Bitcoin Forum

 I made a post earlier today asking a simple question whether AT will reimburse the amount sent to them originally or the current usd or euro price in btc as I ordered 2 of their 250mh/s units. Not only did they pull my post, but they also sent a 9 paragraph back response saying email them. Folks... This is unacceptable. They do not provide an open forum. Yes they have a massive forum, but they moderate it to the level of deleting legitimate questions. At this point I have to say my 7k investment in them is shit.

 You do not treat good customers this way, nor should you EVER moderate a forum to the point of screwing said customers. I have followed these forums, and they do this regularly. Please help guys, as they are trying to screw more than me.... I am a 6.7k investor. I begged them for answers, and they delete post's. They promised money back, and now delete posts. I simply asked if I request a refund, are you going to return the BTC I sent, or the equivalent of today's rate and got posts pulled.

https://forum.alpha-t.net/index.php?topic=652.new#new

 New post, I will probably be banned. If I need to email them, something is wrong, they already pulled my posts. If a moderator pulls a post, and does not speak to customer service to take care of a customer spending 20k USD, something is wrong. This is not the way you do business. At least here in Arkansas.

 Here is more... I am officially requesting a refund tonight based on their decisions to send me a cut and paste response. I asked a legitimate question, and we they pulled my post and sent me this...

There is a good chance power consumption will be significantly lowered, no final figures yet and we are still advertising a maximum of 1875 and 375.

Some bank transfers can take a while to be processed, do not worry if your order is still on-hold, just send one email to payments@alpha-t.net if it's been over 5 days.

If your order is on hold and you need to pay message me your order number (only final amount one not the deposit one!) and say you need it reset.

We are going through emails very quickly at the moment in anticipation of the new credit/debit card processor being up either this week or next so rest assured you will be responded to in good time. As of this edit we are now only days behind and will be fully caught by this Sunday (there will be a few exceptions).

'Processing' means we have received your payment and is the correct state, 'pending' means we have yet to confirm receipt of payment, 'completed' will show once the unit has shipped.

There has been a lot of concern regarding the payment due date approaching and I just wanted to reassure you all that in light of waiting for a new processor to be set up we have extended the date to 2 weeks after it has been set up so rest assured you have plenty of time.

Additionally I just wanted to reiterate that this forum is not for customer service questions, if you have any issues related to your order please email payments@alpha-t.net and they will help you. We are very busy at the moment and I know nobody likes to wait but this simply cannot be helped; if you are not being served it is because somebody else is. We cannot prioritize anyone so please do not request this on the forum. I am sorry but I do not deal with orders and cannot help you with these questions so they will be promptly deleted in the interest of keeping the forum from being flooded with them.

Also the phone line is currently experiencing technical difficulties, it will be back up as soon as possible.

Finally please be advised if you would like to order and be a part of batch 1 orders will open on the site at the same time as the new processor is up so either this week or next. Sign up to our newsletter at the bottom of our site to be notified exactly when. So there is no need to email us anymore as you will be able to order yourselves soon enough.

 Ok here we go.. this is my response.. let's see if these guy's can fly....

 I request you refund the money I sent you. I have already paid you £3,270. I expect the same in a refund in BTC  at today's rate or a bank transfer equivalent to the amount. You have had, and played with my money over 6 months, I am not asking interest, as you have already earned it. You have deleted my posts, and sent me a copy and paste response. I no longer see you as a reliable company and as of yet, you have not delivered. I officially request you refund my money, and I wish your company the best.

 I will post this in multiple forums, and email you accordingly. I will also let your customers aware via bitcointalk.org, litecoinforums.org and your forums,  of the progress of your company's responses. I tried to make a valid post on your said forum's,  and your moderators deleted them. Again, please refund my money, and I wish your company the best!

 Sincerely,

James Fauver III

Watching with great interest.  Have been considering looking into refund situation on the little AT order.  After reading your post though I kind of have the pit-like feeling in my stomach that I got with, BFL, then later even worse with HashFast.

Good luck on getting your refund.

 I am officially banned from the alpha-t.net forum's. I have yet to receive an email from them. I officially requested a refund yesterday, on their forums and through email. If they choose to totally ignore me (which I suspect) I shall further update you.

An Error Has Occurred!
Sorry ScrappyDo, you are banned from using this forum!
This ban is not set to expire.

Isn't their pre order supposed to deliver in july ? Or have they postponed any set date ? I believe you are bound by said terms and conditions you signed when you place the pre order ?

Have contacted Alpha-T support twice now. No response (Once two weeks ago, once this week).

First asked to have my order downsized from 2 miners to 1 miner -- easy enough, wasn't cancelling my order, just downsizing..... No response.

After a week and a half or so (bad at timelines) of not hearing from them, I requested a full refund. No response. Not even a 'sorry, we cannot do that'.

So, lack of communication, Stalin-style Censorship on their forums, and people other than me experiencing the same problems leads me to the following conclusion:

STAY AWAY FROM ALPHA TECH.

They make scrypt miners right? Why is this in a BTC hardware thread?

Alpha tech was the most obvious scam around.

Can't believe that much people fell for this shit.

It seems odd that many manufacturers made scrypt asics and are constantly improving on speeds and whereas as alpha-t has still nothing but excuses.I am glad that I didn't fall for their claims.

Hindsight is great. However some of us did "fall for their claims" ..... I'm sincerely getting sick of this type of irresponsibility in the crypto community. How can we ever have mainstream adoption if we can't even have trust between ourselves?

Alpha-T, you should be ashamed of yourselves. At least answer your damn emails.

 I have received many private messages and appreciate you guys support. Please do not them get away with this. I cannot even read their forums now, they have completely put me in the dark. I have to rely on information now through this and the litecoin forum.

Just wanted to respond to this real quick.  This may be how you see yourself, but they never saw you as a customer, or an investor, they saw you as an interest free loan.  You say you don't want to get screwed but seriously, every single one of these preorders always turns out exactly the same way.  At some point you have to start to wonder, if people don't want to get screwed, why do they keep bending over?

People dont learn from the past. Wasnt it the same with Butterflylabs? Why do you guys still pre-order, is your greeed that high? :/

I believe the hope was that not only consumers, but also the COMPANIES THEMSELVES, learned from the past.

This is terrible business practice.

Can someone explain to me how we keep letting people like this get away with terrible business practices while we just sit on forums either 'bitching' or saying 'I told you so' ?

No, the hope was always that the "consumers" will learn their lesson.
Most "companies" that engaged in the pre-order practice ended up as nothing but scam (hence the quotation marks around the word companies).
Some came out legit (if you can call extreme late delivery as legit). But still, the majority were scam.

You assume said companies were real to begin with.

I'll assume with my reply that you also gave them money.

Anyway, I can tell you easy how this keeps happening: people keep throwing money for vaporware because of greed. No-one to blame but themselves.

Don't wanna get scammed? Don't give your money to complete and total strangers.
So yeah, "I told you so" is quite a reasonable response.

You don't wanna let them get away with it? Than go do something about it. Your money, your responsibility.

I'll never understand people giving money for a product that doesn't exist. That doesn't make you a consumer, that makes you an investor (they only sell it as a pre-order so that they can get your money under the pretense that you're a consumer), and as such, you also assume the risk that the product will never see the light of day and that you'll lose all your money.

If you thought for a moment that you're a consumer... Oh boy.

A lot of people kept warning everyone else that pre-orders are bad, that you might get scammed completely, and even if you wouldn't, there's a big chance you'll get the product so late you'll never see ROI.

Despite all of that, people like the OP still decided to go on ahead with the pre-order. He wasn't forced to, no1 hacked his wallet and payed for it against his will nor did anyone hold a gun to his head.

You're all grown ups (I assume), you made a decision willingly and freely, I'm not sorry you got scammed, just hope you've learned your lesson.

If you wanna get something done about it, than those who feel like they got scammed (I suppose you can't call it a scam just yet, as they haven't reached their deadline - I think) need to get together and do something. Asking the entire crypro-currency community as a whole to do something is just not the way.

BTW, in what other market in the world do you pre-order a product that doesn't exist (and never has) under the pretense that you're a consumer and that you'll get the product 100%?

 I appreciate your long post and actually reading the forum but you yourself are wrong. Here is why.

 It is not greed that lead me to them, it was the simple need to try and compete, and actually make a few dollars. That is not greed, that is good business.

 I never considered myself a customer, and in fact had you taken the time to read the entire post I said investor. They promised a money back guarantee before the actual due date, I requested one. They refuse to answer email, and they are banning people from their forums if they even ask. Please stay on topic. Do not preach to those that are more aware of the situation than you.

 First off, you really need to slow down my friend, as when I invested, 25mh/s a was unheard of. Did I take a chance.. you bet i did.. but they also claimed a 100% back guarantee that before any time of shipping I had the opportunity to request a refund. I did that, and got banned from the forums and no response to email as of the current time.

 To make claims of I am not sorry you got scammed and yes I can call it a scam because all I did was ask them to honor what they promised, a money back guarantee.

 Again, I am not a consumer, and please stop using this word. I took and investment in them on the pretense of a money back guarantee.

 Starscream, pleae do not post again, as you are merely saying I told you so, and that is not the case at all. Learn to speak, before you open your trap. You come here and try and inform folks, but yet you simply laugh in not just mine, but others faces. How is that helpful? How in any way can anyone see your post as informative?  It simply is not.
 

No matter how many BFL like scam companies sprout from anywhere , but people will keep on pre-ordering and cycle gets on repeating itself ,and worst part is those people who are new to crypto , start investing without knowing the repercussions &  get scammed and its just bad for whole crypto-currency  which aims to get into mainstream.

 I am by no means new if you were referring to me. I have 3 45u 7 foot racks in my garage and over 40 gpu's humming. It ain't easy to scam me. This I promise.

I was not referring to you , I was referring to new people who hear about crytpo-currency and invest in mining etc . and on one hand , greedy Asic manufacturers like Alpha-t bring whole crypto under bad light and on other hand keep on stacking money in their banks .

 BFL never offered 100% money back before shipping, and they also never banned massive accounts on their forums for asking a question. Basically, your point is null and void.

 Is my greed that high you ask? No but my investments are, and chose to do so with a 100% money back guarantee, which they have as of late yet to give.

 Please try and be helpful, as I made a legitimate request for help...

 Ahh gotcha, so what your saying is if a person sees an opportunity to take a chance on something, with a 100% guarantee refund, they should never take it. Hmm, that's a tough pill to swallow right there.

 Btw.. not every preorder has ended up this way. Example being the 2 Cointerra machines I have. Yes they were late, and yes they are 1.5-1.6 instead of the 2 th/s they promised. But..... They officially paid off 5 days ago, so from this point they are gravy. Which at current rate is .12-.13 btc a day.

For the record, I am an investor. and yes they did use me as a interest free loan. I simply asked for my money back as they guaranteed. Can you help me with this? otherwise, the "I told you so" I am sick of. :(

I did read the post and you can call you what you want, but at the end of the day it was greed - you saw a quick way to make some quick buck.
If you really wanted to compete you'd go buy GPUs and make a farm, if you'd done it, like I did it at feb, you'd already have seen ROI (I know I have).

And I'm not sure why you keep mentioning this "100% guarantee refund" nonsense like Alpha-T is some reputable entity that has the sources to actually fulfill this promise.

Give me 10k$ for my secret project, and at any time you have 100% guarantee refund. Would you? Hell if you would without an escrow.

 Sir, I have to ask you to stop posting as you are not even reading the thread. You bought GPU's in Feb. Nice! I been running a 40+ farm since march... of last year. I am not responding to you in a swinging dick style, I will simply again ask you to back the hell off as you obviously know not what you speak.  It was not greed, and I answered you in this retrospect, I have no idea why you want to say I was investing is greed. If no one ever invested...... surely you get the point.

 I appreciate your enthusiasm and I wish you the best of luck in your farm.. I will not further reply, and trust me, my farm is BIGGER than yours, so please do not talk down to me.

Well, here's a lesson in life for you: there's what you want, and than there's what I want, and I wanna post a reply, so yeah.

I called it greed and still will cause it is what it is - if you wanna call it compete, than w/e float your boat man.

But hey, as long as they got their 100% guarantee refund policy, it was a "different" decision to be made, eh?

And good for you for mining for so long, shame you haven't got the capacity to learn anything at all from past mistakes (yours or others).

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Good luck though, and despite all the was said, I sincerely hope you do get your money back.

Well Alpha Technology decided to reply to an email of mine. Was it because of this post? Who knows. The timing is a little fishy though, eh?


What a response!

Fingers crossed. Send any photo proof when you get it?

As for deleting posts on their forums (im not a customer, and not a member of their forums) - the email reply I read earlier in the thread said that the forums the request was posted in was not for customer support - so that maybe a reason why they remove such posts?

I hope either way that you both either get your money back from them, or a suitable miner if it has been already processed.

However, it is worth noting that Alpha Tech are a UK based company, so presumably fall under the EU Distance Selling Regulations. As well as Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPUTRs for Short). This legislation gives a none-business consumer many many rights in regards to what they are allowed to do with your money/items. Of course, if you are a business - you still have the Sale of Goods Act and under this there are also covered many rights.

I wouldn't however, hesitate to add that taking any form of legal route would most likely victimise all of the other customers of Alpha Tech, and potentially make the very situation happen what you fear will happen - so if anything, be prudent, and be wise. Don't let your frustration or outrage cause you to unfortunately make a victim of their other customers - as legal costs can get very costly for both parties, and ultimately it would be the consumers who lose out.

Still no word.

Have no time to keep up with their forums.

If I did post something there, it'd be removed/deleted anyway.

Still banned from forums, and no reply to any emails, especially my refund request.

The companies DID learn from the past.  They learned they can do this and get away with it, so why not do it?  Not scamming is just leaving money on the table, since there is no shortage of customers no matter how they treat them. 

Evidently, it is!

Yes it was too greed.  You wanted to profit in a situation where no profit was possible.  If the only possible chance at profiting in a particular industry is to gamble 10s of thousands of dollars on some 2 bit, no name company's imaginary product, then that is NOT good business.  Good business would be saying, "gee, I guess now is not a good time to get into the business at all".

You were never an investor.  You were an interest free loan.  Investors received detailed information outlying the investment.  You did not get this.  Investors have a stake in the company.  You did not have any.  You were promised a money back guarantee.  Investors never get such guarantees.  Nothing at all about this transaction in any way suggested you were an investor.  The fact that you thought you were investing reveals quite a bit about your business acumen, or lack thereof.   
There is that greed that you claim you didn't exhibit.
Stop using that word.  You were never an investor.  You have no stake in the company, and no claim on their assets or income.  None. 

Incidentally, had you read what little information they gave you that construed the contract for the deal, you would have known they were never going to willingly give you a refund until they no longer needed the interest free loan. 

 Please tell me how this could be construed as good criticism? You scream I told you so, yet never offer a better solution....

https://i.imgur.com/0WxhTW4.png

Here's the image proof you wanted, FYI.

 Guy's, I am seeing a massive surge of PM's of people with the same issues. If We do not stand together, We all get screwed. According to their last ToS agreement, I sent them over 6k usd, if they agre to send me back anything, I am lucky. Please make more informed. One of the biggest forums alpha is on and being promoted is in litecoinforums. Please check here. : https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=20441.msg184167#msg184167 and I also posted here but Chirale does not want to get involved so he decided to leave them up... : https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=6506.msg182913#msg182913

 If we do nothing, they will simply steal our money...

You assume that there IS a better solution, or any good solution.  If the only way to get into a market is to take a really really crappy deal, then the solution isn't to take the crappy deal, it's to not get into the market at all. 
It isn't intended as an "I told you so", though I can see how it comes across that way.  The reason I harp against these types of preorders is because they are NEVER a good deal for the customer.  There's a reason these companies choose to finance their operations this way, as opposed to going with more traditional financing options and that is because no experienced financier would ever in a million years accept the terrible terms of the deal. 
BUT, they still need financing, and customers are still a better option than real investors.  If we collectively refuse to accept terrible terms they would have no choice but to offer better terms.  They don't do that though because customers are willing to take terrible terms.  Thats the point, you still seem to see this as a good decision on your part that simply went unlucky.  It isn't, and it wasn't.  It was a terrible deal from the get go and luck had nothing to do with it, you were never going to profit from this business decision.  Unfortunately, as long as people continue to throw money at companies like this they will see no reason to change their business practices. 

What I mean by terrible deal, just look at the terms you agreed to:

You agreed to completely fund their entirely operation (along with the other "customers"), thus taking on 100% of the risk.  With absolutely NO say whatsoever in what they do, how they operate; you can't even SEE how they operate let along control it!  And of course no claim at all to any of their assets.  Well of course they aren't going to make decisions based on what makes you money, but what makes them money.  Sure they offered a money back of some sort, why would you trust them?  Would you buy something on here from someone you didn't know without using escrow?  Why are these guys any different, you didn't know them either.
But the best part is they were never under any obligation to actually deliver a miner anyways.  They could entirely within the legal context of the agreement, finish the miners right on time, and then keep them themselves and mine with them and there is nothing you could do except demand a refund (with them even profiting off of that, due to being able to pick the exchange rate BTC or USD whichever they preferred).  Or perhaps they could have successfully stalled you long enough to actually deliver a miner after they were done with it and it was no longer profitable.  Either way, within the terms of the agreement, they didn't have to scam you at all or break any contracts to completely rip you off.  It just amazes me that people sign these deals that are so clearly terrible and then act surprised when it doesn't work out.

I completely agree with what you're saying.....

But the "told ya so" attitude isn't going to resolve this horrible practice that seems fairly common in the BTC/Alt/etc world.

True.  But then neither is whining about it on a forum.  So I guess we're even :)

I'm not actually whining, but rather publicly stating my interactions so far with Alpha-Tech as a way of letting it be publicly known what sort of company we're dealing with.

Thought this might interest you guys:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=637202.msg7279319#msg7279319

 Thanks Starscream. I have filed my complaint, all I can do is wait now.

Update:

 payments@alpha-t.net is actually answering emails now. Here is their response to me even though I did request during the 5 month period. So I am back to square one. Any help is greatly appreciated guys. I do not see how they can call me a business, as I clearly am the only one who can do that.

Hello there,

We are very sorry but as per our cancellation policy it has been longer
than 5 months since you placed your order therefore you are no longer
eligible for a refund. We have been very clear and open with our terms
of order, it was released as a news update, it is easily available on
our website and you are urged to view it on the product page before you
order. Such regulations only apply to consumers and you are a business
customer with us. I can assure you that our legal matters are dealt with
by a leading law firm in the UK. Our terms of order are completely legal
in the UK. It was typed up by solicitors who specialize in this area of
law. They have advised us that all our customers will be legally classed
as businesses for many reasons, one being that the hardware we are
selling can only be used for mining cryptocurrencies which is a business
practice according to HMRC.

Best Regards,

Alpha Technology Team

On 2014-07-14 23:45, xxxxxx wrote:
> I am also aware of thelaws in theUK which state I have 2 weeks within
> receiving an order to request a refund. You Terms are against your own
> laws. I ask you again to Refund all my money now. I will take further
> action, and know of others you have fully refunded. Please make this
> as simple and easy as possible on all of us. Otherwise, we are headed
> down a bad road. Your terms clearly break the law.
>
>> --------- Original Message ---------
>> Subject: RE: Refund Me Now Please
>> From: payments@alpha-t.net
>> Date: 7/14/14 2:24 pm
>> To:xxxxxxx
>>
>> Hello there,
>>
>> We are very sorry but as per our cancellation policy it has been
>> longer
>> than 5 months since you placed your order therefore you are no
>> longer
>> eligible for a refund. We have been very clear and open with our
>> terms
>> of order, it was released as a news update, it is easily available
>> on
>> our website and you are urged to view it on the product page before
>> you
>> order.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>>
>> Alpha Technology Team

Forgive me, but have they actually delivered anything yet?

Or even look like delivering?

 No and eventually with a far inferior product.

 We have to stand up together if anything is going to be done. Another member on litecointalk sent me a link to a person that helped him fast. I sent them an email yesterday, but as of yet, I have heard nothing back.

Where is there documentation supporting an Alpha Technology promise to deliver by the end of July?

I am looking for hard facts I might be able to use to substantiate a claim of fraud.  Has anyone compiled such a list?

I am trying to get my deposit money back or worst case have it applied to the 50 Mh/s system.  Since they are clearly going to ship late there is no way for ROI.  Frustrated.

Fiat deleted all his posts on bitcointalk and litecointalk that had the July date as a guarantee. He also edited the AT forum cleaning of the July delivery.  The best you can do is try to find a cache or archive or make a legal request for those deleted posts.

Looking at the pictures of their office and such that was posted very early on set off the warning signs for me.
Looked a bit more into it, looks like they'll deliver at some point, but probably when ROI will be some way off, if not impossible.

Now Alpha Technology is deleting their own posts on their own forum.  They cleaned the slate of all their Announcements.

https://forum.alpha-t.net/index.php?board=38.0

My guess is they didn't like some of the negative comments attached to the Announcements, or some of the Announcements had guarantees that they were failing to deliver on.

 Go here guys... This appears to be the most informative thread. Anything you can do to help, please offer.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=314402.new#new