines. 

Where did you see units hitting the US?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137534.msg1597666#msg1597666

I expect and hope we'll see some of the Batch #1 guys posting soon, I just wanted to promise to provide updates as I find out more. Especially since Batch #2 is the first batch for trade-ins. We definitely have quite a bit to look forward to.

<subscribed>

Thanks for doing this. :)

going by avalons email update

i thought all 300 units of batch one were out and dealt with already in february for them to then release batch 2 order page..
my query if the batch 2 units are meant to be on route to the country on the 4th of march with tracking numbers given out by the 7th of march. why have the icurus people not received an email asking them to send their unit back.

what im guessing is 4th of march they are sending out developer units only. which means these developers should have received tracking numbers by now to receive their units for mid march.
then guys like the OP should receive an email asking them to send the icurus back to them. to then get the ASIC in a fortnights time presumably.
leaving the regular customers waiting 3 weeks more for their unit tracking number?

hmmm, im bookmarking this page.. just to know when the trade in guys get some updates

Batch #1 are the orders that went out.  They have not sent any batch #2 orders out at all.

I'm primarily doing this for my own benefit, but I did realize that there has not been clear communication to current Icarus holders on how to do our pre-orders. I didn't even know for sure if I needed to order in Batch #2, because the second time it went up, there was no pre-order page. So instead I've at least got the two orders I've presently made, with only a WalletBit confirmation. I am hoping that I will get a notice to ship my Icarus back in shortly (perhaps a few weeks). Once I get that, I will do my shipment. I am also hoping I get a response saying they've received my Icarus and will now be sending the order.

Again, while I'm primarily doing this for my own benefit, I have realized that this will help allay concerns of those who have ordered in Batch #2 without a trade-in. They will at least have an idea of when to expect their order, and given that I live in the Midwest, I believe it is possible that, even with the priority queuing, I will probably be receiving my units around the same time as people on the West Coast that did not do a pre-order will be receiving theirs. Additionally, I have another two Icarus units that I intend to delay upgrading till Batch #3 to possibly do the same thing.

So, all-in-all, I think recording this could benefit all of us doing orders.

Still waiting any infos for my order done in some of firsts people in batch 2. I get confirmation by support from yifu but never got a confirmation email promised...At least of I receive someday my 2 units thats ok....

Anyway the delay we got when ordering first units in the batch 2 are already done...delayed and with just one notice...

Regular Batch #2 Customers - Unfortunately you are not special.

lol...Not special yes we know, but does there is any better statement for delay which are added for us without real infos? Customers of batch 2?

Original post updated. The batch #2 email was received. I'm taking off work tomorrow morning to ship the units, expect an update tomorrow morning.

I meant the Icarus devices, not the Avalons. I'm shipping them back to China. That's the only change, I'll update this thread when that is done. Again, I'm just posting this stuff here so that people can get an idea of the time frame for orders.

I got an email this morning from Avalon regarding trade ins. It contains a snail mail address in Beijing for sending the fpgas.

Original post updated. Icarus devices shipped back to China, expected delivery was Friday, April 19th. Cost was over $200.

Ouch, $200 to ship expedited.  What the trade in value?

Remember you also get priority shipping over regular customers (but after developers). So $200 is negligible.

Original post updated. Delivery has been confirmed. Package was signed for.

Still nothing!?!?  Dude, I hope you get good news tomorrow.  What order numbers did you have?  I'm waiting on a batch 2.2 (#11xx) so I'm certainly won't see mine before you see one of yours.

Nope, no update.

I received DHL Tracking # on 6/17/13 - any word for your order?

so you sent in your EQ more than 2 months ago. how much power did it have? perhaps another Avalon ploy to facilitate their apparent secret mining with customer pre-orders

I still have received no notification on my trade-ins or on my regular batch #2 orders as of this morning. Sorry folks, no update yet.

Received noticed of shipment and tracking # at the same time this morning for my regular order:
June 29th, 2013 8:32 AM CST

Edited the original post to reflect this.

Still no status update or change on trade-in orders.

Edited #13 to reflect delivery time on regular Batch #2 orders:
13) Time of Avalon regular order arrival: July 3rd, 2013 11:30 AM CST

Hoping to hear about trade-ins soon.

My regular order Avalons were received in great condition, they were definitely used for mining, as others have stated. They were set on Extreme for the 24-hour burn-in test. One of the units had an orange LED light up, I put it back to Advance for chip frequency and reset cgminer and it appears to be running more stable. I'll probably fiddle around with these settings and other firmware at some point in the future, but for now I'm going to leave them in a stable state as I continue to work at my day job.

I'm going to start looking for a commercial/industrial real estate option soon to get these out of my living quarters.

How many do you have?

More than one  ;D. Also have more than one trade-in as well as not all of these are mine. That's about all I'm willing to disclose, sorry...

Updated with the latest info. Yifu never responded to the customer service inquires I made, I've given him a negative rating and now consider the Icarus devices as stolen/lost. I never received a refund.

Sorry for your trouble. :( Are you pursuing a refund from Yifu now that he's trying to peddle his g2 stuff? He always seems to behave when he wants to bring new hardware to market.

Thanks for keeping the community apprised of the situation.

Edit:

Sorry to necro, but did really nothing happen for the trade ins? Everyone gave up without legal action?

At the time, BTC was worth under $80 so they said they wanted something like 17 BTC per FPGA for an ASIC miner. If I would have paid their ransom money for the new ASIC miners, it would have resulted in an even bigger loss so I just took the 31ish BTC in lost mining revenues, FPGAs, and shipping as a loss.

I also sent in one Icarus, never got a reply...

same here! all PMs, Tickets, mails was ignored

Let us spread that behavior now, when they are going to sell their next product!
somebody talked to a lawyer?

+1, just don't buy from them...

Did you post trust on their profiles?  These dicks should never sell anything here. 

I read somewhere they have that against-bitcoin policy in China, maybe contacting someone from the gov in China could help you put somee pressure on them?

And some still want to trust the new Yifuless Avalon?

Wasn't Yifu the main culprit? If so, a Yifuless Avalon is a good thing, lol.

+1

If that is the case they could clarify that for everyone right?

You are expecting an ASIC manufacturer to actually communicate with the masses?! With the exception of Spondoolies, of course who are amazing with their constant updates.

Seriously, wtf is wrong with these other companies? We give them millions of dollars and they shit on us with alarming regularity. I feel like a battered wife.

Yeah, I had trouble ultimately deciding on scoring ngzhang and xiangfu positively while I scored BitSyncom negatively. Ultimately though I went that route because I think ngzhang and xiangfu were the victims here, not the problem (which was BitSyncom/Yifu).

Here's the summary of what happened:

I have a framed shipping note for my FPGAs that I hang in my office to proudly show friends/family that I had ordered some of the first FPGA Bitcoin miners from China in 2011 (These were the Icarus FPGAs). I took a picture of it and wrote a note on it to ngzhang that I thanked him for letting me use his tech and looked forward to using his new ASICs just as I had the FPGAs. It occurred to me while watching a video of Yifu talking about how he had to hide ngzhang due to "death threats" that it is possible they interpreted that silly picture/note as a threat, possibly because it had his home address on it. I'm not sure how someone who could both read English and Chinese could do that, though, because the English note I made should have been clear I was proud to have had been an early miner using Avalon tech. Not only that, but it had MY home address, email, forum name, and phone number on it. If it was a death threat, they could have just reported me :/

When I got my batch 2 miners (non-tradein) they had been pre-configured to mine on Eligius to a specific Bitcoin address that held ~400 BTC at the time I had received them. I'm not sure if the burn-ins for Batch 2 just did that much mining (it's not out of the question that they could have mined so much in such little time back then), or if they were intentionally screwing over customers. My argument in the support ticket was that it looked as if Yifu had intentionally delayed Icarus trade-in deliveries past the April/May date, sold Bitcoin from the June/July chip orders to drop the price from $250 down to $65 or so, then updated the Icarus trade-in prices to have us pay 17 BTC per trade-in. I suggested to use a more current rate as the price of BTC began to soar past $75, $100, then $125 (later hovering around $140ish) in less than a week, since I hadn't gotten any notice they had posted the trade-in info till a week later. I was now being expected to pay ~70 BTC (valued around $10k) to a company that showed it was delaying chip shipments, delaying trade-ins till they had a more favourable exchange rate, and was mining significant amounts of BTC on their customers' hardware. It was very easy to say "no" with zero response coming from them, either through the ticketing system or forums.

Yifu's response was that we were "greedy" in public posts, he never addressed the support ticket, however. From what I understand many trade-in customers never got any notification to send in BTC at all. I feel really sorry for those folks. If I would have done the trade-in, and assuming they sent me the 4 Avalons I would have gotten, I could have turned around and maybe sold them for ~40 BTC each if I did it quickly enough. They would never have mined back what I spent on them, however. ROI was abysmal as priced in BTC. I don't *really* care about the lost BTC, either that which I would have obtained had I finished the trade and resold nor that of the lost 31 BTC from mining/shipping/etc. I care more about the attitude Yifu had in regards to his customers. In the end, I've made far more than I've lost on Bitcoin mining, anyway, and I have ngzhang and xiangfu and a healthy knowledge of GPU over-clocking to thank for that.

fuck em all!

typical thieves!

stole the ip to even get started

stole the trade ins

stole the profit by mining everyones rigs to death for over 5 months

but in china that behaviour is rewarded with government contracts and extra fish heads/chicken feet in your lunchbox. yum!

Thanks Raize... that is very helpful. Wish it can be backed up from what is left of Avalon. There are many good Engineers who lost everything in the DIY community as a result of the events surrounding the failed chip deliveries.

If you believe in karma then NY State will go after Yifu Guo for income tax evasion.   Surely someone has reported him by now?   If not, perhaps it would be good use of your time.   They are SUPER aggressive with tax cheats and do not think it is funny that a resident tries to make a foreign company and not pay tax on their profits.   Especially someone that likes to appear in media bragging about his success.    Why not spend your time typing on NY State's site for a few minutes and attaching the articles and the fact that he probably made about $3-9M in profits (and likely reported ZERO of it)?

karma is a bitch.

Because frankly, I hate the IRS more. The IRS is the piece of shit government agency that bilked me of ~40% of my 2013 profits, somewhere in the five figures. Yifu screwed me over, sure, but the IRS is pure evil and yet I'm required by law to follow their directives. I'd rather accept my own responsibility in trusting Yifu to have delivered, and influence ngzhang and xiangfu to publicly shame him than turn him over to the devil. Even with how upset I am with Yifu, I'm far more disgusted with the IRS. I estimate the IRS took about triple what Yifu ultimately did (though as time has passed, the value in Bitcoin has inevitably increased).

Yifu may have "scammed" me, but what the IRS does is outright thuggery.

Fair enough.   I was referring to the New York State Department of Taxation and Revenue.   They make the IRS look nice....
They are very aggressive and quite irrational.   Personally, I think Yifu deserves to deal with a complete dickhead agency that drives him nuts for stealing from us and mining with our batch IIs for so long.   

Thanks! for the link!
Kindly,
       Muhammed Zakhir