Actually, Swede is wrong. In most states, anytime a product is sold, the seller creates what are called "implied warranties" merely by the act of selling. These are usually simple rules like: the product exists, it does what they say it does, it costs how much they say it costs, etc. Swede might live in a jurisdiction that has limited consumer protection, but since BFL is selling to all 50 states they are subject many state laws and federal consumer protection laws. If Newegg or Amazon were to represent to you that they had something in stock when they actually didn't, they would be violating federal laws and numerous state laws. Or if you bought a device they said existed when it actually did not, they would be in even more trouble. For instance: Ebay marketplace has very strict rules about when you can say something is "in stock", if you violate those rules they kick you to the curb. That is not an arbitrary distinction they are making, it is a necessary one.

"Being around business" as you put it is actually quite common for us engineers on these forums.

The gas station has the gas. It probably also has the gum. Selling products that do not yet exist is not the same thing as refusing service in a retail establishment. This is why Kickstarter won't let you order multiple units and classifies your contributions as donations. Otherwise they eaten alive by lawsuits for facilitating the breaking consumer protection laws.

You are ignoring one thing. The difference between saying "we are aiming to meet this target" and "we have met this target". BFL made statements in the latter category which could not possibly been true. BFL's claims that they had measured and met their power goals and even bet 1000BTC that they had is open to very few alternate interpretations. Especially when it later came out that their chips had not yet arrived from the foundry when they claimed to have measured them.

BFL made statements about having met milestones that had not actually been met. People would be a lot more tolerant of them of they had just been honest. However, people also might not have pre-ordered so many BFL units.

Over the past 11 months there has been a steady stream of low post count people who appear, defend BFL for a while and then disappear. First they defended BFL's power claims even though they violated the laws of physics. Then they defended the shipping dates but those fell one by one, their defenders vanished into the night. Some defended BFL's disdain for their customer base, others encouraged Josh to be vindictive and petty. I am sure in 3 months, there will be a new set of names who just "discovered" BFL. Also, several cases of astroturfing have been uncovered on these very forums in relation to failed projects and out-right scams/theft. So people are naturally going to be leery of an account that was created May 06, 2013, at 11:49:49 AM suddenly entering a conversation in defense of a troubled project.

Personally I think that people who are new to the board are simply unaware of the history of BFL and haven't educated themselves. They might have a BFL order or two and coast along as far as confirmation bias will take them.

You have to get a jury to believe that BFL knew what they said was untrue when they said it. It is not as hard as you think. Especially give some of the whoppers told. Moreover, subjecting BFL to scrutiny via subpoena and deposition would be tons of fun.

Of course all of BFL's customers should have been aware of the risks involved and treated it like the purchase of a lottery ticket.

I was pointing out that BFL probably violated any number of consumer protection laws. For instance, regarding Virginia:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+59.1-200

§ 59.1-200. Prohibited practices.
A. The following fraudulent acts or practices committed by a supplier in connection with a consumer transaction are hereby declared unlawful:
5. Misrepresenting that goods or services have certain quantities, characteristics, ingredients, uses, or benefits;

Most states have similar laws on the books.

I have been on these forums since before day one of BFL's FPGA business. There is documented evidence of them claiming things that could not possibly be true (claims of chip power measurements and later admitting they had not even received the chips yet, sending product to test labs for FCC certification then later admitting they changed their chips packaging because it melted, etc). Those are not trolls, they are facts and have been linked here ad infinitum. Always there are new posters who show up (unaware of the history or not following the links to hear BFL's own words) and claim it is all just made up and BFL never made false statements. That is the nature of internet forums. Of course, as soon as I start providing links to the statements made by BFL along with a timeline I become a "troll" and links to other peoples words are obviously just my lies to start flame threads...
One does not have to prove what they believe. One most only prove they knowingly made a false public statement to reassure their customer base about the state of the product.

They released statements to ensure their investors (some call them customers). There is no way on earth they could have measured the power output or hash speed of a chip that did not yet exist (which supposedly had 20% of their current power usage). They then waged a marketing campaign based on power efficiency, their chips were 5 times better etc etc. Nor could they have sent product for testing that ran so hot it melted the chip packaging.
They might have believed eventually that they could solve the problems, but the forums were clamoring for concrete milestones. Maybe they felt they had to provide something that demonstrated progress. They were after all in an intense 3-way marketing war with Avalon and bASIC for customers.

Actually that is not correct. If you sell a product that did not exist and announce in a press release that product will ship in two weeks you are treading on very thin ice if it does not. This is not a case of selling a product that exists but cannot be obtained. This is selling a product that did not yet exist and misrepresenting the state of development.


Again, selling servers that exist and function but cannot be obtained due to supply or manufacturing issues are governed by very different rules than products that do not yet exist and/or do not yet function. If you ever wondered why BFL only accepts Bitcoin or Paypal, it is because credit card companies will come after you if you sell products to their customers that do not exist. They were forced to ship a few products when Paypal demanded they do so to demonstrate the product existed (Jody admitted this).

There is one other alternative:
If BFL knowingly made false statements about the state of their product (like they would ship in 2 weeks when they had no working chips), you could file a civil case against them for fraud. There are 3 components needed to prove fraud:

1) Material false statements made. These forums are full of statements made by BFL that later turned out to be impossible. We need not discuss them at length.

2) Reliance on the statements by the victims. People hang on BFL's every word while trying to determine when (if ever) they can ship in volume. Whenever BFL reports that they will ship "in two weeks" TM, everyone who bought is reassured.

3) Damage to the victim was caused. Loss of income. If you offer to provide a product or service and then fail to do so, you have damaged the customer if they are relying on that product or service to make money. If BFL never claimed a ship date, nobody could rely on that date for the beginning of an income stream.

Companies who routinely alienate their customers are one of the following: on their way out of business(Amy's Baking Company), have no business (scam), or have a monopoly position (cable companies).  BFL was absolutely with in their rights to terminate the relationship and they did so at no cost to themselves. Since the product was a pre-sale, BFL can't recognize that money until the unit is shipped.

Cisco (for all its faults) at least works hard to hide their disdain for their customer base. They are trying to gouge every last cent out of you, but they are as subtle as they can be about it. They treat their customers very nicely (as long as they pay) and will endure any amount of abuse from them (as long as they pay). Cisco has lots of competition.

BFL has had very little competition. ASICMiner didn't ship product, and Avalon did limited runs. That all comes to an end in August after the wave of Avalon chips hits the market. BFL has 2 more months with little to no competition, then they have to work for their customers. Anyone deciding between "ASICSellerX" and BFL can read the way BFL has treated their customers to date. So why on earth would BFL continue to insult and bully their customers?

BFL must think their reputation won't matter in the long run. Eventually, we will find out why.

The whole issue has been the chips could not go fast enough. If all they had to do was clock them higher and they worked, BFL would have shipped months ago.

I'd say they have binning issues with wide performance variance between chips. A chip that can do ~2GH can't be used to make a device that needs 2 chips that can each do 2.5GH.

I would expect the +$100 is so they can use chips from the lowest bin. That also means each chip cost some serious $$ and are in short supply. Otherwise they would just make hot Jalapeno's with 3 chips @ 2GH each for ~6GH and ship them out.

Well. It is cheaper than an Avalon Batch 3.
But. Nicksasa had a good rep until notroll.in pool imploded. I would always do escrow for large transactions, unless I know the counterparty personally.

No escrow = bad sign. Technically, Xian doesn't need his BFL orders to auction them off with no escrow. 

This picture belongs in a BFL thread.

Not casting aspersions. I just hate seeing great art go to waste

If you don't know the name of the country you are in, it might be hard for Avalon to deliver your unit regardless of which carrier they use.

@OP: Don't be born in that country.
Problem solved.

This^
When people moan and cry about the internet killing "journalism" I ask myself what I can do to make it die faster. 

AFAIK:
Josh said the power bet was settled, but we never had confirmation (like a bitcoin transaction, or the recipient confirming).
BFL said they had not yet determined if/when they were going to donate to charity.

If you have evidence to the contrary, please link to it.

If you are a "customer" and you want attention from BFL, post something that will stop people from pre-ordering.
Then Josh swoops and "forces" you to take a refund.

To give you just a tiny little bit of background (since you haven't read these boards). They were going receive thousands of chips in December. It was all systems go and they were *almost* ready to ship back then. Same thing in February. Josh was going to see the wafers and then take them to the packaging. That time for certain there were going to be thousands of chips and they would ship soon!

Most people who have been here a while just ignore BFL shipping "dates". They will ship if they ship, at some rate to be determined in the future.

I doubt he could sell $5K of BFL for $25K on these forums, but there are a lot of nitwits would might overpay that badly. I wouldn't say its a slam dunk, but it might be possible. Perhaps you could link to escrow deals where there was a 5x price change.

He converted his potential return into an actual return. There was a lot of friction in the conversion.
I'll await your links to sales (not threads of bids) of BFL orders before commenting further.