Bitcoin Forum

The bASIC Refund Tracking Thread is essentially defunct, since it is becoming clear that there is nothing now to track.

I propose that we use this thread (or perhaps another suggested venue as it has been suggested and seems somewhat evident that Bitcointalk.org is particularly amenable to enabling - if not downright abetting - this particular type of long scam) to discuss next steps for those of us who have been left high and dry.

Information needed:

• Real and present information regarding those responsible for the creation, maintenance, and promulgation of the bASIC/bitcoinASIC/CAN-ELECTRIC scam for the purposes of investigating alternate avenues for pursuing justice (ie, class action). This research could include, but is not limited to, the discovery of which if any of the mentioned LLCs really exist[ed], under what names they are listed, etc.
• Investigation into the various business entities (or lack thereof) involved in the bASIC/bitcoinASIC extravaganza from day 1 to present. Those who have received CC refunds could assist by providing whatever detail and documentation was included with these charges on their statements.
• Assembling a mutually agreed upon timeline via collation and collaboration of forum archive, bitcointalk posts, web snapshots, etc. This will trace the promised/expected/GAURANTEED ship dates, etc. for the purposes of establishing intent to defraud. Perhaps a wiki could serve this purpose?
• A current and accurate report on the status of investigating the suitability of a SCAMMER tag for those involved with this elaborate (and/or hairbrained and mismanaged) scheme.
• Any other pertinent discussion that brings us beyond the "When are we getting our refund?" "What's up with CAN-ELECTRIC?" headspin.

edit March 1, 2013. I received a refund on Feb 23, 2013 for the full USD amount of my order (via BTC) and am no longer seeking redress nor am I tracking the BTCFPGA refund situation. Good luck to all, including Tom.

I did receive the CC refund from bASIC, so their business ethics are not totally negative (maybe partly due to the protection from the CC system). Paying in BTC is risky for consumer, you should be aware of this when you consider a risky investment

Have you requested a USD refund at purchasing price instead?

That would be nice. And how do you propose doing that?

I don't think johnyj got it by now, but we've been waiting for the BTC equivalent in US dollar, we hadn't expected more or less than the US price we've paid via BTC. Nothing received for more than 1 month, therefore this is a confirmed scam. Maybe Tom will get away with it or not, we'll find out in few weeks/months. Personally I hope karma will work its magic.

You should contact them, I never communicated with anyone from bASIC, but I heard that Dave is more willing to help

No one has received BTC refunds since Jan 23rd. PERIOD.

I have opened a complaint at the NYS Division of Consumer Protection.

I look forward to further activity in this thread detailing other methods of open-source and officially-sanctioned justice (for that is what we seek at this point).

If we can't round up some BTC refunds for those of us who are owed them, then at least we can achieve justice for BTC customers of BTCFPGA/bitcoinASIC as well as community protection from individuals and entities who seem capable and willing to swindle from the Bitcoin community.

This is one of the main properties of BTC, you never have the possibility to do a charge back. This greatly benefit business owners but not consumers

It means, as a consumer, you should always consider the risk involved when you pay BTC, but since business owners are all registered entities, this should get solved eventually. Wish you good luck then

Still waiting for $530 in BTC or USD here. I have however received CC refunds. I want to press charges, but it would probably get nowhere, I don't live in the US and I suspect it's too small of an amount for the police to care.

Some personal info on tom, taken from his google plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/100481502635276052436/posts

It is not really about pressing charges, as establishing wrongdoing and achieving justice through either compensatory means or (at the very least) creation of official record of unscrupulous business practices via civil action. This is a form of community protection, and better than just walking away and saying "oh well."

By enumerating and documenting this swindle, we can

• potentially achieve some justice through remuneration or punishment
• protect the community at large from future activity of those involved

It actually terrible for business owners. It's very hard for a legitimate business to get a consumer to give them money if the consumer is legitimately worried that the business will collapse while holding their money or just run away with their money.

Might be an idea to put things in perspective: How many people are actually still waiting for refunds?

I'm not sure there is more than a handful.

Per The bASIC Refund Tracking Thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137876.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137876.0) I count 22 waiting for refunds (including me, not yet on list) with a total USD equivalent reported as not yet refunded of $34499.66. Five Bitcoin orders did not enumerate what was ordered, and there may be many, like myself, who (until today) did not choose to disclose this information (with a vague and hopeless idea that it might anger Tom/cablepair and inhibit my refund...) In any/either case, it can be expected that the total number of people and dollar amount still waiting for refunds from Tom/cablepair/BTCFPGA/bitcoinASIC/CAN-ELECTRIC is a good deal higher...

I propose that ALL of us waiting for refunds come out of the woodwork and report as accurately as we feel comfortable at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137876.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137876.0).

Dave could actually provide the number of people waiting per his master list he sent to Tommy.. could also provide how many orders (probably multiple orders for some people) and estimated dollar figure...

Only Dave can confirm how many were there in the final BTC list he sent to Tom, but I figure somewhere from 150 to 250 customers. There were only a few that requested refunds before January and they all received it. From then on only CC's refunds were sent and all BTC orders are now declared stolen, I presume more than 500K in US dollars at least. I might be wrong, I wish Dave would be more forthcoming about it and take this more seriously, provide us with some facts.

Waiting for refound, its more than a handful of people.

Altho I only ordered 1 just in case of this scenario happening and would order more when/if the actual product would get released.
So this doesnt hurt me financially, but i wont forget about it for sure and if somebody is going to press charges or whatever count me in.

Its hilarious, everybody wants to be a big boy and is behaving like one (bigmouth blabla etc..) and when they fail they run like chickens.
Tom (and every other ASIC vendor) should be responsible for his actions and have scenarios made in advance what will happen if business plan fails and then decide if he is really gonna try to be that big boy. So when he fails i expect him to sell his house his car and his everything to refound customers, because its not my fault he was unable to see the risks involved in that venture and i dont feel its on me to take and pay them instead of him.

agreed. Dave needs to contribute whatever he has...

A registered business can not disappear so easily, but a customer could do a charge back and disappear quickly and business owner just have no extra resource to find him

It is indeed difficult for business owners to collect payment in BTC's form, unless it is a small amount or through third party escrow service. Due to BTCs are difficult to get, this will get more difficult each day, finally anyone can afford to pay BTC are miners

I would say, if a customer would like to pay BTC, he's a gold customer. He deserved to have a top credit rating

I've emailed the contact email from the FPGA website, and Dave, to be included in a refund. Neither have responded to my email.
So, if anyone wants to take legal action, which I think is justified, then let's do something.

I've seen this kind of burn before more than once. It sometimes takes a while, but the law manages to come through....  the law seizes assets and resulting funds are redistributed to victims.
Tom's mess seems to fits the same profile considering all the refunds being withheld.

||bit

The story about CAN-Electric is fake, I emailed them directly and here their reply :

Hi Dear

this is fraud and we as can Electric have nothing to do with this website and their product
and we don't know who is doing this fraud

regards
Ari

So Can-Electric is a fake. Where are we in getting the SCAMMER tag for cablepair? Setting up yet another fake website to draw in a few more BTC for preorders of non-existent, never-to-exist mining products, all the while blowing off a whole slew of people who placed pre-orders... what is this but another scam? And how does this reflect on prior actions? Were all of those real and just this a blatant scam/fraud? Or is this just another in a long line?

Can ANYONE who has received BTC refunds from Tom/BTCFPGA post the FROM wallet address so that related wallets can be investigated?

...EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER WILL BE REFUNDED. PERIOD... seems clear to me.

He should obviously get the tag for the missing refunds.

What makes no sense to me is why he actually issued a bunch of refunds... that is not part of the scammer MO. At that point it really seemed as if he had tried and failed, and was attempting to make good. Why set up the half-assed "can-electric" site to scrape out a few possible late sales? He could have just sent a few less refunds.

Very bizarre.

Tom's behaviour hasn't exactly been stable lately.  I suspect he's having a lot of trouble accepting the bASIC project is dead.  He likely realises that there's no possibility of re-branding it with him at the helm and believed he could create the impression that someone else is now over-seeing it.  He possibly also thought that he could vindicate himself by rescuing the project without people knowing of his continued involvement and be hailed as a hero when he finally announced he was behind the rescue.

Apparently he did not consider that people would do their own research into any claims made by the new site, which shows considerable arrogance and contempt towards this community and potential customers.

Possibly because if he didn't - people would put through chargebacks anyway and then the banks would levy an additional 'chargeback fee'.

Even if he didn't have quite enough money to cover it - presumably he'd be left with a smaller bank debt if he pre-empted the chargebacks by putting the refunds through.

Very good point. Has he issued any BTC refunds since the collapse?

No, you can see the list overhere: bASIC refund list (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137876.msg1469407#msg1469407)

FWIW, complaint successfully filed with NYS Division of Consumer Protection. My intent at this point is twofold - to potentially receive some BTC back, and to simultaneously create as large a paper trail as possible in order to save others in the future from this type of shenanigans.

Having been an early customer and believer in bASIC, then bailing earlier than most and receiving a CC refund with no issues, here are my thoughts.

I now believe bASIC was simply a scam from the beginning. There is  no way to reconcile the statements made in the beginning, with the reality of the actual progress and work done (essentially nothing).

There are 2 customer groups:
1) CC customers - These are people he always planned to refund. As far as I know all/most CC customers have been refunded
2) BTC customers - These are the people he decided to scam. As far as I know ZERO/few BTC customers have been refunded

Logically this makes sense.  CC customers go through banks, and the money has all sorts of legal protections and tracking, Tom could never scam CC money. Instead the CC customers and their refunds provided LEGITIMACY to the operation and provided some cover, which enabled more customers to trust bASIC and send their BTC.

Now the situation is all the people who spent real money in the eyes of the government have been refunded, so there is no crime. Only customers who spent BTC have a claim, and good luck with a lawsuit over BTC payments. If the government does anything it will only be to investigate you for using bitcoin.

That's the key part of Bitcoin's value proposition, Bitcoin's are outside of government control. Once you send the BTC, they are gone and you can never get them back. As a receiver, once you receive them, they can never be taken from you.

This was actually why I was willing to use bASIC in the first place, I had confidence my CC bank would refund me if it was a scam. I understood that was not the case with BTC. I now have a small partial payment with Avalon, but have decided not to send the remaining BTC until I have more confidence, once the BTC are sent they are gone...

Point 2 is wrong, some early BTC refunds were paid out. You can see them going from this address (https://blockchain.info/address/19Ysizrie7XAGcqSTzhCTsMTuUaFU1hCEa) on the 11th of January. There's confirmation of several people who had preorders that their refunds were part of those transactions. Tom had a history of delivering on his previous hardware product and was a long time miner, offering credit cards as a payment method like reduced the number of BTC he would have been able bring in as people who did pay with CCs would have paid with BTC if that was the only option available.

Also, why would the SEC investigate this matter? As far as I know, Tom wasn't offering shares in his company or operating an exchange.

FWIW, I don't think Tom set out to scam people with BTCFPGA. He most likely was running it as a semi-legitimate business hoping to make a good profit on it. It seems he's a bit of a scammy dirtbag though, and when things started to go bad he decided to cut and run rather than deal with it. My guess is that he had much to little financing in place and used preorder money to pay development costs, but it's hard to prove anything without someone actually suing him and going through discovery.

Hopefully someone does.

Ha..... Team Tommy will say otherwise.... This is simply a business gone bad folks!

Fair enough, but I still think my point is valid. Only a few BTC refunds were processed, while most/all of the CC refunds were processed. Why the discrepancy? Also the BTC refunds went out when Tom was still saying the project was on and taking orders. Again I think it is fair to suspect this was to create the illusion of ligitimacy.

And yes the SEC would not be involved, I just meant anything involving a consumer affairs type complaint.


I understand the desire to feel this way, and I did too for awhile.

But reconcile Tom's repeated promises that:
- Samples existed
- The ASICs are in hand, just waiting for board work
- We are about to ship in two days, everything is a go
- I promise to provide updates tomorrow

With the level of work actually done
- No samples
- No ASICS
- Zero board work
- No updates
- Childish hand drawings after TSHTF

It is impossible to reconcile the amount of work done, with Tom's statements through out the process, he was simply lying the whole time.

Dave [buzzdave] supposedly saw a unit hashing. Who has a cache of https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?

No doubt, pretty much everything about this situation makes no sense. It doesn't make any more sense as a scam than it does as a legitimate project. Tom could have made off with way more money by just accepting BTC instead of taking most orders through wire and CC. He could have brought in more by providing proper updates even if fake than by posting drunken rants. He didn't do any of that. Why open yourself to all the possible legal trouble by doing CC orders at all if you're just planning on stealing BTC? He'd having to be both brilliant running a long con on the success of his FPGA business, and completely incompetent as a scammer.

I look forward to seeing this as well.

There have been reports of BTCBTCBTC being refunded:

Read all about it here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=143496.msg1526551#msg1526551

I have the forum ripped and saved somewhere about an hour after it was locked down.. I'll see if it's there

Dave didn't say he saw the actual hashing unit, I believe his words we along the lines of he saw the hashing stats of the prototype unit. What that means I'm not sure, but it could be anything from Tom told him one chip did 11GH/s @ whatever speed, to showing him the worker mining on a pool, to him actually seeing the prototype. Given the wording though it always seemed that he never actually saw a prototype.

It actually does make sense if you think in terms of Tom being an inherently unstable person who melts down and becomes irrational under stress.  You're not going to get rational behaviour from someone who has gone into meltdown - they're not being driven by logic any more.  There seems to be at least some evidence of Tom acting irrationally in the past, and it's not all that unusual for people with mental health issues (substance related or not) to be perfectly competent until something causes them to start disconnecting from reality.  That's not an excuse - the appropriate thing to do when you realise you're starting to melt down is to hand stuff off to someone else before you totally fuck everything up. 

Given the bitterness in some of Tom's posts, I'm not sure it was as much about the money as it was about the kudos.

The big question is how much of this project was real and how much of it was delusional on Tom's part - how far did it actually progress, if at all, before collapsing.

Morning all, not sure about anyone else but I received 72 BTC from Tom yesterday.

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

I guess Tom is mining his ass of with what hardware he has to pay the BTC back

Great. I can wait... Maybe BTC value will fall and I'll get more back!

Being mentally unstable is a perfectly rational explanation for the complete bizarro world of bASIC.

But I still get stuck on the fact that no matter how delusional you are, ASIC fab processes are rock solid. You provide them a GDS layout and then it is very clear what stage your wafers are in and when they will be finished, assembled and packaged. No matter how mentally unstable you are, there has to be some physical result from this bASIC project if it was not a scam. Even if the ASICs didn't work, you would at least have a layout to show and junk die.

Unless Tom was so delusional that he was having imaginary discussions with imaginary production plants that were really just his dog, then this was a scam.

As for why the refunds, another explanation is he lost his nerve and/or saw that maybe people could legally find him through the CC charge backs.

I really don't give a sh#t scam or no scam... I just want my BTC back.  :P

Toms site is now offline

https://www.bitcoinasic.net/

www.btcfpga.com is still alive and kicking.

(as posted in another thread I wanted to make sure everyone saw this)


Ahhh finally got back into my hacked account. This does not mean I will be a regular on this board anymore it just means I can make some statements that will hopefully be helpful to you.

1) I do not deserve a scammer label. We sold FPGA Mining products since may, when BFL announced their product MONTHS early just to try and squash the competition they lied which was a total lie and dis-service to the community but we wanted to keep our business alive, this led us to begin developing out own ASIC basic based prodcut. Our latest attempt at making the huge leap to ASIC failed. It was never our intention to scam anyone. Anyone who ordered a FPGA mining product has received their unit or their unit is on the way (2 orders slipped through the cracks when shit went bananas but we found these orders and we shipped them out this week.

2) I have paid back over 1 million USD to credit card buyers and BTC buyers alike. I am liquidating assets like a madman and still mining at about 60 gh/s with my FPGA rigs, which brings about 10 btc per day. Every week I gather what assets I have obtained and I distribute them to the customers starting with the earliest customers first and than working my way up to the later buyers. There are many people who can attest to this. One of our largest orders who spent over 100k was refunded by wire transfer just last week and I am sure if you look you can find that thread.

IF you are interesting in reading the actual definition of a scam you may do so here:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scam


Instead I am doing everything I can to make sure every single customer gets a complete and total refund. Unfortunately some people do not like the fact that they are returned less coins than they have sent. Although the fact of the matter is - these units were priced in USD NOT BTC and it is appropriate to use the current exchange rate when converting USD to Bitcoin to make these refunds. Any one who knows what they are doing in e-commerce would agree totally.

3) See a scammer would of taken all the money (over a million dollars) and disappeared, instead I still live in my same house and still go to my regular job every day. I am a family man and the last thing I want is any kind of trouble. You guys have no idea the sleepless nights worrying about this thing, but I am going to keep on this and make sure every customer gets his refund.

4) I am sure its hard to believe but this has hurt and will continue to hurt myself and my family far more than it will hurt any of you, But that's the gamble I took when I decided to make an ASIC device, and take pre-orders, we just could not make the damn thing work (for long) and the chips were clocked wrong or something because they had a very little life especially when you pushed them to any degree.

At any rate that is all behind us. Like I said I have paid over 1 mil in refunds and continue to do so every friday night (20k just last friday) this list is shortening and shortening and before you know it every single person will be paid back in full.

I just hope and pray you give me the time to make this all happen, I sold most of these coins at around $15 and now am buying back at $30 - its very difficult but as the last 2 weeks showed you , you will continue to see 10 refunds every friday until every single person is paid back.

I have been a very strong member of this community for 2 years, and I have always fulfilled my promises - please have a little faith in me is all I am asking - I WANT to do the right thing. Think about what a true scammer would of done with over a million at his disposal??????


I have four kids and I am just trying to get by - I am sorry I was not up to meet the challenge of bASIC but I assure you all of you will be paid back.

thank you for listening

Thomas Van Riper
BTCFPGA
P.O. BOX 246
Hannibal NY 13069

(any correspondence sent to any other address other than the business addresss of BTCFPGA will be returned. My house is not my place of business nor is it the address for my business)

i have changed my numbers due to the hundreds of calls I was receiving a day - if you need to get ahold of me email btcfpga@gmail.com
and I will get back to you within a couple of days at the latest

again thank you for reading this and for those who have it - thank you for your compassion and empathy.

Tom
BTCFPGA

p.s. BTCFPGA will continue to sell FPGA based devices to hobbyists and all others who are interested in this device.
http://www.btcfpga.com

Good to see a honest legit BTC businessman. So many cut and run when it gets tough and things don't work out.

By your definition (as indicated by the link):  a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation

Care to explain the whole Can-Electric situation...

Knowing ol Tommy's tactics.. he will try and tell something along the lines of he sold off the domain to a business or someone that stated they had ASIC background/knowledge and had no say or involvement in that matter..   or.. maybe someone also "hacked" that domain account and "hijacked" his site to have people send them money instead of him?  Then.. what are the chances Jack Daniels told him to do it? 

miter myles, do you get the impression that you are helping anything?

Whether Tom's posts are met with Care Bear {{{{hugz}}}} or outright scorn should have absolutely no bearing on whether he continues to make refunds in the manner he's outlined.  He's honouring an obligation, not doing people a favour. 

The "if I was really a scammer" and "everything I've done for Bitcoin" crap is getting old and is unnecessary.  People want updated, specific information about how the refund process is being handled - the "let me tell you once again that I'm a great guy" stuff is pretty much irrelevant and comes across as fishing for kudos in a situation where none is warranted.

+1

Finally this OZ lawyer wannabe said something that i agree with.

Tom's post show his true personality. He doesnt know what hes doing is obligation not providing help to the community.

Any man with dignity would have said " i fcked up because of my greed. I will refund everyone money and i hope to leave the community forever in peace"

But no, dogs have eaten his dignity.