Bitcoin Forum

I would like to purchase an Antminer S17 Variant from BITMAIN.  Before I do so, I wanted to submit a post asking for any suggestions or tips for ordering from them.  Has anyone had any problems?  Where they resolved?  How likely is it that my order would be delayed or at worst lost or not shipped?  The order process seems straight forward.  Upload proof of passport, follow the instructions they give to a T and order, and wait.  Before I click the submit button my financial source would like a little reassurance on the order process.  Any information here would be useful.  Thank you for your time!  Ben.

Firstly, be sure that you are buying from real Bitmain website (https://shop.bitmain.com/).
Secondly, there shouldn't be any delays of order. Bitmain is usually(at least by my experience) shipping with no delays at all. You could have problems with customs but that is on you to deal with. They(Bitmain) do however provide everything they can to speed up the customs clearance. And if you have defective unit(which can happen but is not usual) you just send it to nearest service and pay the shipping(to service).

Finally, be sure to check when your unit is shipping before ordering as they usually do not have new units in stock.
Next batch of S17 is shipping in end of December if I remember correctly.

Probably the most reputable of all the manufacturers in terms of security of your funds and delivery of equipment.

As mentioned make sure you ONLY buy direct from shop.bitmain.com

If you are buying with cryptocurrency make sure you have it ready before you buy as you only have two hours to send and verify the payment.

If you are buying with wire transfer, make sure with your bank you can transfer funds of that magnitude to foreign banks, esp in China. You have 3 days to get the transfer completed.

If you are in difficulty just reply to the order email you receive and let them know whats going on, they are pretty understanding.

There is a purchasing walk through on their support web site here: https://support.bitmain.com/hc/en-us/articles/221888028-Ordering-payment-process

You cant go wrong with Bitmain yet this is the main company that can be trusted out when it comes to buying miners.Its better to go directly rather than
buying up with resellers.Im not sure how much they do differ in price but i would be confidently on dealing with Bitmain itself.

Delays is common yet supplies being shipped by batch and being scheduled.Your can try to visit up here https://service.bitmain.com/support

If you are having the miners shipped to the US, you will have to pay an import tax if I believe 25%, but this is subject to change depending on the status of the trade war with China.

That's actually a good point you bring up. If Bitmain has some sense in its business model, they should either re-route their shipments so people aren't taxed unfairly, or they should choose a different country for their warehouse.

Another option is to have a middleman who ships the miners to you after receiving them. It sucks hard to see how this trade war (which is solely a battle between egos) is affecting innocent people and businesses conducting honest business....

Bitmain couldn't care less. It's the buyer's responsibility to look at the additional tariffs and have it weigh in to see if buying miners from them makes sense or not.

If Bitmain would have a warehouse in a foreign country (which costs a lot of money to purchase/build/rent), it would then require them to ship all their miners from China to that country, which will only make these miners more expensive because of the additional cost involved. Business-wise, it makes not much sense for them to do so.

More importantly, most of the mining activity happens outside the US, so large scale miners can purchase from Bitmain and ship to X Y Z country without any problems in most cases.

Ordering in their website is pretty direct and you can even choose what carrier you want it to be shipped with they won't be the ones directly shipping it to you, the tracking number is what you will need to see how your parcel is going to you. What you need to worry about is the taxes it will bring once it arrived to you, I've seen a lot of mining equipment issues in the legal section of the forum and different countries or states in the U.S. have different taxes so be prepared for one if you have any taxes related to imported goods. Mostly if you are living in the U.S. some states issue taxes to imported goods when you sell them, so if you think of selling the ASIC miners you bought even if you already used it you will also be subject to tax.

None of your suggestions would be a good idea. The tariffs are imposed based on country of origin and efforts to evade tariffs will only result in harsher penalties for those involved when they are caught.

If bitmain wants their customers to not pay tariffs they will need to shift production of their miners outside of China, Vietnam would be a good alternative. 

The tariffs only matter to miners in the US. Unfortunately for them Bitmain doesn't care who they send the gear to, and they can ship to the rest of the world, or build up their own farms. Right now especially considering they still can't keep miners on the shelf, and people from the US are still buying gear just less. Then there's the aspect of not making a knee jerk reaction to 1 administrations pissing match with your government, as it's not affecting business yet.

It really only hurt the miners. The only drawback I've had personally was in the after care support. While it is practice to have to send back machines/parts for repair, they are the only company so far that hasn't had any wiggle room on that; when shown you are technically competent. In the end my minor issue wasn't worth sending the miner to China for repair. Good luck with your gear.