Bitcoin Forum

I'm interested in knowing this, but he probably won't respond..

I, too, would like to know this. I dropped most of my BTC on batch 3. Sure, that's a risk I'm taking, but after reading a bit of the forums I think the lack of updates on orders and particularly the lack of tracking numbers is worrying especially at the prices of these miners. Maybe if they didn't use a proxy shipper they'd have less issues?

Honestly, if they just made sure that everyone got a tracking number when their unit was shipped and they were fully insured, then we'd probably see a lot less issues. People would know where their unit was and wouldn't have to call DHL daily not knowing if its been shipped or not, or when it's arriving. We wouldn't see someone trying to steal it by changing the shipping address because you'd be monitoring the tracking number. And you'd know when it was coming so you could expect to sign for it. Frankly, I don't see what's wrong with this approach (even very small dollar value items get a tracking number anymore, and this is a device that practically prints money! If it gets delayed in shipping, the ROI could be severely impacted or made impossible, and that seems particularly important after the choice to price it as they did) and I sincerely urge BitSyncom to give out tracking numbers when the Avalon ships.

Now, I do understand that potentially some addresses were incorrect. Some posters say that's not true. I won't choose sides, although again, if a tracking number was given on shipment this would solve that issue too. :)

And, just to throw this out there, I think you guys are doing pretty good - otherwise I wouldn't have ordered my batch 3. Props for getting the first ASIC out there. I just think the shipping process can be better and lots of problems can be solved very easily for everyone.

Problem is following:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=163795.0

Yifu doesn't give tracking numbers to people. So nobody knows if the packages is shipped or not. Unless he, or virtually anybody, calls DHL and gives his personal information (for example found somewhere on the web). Then he will get the tracking number, and will be able to change the destination address, should he (or virtually anybody) decide that Avalon should go somewhere else.

Oh well. Part of the fun is dealing with uncertainty. I'm a happy camper. Let Yifu ship, I suspect he's doing the best he can.. the shipping company maybe fucked it up.

There is a 36% shipping failure rate with these devices. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=163703.0.

i think no more use of a proxy shipper is a must. I think people wood be willing to pay more four shipping and that takes away the problem of not knowing ware the boxes are buy dealing directly with the shipping company .instead of a proxy

I think I speak for most people when I say that I'd rather accept a small delay in shipment (how long could it take? create a label, copy the tracking number to a form, and that's it?) than have a 36% chance of not seeing my miner 2 months after shipments began.

I can only hope that BitSyncom decides to modify how they do things just a bit for the second and third batches. :) Personally, I know I would have thrown another 1 BTC onto the shipping charge just to make sure I got an e-mail and a tracking number the moment they send it off to DHL or EMS. Making sure you get your miner on time is worth the 1 BTC, because losing even a few days would mean that much and more in lost mining (or in the case of some people who haven't received for all this time, much more than that).

This is a classic Chinese pump and dump con based on a minimum ship rate.
Something BFL could learn from.

1. create demand , by limiting stock
2.  partially ship product from batch 1
3. Introduce batch 2 at a highly inflated price
4. Ship partial batch 2 orders BEFORE completing batch 1 orders
5. enter Batch 3 orders at megga high prices 9k per unit, only take bitcoins not bank deposits, because its a business and this is about tax avoidance
6. start shipping minimum of batch 3 units before moving onto batch 4 , noting that batch 1 orders have not even been completed.
......

Something happens and it all goes tits up.

Its not about shipping stock or building a reliable company... its all about making money

Some day, I will dye a blue streak in my beard, and change all my nicks to ChaosSurfer.

6 non delivered units out of a batch of 300 is hardly 36%

I'm excluding libertybuck because there has to be a story behind that one.  (China people got their units first, shipping is far simpler inside the country)

I'm basing on the data i have. I cannot take as sure that everyone who didn't received the units posted there.

You can take as certain that nearly 300 Avalons are in the field.  Just look at the network hashrate during the time they were shipped.

Yes, but who is mining with them? The customers or DHL? Let's hope the survey to get more data.

I don't understand how anyone can come to that conclusion.  ASICMINER has units out.  BTC is at $100+ even GPUs are profitable right now so there are people turning their rigs back on.

I just hope this downtime to re-arrange means Batch 2 goes smoothly.

As a BitSyncom/Avalon fanboy, I feel the need to refute this crap. First off you might want to look up the definition of "pump and dump" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump).

1. The demand for ASIC miners does not come from limited stock. It comes from the fact that a "bitcoin rush" is in full swing and ASIC's are basically magical money making machines.
2. They shipped out those initial units from batch #1 to prove they were legit which I am thank for for as it gave me the confidence to risk the precious BTC I've mined on batch #2. Batch 1 has now shipped.
3. A 25% increase is not a "highly inflated price", especially when you consider that the exchange rate has increased MUCH more than that.
4. Source? I have not seen any evidence that a single batch 2 order has been shipped. If a developer from batch 2 got special treatment, then so be it.
5. They priced batch #3 in BTC which is almost exactly the same price as batch #2. As the exchange rate goes up, so does profitability and the ROI in BTC is not effected by the exchange rate. I personally thought this was a great move. They are "true believers" and this decision gave leverage to people who already had "pre-rally" bitcoins which made it harder for the greedy folk to jump in with nothing but cash.
6. 100% FUD. There's no word of a batch 4 and batch 1 was completed weeks ago. Shipping/customs problems doesn't mean the batch wasn't completed.

While I wouldn't say they've done a perfect job bringing ASIC to market, they have outperformed everybody else and could have made a LOT more money. Based on what I've seen, I believe that they are true believers that put the future of bitcoin before profits and are motivated by idealism instead of greed.

/$0.02

Not all of batch 1 has shipped;  I think it is more like Batch 1 is shipping, not shipped.  Called today;  nothing has left HK via DHL for my zipcode.  They pulled all incoming packages to my zipcode (only two incoming packages worldwide, two of the packages were medical supplies NOT from HK).  It is easy for DHL to find stuff because DHL doesn't usually do business over here since they are not local.

Wow.... did you read my fcking mind? I'm from HK and i can say its so damn TYPICAL.! Couldnt agree more

 

I'm sorry to hear that, I can't imagine waiting for a batch 1 unit this long while watching the difficulty start to skyrocket! Must be extremely frustrating. You should post your info in this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=157856.0) which shows 7 (out of 300) units are still outstanding. Obviously that's not EVERY missing unit but still not bad since it's less than 3% which isn't too surprising for International shipping. Sure, maybe there is a chance Yifu has your Avalon under his desk mining away, it has to be tempting, but the majority have been received so I'd say it's safe to assume they've all been shipped weeks ago as they stated and yours has run into problems.

Out of curiosity, where are you located? At any rate I feel your pain and hope your unit(s) get here soon! I have faith that BitSyncom will improve shipping in the next batches and hopefully provide tracking #'s this time.

I think most of what went wrong had to do with Avalon trying to beat the CNY mess.  That seemed to stall things for some weeks.

I think there were some other failures too in management (they mentioned having outsourced shipping entirely), in resource allocation, and in customer service.

I'm hoping Avalon has learned from the past, and will execute more smoothly when it comes to batches 2 and 3.

Alaska, closest DHL office is 900 or so miles away in Anchorage.  I've ordered from HK before with DHL, stuff usually goes from HK to Anchorage, to Kentucky, back to Anchorage, where it gets put into US mail and arrives via US Mail (still pretty fast), last shipment I did took about 1 - 1.5 weeks from HK via DHL to my door.

Best shipper that I've been happy with has been UPS Expedited actually...  I've gotten stuff in under a week from HK.

I had a package take a month and a half via EMS though.

I'm in West Central Minnesota,  several hours drive past Lake Woebegone.  Often, on cheap burger Wednesday, the UPS driver joins our group.  FedEx packages go to the local post office.  The postman tells me over coffee at the diner that I have incoming.  I don't know if DHL is in with these guys or not.

Oh wow I'd imagine Alaska is a great place to mind since cooling is taken care of :P. What's energy costs like up there? I would assume the delay in your Avalon's arrival is related to that crazy shipping situation. I really really hope we get tracking numbers in batch 2!

No problem with cooling (not snowing today but it was the other day).  Energy costs (where I am) are between 5 and 11 cents a KW.

I don't believe it is because of the crazy shipping solutions;  I called DHL again today and nothing has shipped.  I gave them the sender account ID, sender name, location, destination zip code;  A lady Ana looked and couldn't find anything.  There are other packages, but not mine.

Generally I am unlucky;  and I just *KNEW* if there was any problems it would happen to me.  So I was super careful about everything, reading every message avalon sent out and following them absolutely.  Shipping addresses, I updated the new system too right after they lost all of the old store information again with my address just in case, as well as submitting a ticket.  Unfortunately nothing appears to have stopped what I knew would happen.  I mined all of the BTC, but at the price I bought it was a lot of BTC.  :(.

Ouch so still nothing? Any response from Bitsyncom? I also mined the BTC I used to pay for my batch 2 Avalon's which was a very hard decision to make since I wasn't 100% sure it was legit at the time. You should still be able to make an insane ROI assuming it arrives before the markets crash. I'm planning to keep my BTC so I don't really care what the exchange rate is although it is crazy to think the BTC I spent would now be worth $30k. Anywho, you should keep us updated... GOOD LUCK!