Bitcoin Forum

What about people who currently have preorders for prior-gen singles, and want to upgrade to the new ones?  I've seen this question asked all over the place, but have yet to see an answer for it...

EDIT:  Oh, and a question to go along with that.  What would be the priority of the changed orders?  Are they part of the 1/3 group?

The fact they are only take non-refundable payments makes me worry.

They really suck at answering questions.


No response.

My 5 day old email is still unanswered to switch my 2 singles to 1 SC + the price difference and I have a feeling this order will be placed at the very end of the line because of this answering email delay. 5 days and no response to an email...

If you've paid and have yet to receive your unit you can upgrade your order to SC based products.  You would have to make up the difference in values if any depending on what you wanted to upgrade into.  Regarding shipment priority classification, you'd be in the upgrade group.

If you intend to upgrade anyway, you're better of taking delivery of your current gen unit and enjoying it's mining power til your SC upgrade is ready to ship.  If on the other hand you want to conserve your investment, then converting your undelivered order would be a viable option.  You'd only loose mining time in the wait.  You should also consider the relative hashing power of today's gear is probably going to be similar to the relative hashing power of gear after the market stabilizes at some unknown point in the future.  The strong initial profitability will balance out as the market matures.  

Not if you are going to deliver my order on Sep 30th.  ;D

How many times this need to be answered?

It doesn't matter what payment method you use. Paypal won't refund your payment in October if you pay now. If you order in October the waitlist is so long that you won't get your unit in 2012. Paypal offers refund only 30 days from the payment.

BFL has said that if you really want a refund they can do that for you. I just don't understand why anyone would want a refund if they bought ASIC.

Thanks for the response BFL.

I have 4 prior-gen singles on order.  I don't have significant additional funds to invest in mining, so didn't want to take delivery of all 4 of them.  I would rather change the order to 2 of them, and save the additional $1200 to put towards upgrading to 2 of the SC Singles when the time comes (paying the difference between the two orders, of course).

Two more questions then:
1) When/how can I upgrade part of my order to SC based products?
2) Will I be placed in the back of the line of all of the people who have submitted upgrade orders for SC products already?

I do understand and agree that the market will balance out and stabilize in the future, and it is my opinion that it won't be all too different from current ROI's, but I certainly want to get in the game as early as possible for some of that first-miner advantage as well.  ;)

Waiting to place an order is a terrible idea if that in the upgrade group they deliver in order.  Why wouldn't they deliver in order received? 

So, I can imagine what the answer will be, but to leave no doubt remaining this question needs to be answered.

Well, that is my hope that they would deliver in order received, which would mean anyone who ordered prior to the SC pre-order who wanted to convert their order would get first delivery.

I have 10 singles on order that are paid for. I want to change this order to 2 SC singles, 5 normal singles, and a refund of the cash for the left over currency.

I have emailed your offices with no reply. Please tell us in detail how we are supposed to accomplish this change?

Edit: If you are willing to change the order to just 2 SC singles and refund me the rest of the cash I would be happy to do that. I can make a lot more ROI with the cash then I will be able to do even if you delivered the 5 singles in the above request.

The forums aren't an effective mechanism to handle individual customer accounts or to work around the flood of new emails.  We're working as fast as we can to catch up and address your questions & process your orders.  We now have three dedicated staff members doing nothing else.

Our posts on the forum are meant to clarify policy so you don't have to speculate, wait and wonder.  

See look guys, 3 reps doing nothing but answering emails all day. You can't say they aren't trying.

However BFL, it seems that you may be better suited to being a wholesaler only, perhaps you should use Roger (http://memorydealers.com/) as your distribution point for customer sales....

EDIT: Or maybe cablesaurus: http://cablesaurus.com/

So can I upgrade my mini-rig fpga and get 12 Single SC's and just pay the difference of that?  Can I still take delivery on my mini-rig fpga to send back later?

Apparently they don't answer questions for individual orders or users on the forum. Even if our orders could be used as "examples" on what you could do with your pending order.

Good luck getting a response. My only question to them was "Provide in detail what we are supposed to do to change the order." Instead of telling me what to do, they chastise me for saying they don't respond to individual orders on the forum and their posts here are just to clarify policy.

So once again, I emailed your offices over 5 days ago with no response to just a simple question. I am asking that simple question again here:

Please tell us in detail how we are supposed to accomplish a change in our PAID orders that you have not delivered? I don't feel like sending in again yet another email that may or may not get addressed in the next 5 days if that is not what I am supposed to do. I am not trying to "jump the line".

From what I can tell, if you take delivery of your FPGA product, and what to ship it back later, it counts as a trade-in (meaning you need to spend as much $ as your trade in is worth). It's 2 separate transactions: 1 to buy the FPGA, and one to exchange the FPGA for an ASIC (and pay the difference).

If you decide not to receive the current gen FPGA and change your order to an ASIC, they just update your order to an ASIC with the money you paid for your FPGA. You do not get to mine with the FPGA, but you dont need to pay more money to upgrade, either. Your items are still shipped with the 1/3 of the orders that are trade-ups, tho.

I could be wrong about this, but this is the impression I've gotten from BFL's posts here on the forums, and from their replies to my emails.

Yes, this is correct.  (thank you).

That clears up a lot.  Option #2 would be the most ideal for me I think.  Now I wait on Jody getting to me.

Are you doing partial refunds if we do not want to order the full amount of ASIC products? An example would be 10 current singles changed to 3 or 4 SC Singles. Would you refund the difference?

I've been trying to get my order switched for a while now. I'm more concerned with getting put in the rear of the line because they don't return emails or calls. I emailed them about this before they started taking orders. They were kind of enough to put a freeze on my orders until they can contact me. I guess 12 weeks is not long enough to merit a call. Hopefully that means they are helping the customers that ordered 13 weeks ago. Although I have a strange feeling that's not the case.

At least you got confirmation of a hold. I have heard nothing and I too emailed them before pre-orders went live.

Yeah, you can refuse any mail that comes from them if your serious about a upgrade. It's not your fault they don't check their mail.

I sent several emails, and called trying to get my order just switched over to one of the new SC.  Never heard anything back then I got an email that my single had shipped and they emailed me the next day saying it was too late to change the order now.  I was hoping to avoid spending any extra money on the upgrade thing.

Right now my plan will be if that happens to call UPS and do an intercept and tell them I don't want it and to send it back.

No, don't cancel! I'll buy it from you at a premium, up to $126 more than you paid them:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90190.0

Is everyone still waiting for a reply from butterfly? I've been waiting 8 days now.

Yes, no answer to me yet.  It rather concerns me that at least one person has reported BFL shipping their order out when they didn't want it.  I do understand that they have a lot of emails to respond to, but they shouldn't be shipping them out until they make sure that the customer isn't waiting on a response from them in their email queue.

Are you kidding me?  You got two phone calls, several PM's and full clarification on how we'll handle your particular situation...  which were all beneficial and fully flexible in your favor including full refund.   We updated your account with your wishes so the staff could act appropriately when they came to your order position.  
Yet you still come in a public forum and claim you're being ignored.    THIS is why we don't participate in the forums.   Most of it is misleading...  on purpose by people attempting to use the exposure to gain a personal advantage through intentional deception.   It was a mistake to jump the system and reach out to you in the first place.  Lesson learned.

How heartbreaking. I haven't been too nice, but that kind of response would have me giddy with delight, and meanwhile look what they get in response. You should be deeply ashamed of yourself, cuz0882.

And kudos to BFL for calling the BS.

Everything I've posted in the forum is accurate. I tried contacting you guys 8 days ago, you called 2 days ago after I posted in a forum but never resolved the issue. I've received one phone call, in which you said my order on 4-3 was not in your system. I emailed you the bookmark. You then put it in the system. I was very clear that I wanted my orders upgraded if I don't get placed in the rear of the line because you guys were unreachable. You said only Jody could allow a upgrade of the orders, and she was already gone for the day. You said my orders would be put on hold until the issue was resolved. If you have done some kind of upgrade, its without me knowing about it. I never actually had a chance to tell you, specifically what I want done. This was because you had no record of one of my first order, could give me no answer regarding whether I would be placed at the back of the line again. You were also not sure if all my orders could all be refunded. What I want done, depends one those answers.

I would prefer you mailed out the first 3 units, then used the remaining money for 5 " Single SC upgrade" orders. I've been waiting 87 days for my order now. Partially because you guys never emailed me back about the original confirmation not arriving. I'm not sure what advantages I've received... The last message I sent was a request to speak with someone so I can get this taken care of.  This was the last thing I heard from you.


That was 2 days ago, I was a little baffled when I read it. I'm not sure why you think I need time to consider, but it definitely doesn't say anything about upgrading my orders. I also don't see anything about issuing a refund or credit for the remaining amount. Lets just get this resolved please. I would have no reason to post comments on here if it was.

BFL might consider not using the forums for any sort of pointed rebuttal to customer complaints.  Such as in this case what appears to be a misunderstanding (the nice word for it) results in bashing customers who might have a legitimate claim that they have not had the opportunity to clearly express their wishes with customer service.  In cases like this BFL might appear to some as foolish or prejudiced.

If that was 2 days ago, why do you post today that you haven't heard anything from our company in 8 days? 

Your situation is simple.  Your concerns were addressed, your options were given over the phone and your account was updated to reflect your wishes.  You then come to the forums and complain about being ignored in order to put more pressure on us to jump the queue and get to your order before everyone else.  That's what this is about.  As soon as the CS staff gets to your account, you'll get everything we discussed.  Please be patient.

I already ordered, like 87 days ago. I just need to speak with someone that can change it. Since you could not give me any answers, I need to speak to someone who can. I don't know what solution you think we discussed. I would sure love to hear it though.

cuz0882, can you answer this question?

I said, I'm still waiting for a reply. He contacted me because of a forum posting. He couldn't give me the information I needed to change my order, so he just froze them. I have questions, I need answered before I can decide what to do. Apparently Jody was not there, so until they get to my email there not contacting me.

Even with cuz0882 getting a response, I emailed them June 22nd at 6am Pacific Time. It is currently 7am Pacific time, 7 days later, and I have no response from them. With us coming into the 4th of July holiday I am expecting there will be an additional delay.

BFL: Have you thought about getting a ticketing system or something that can better handle customer contact? At this point I don't even have recognition that you GOT my email.

As an update I have now been contacted by BFL.

What a coincidence.

Yeah. At least I got the answer I was looking for. I have to send them what I want to do, and they will be evaluating my purchase on the case to case basis to see if they are okay with it.

At least that tells me they are open to the option of a change in order that includes a partial refund. It doesn't mean I will get it. But at least I am not just waiting for no reason.

Still no answer to my email, but I sent it on the 23rd, so... it's probably still waiting in the queue.

Mine was Thu, Jun 21, 2012 6:14 pm. They responded to it today. Nice to close the book on this one.

3 reps doing nothing else but answering emails that apparently cannot answer an email in 5 days..... sounds like more BFL Bullshit to me.


...., This is the kind of public breakdown Id expect from Inaba - childish and unprofessional.  
It seems the forums are perfectly ok for you to spam and troll while you cherry pick the responses you wish to acknowledge BUT HOW DARE A PAYING CUSTOMER AIR HIS CONCERNS.

What fucking joke of a company.


But they swear they have 3 people working full time answering emails.....
~900 orders / 5 business days / 7.5 business hours / 3 workers = 8 emails per hour per worker for 1 week if every one of the 900 orders dropped an email.

Holly shit, these employees must be run off their feet dealing with these emails !!!, 1 an hour, shit that most be literally 25TB of data a second. CUT BFL SOME SLACK GUYS - OVER 1 EMAIL AN HOUR !!!!!


DUDE, lets see you handle their email volume !

Thanks BFL for providing yet more entertainment, this is a train wreck that just keeps on going.

Love your responses man. You are epic.

Just curious why you seem to believe Inaba = BFL.

It is impossible and a mathematical uncertainty for that to be true !