Just as an update to this, sometime last week, the account got money in it and my friend was paid. He said that paypal just kept hitting the account (with the subsequent NSF charges, I'm sure) until there was money there.

 Please provide proof of how your information is publicly available.

WTF Inaba   Why are you giving out personal information   IE:useing a persons REAL name

Very mature dude 

In that case, can we just start an "I hate Josh" thread so that the forum isn't littered with thread after thread of BFL rage? All anyone is doing is beating a dead horse, makes the community look like a bunch of whiners.  Avalon folks have a lot more to be pissed at.  Believe you-me, I'm not defending them as I would much rather have gotten my hardware when it would still earn back what I paid, but at what point is enough... enough?  

I say this with all sincerity.  I work with a group and when trying to bring another friend into the fold his main dispute with BTC is that, with the largest portion of the community you can find in one place being the mining/hardware group, it looked like the entire community is full of petulant babies who can't accept losses and move on to other more meaningful things.  If people spent half the time trying to do something good for BTC that they spent kicking the same dead horse we might actually see more mainstream Bitcoin adoption, but instead everyone has to play the game of "What will the anti-BFL post be this week?".  

Or better yet, if you hate BFL that much, let the public record stand.  Stop giving them publicity.  Talk about other hardware vendors and how they screwed up.  It seems like people feel validated to have an Inaba post show up just so they can say "SEE?!  SEE?!  THERE IS THE DEVIL HIMSELF!".  

This is a blatant and outright conflict of interest.

In a professional organization, Josh would be instantly fired for doing something like this.

Given that BFL is run by a convicted felon, should it really surprise anyone that one of his underlings is operating with questionable ethics as well ?
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Bullshit Fabrication continues.

"The ASIC team has promised me pictures of the wafer tomorrow, Tuesday the 26th. As soon as I get those, I will be posting them."

26th has come and gone with no update.
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Respectfully, how about you get off these forums, stop with your piss war, and update the official BFL forums thread on what is going on with our orders.

You are making your company look like a bunch of insecure, bumbling and posturing buffoons.

Christ dude, be thankful you are working for a private company, because your ass would be fucking fired for how you are conducting yourself as a representative of your
company were it a public entity.
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Josh.

For fucks sake.

Can't you act professionally ?

You are in ABSOLUTELY NO POSITION TO BE FLINGING SHIT HERE IN THESE FORUMS.

NONE. ZERO. ZILCH.

YOUR CREDIBILITY IS NON-EXISTANT.

Thank FSM your boss allows you such a long leash. You'd be fucking destroyed in any real professional corporate environment held to any base standards of accountability.

Shame on you.
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Holy shit dude. Be careful throwing stones from your glass house !!!

The only thing more pathetic than PL around here is your management of this whole BFL ASIC fiasco.
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Josh claiming on BFL chat last night that they shipped just seemed really disingenuous and slimy. Par for the course as far as Josh goes I suppose.
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If I can get a guarantee that Theymos and the bitcointalk admins will allow negative ads towards BFL, I'll donate a full BTC in protest.
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Nevermind about anti-BFL PSA's.

I have half a mind to investigate the pros/cons of a class action lawsuit against them at the moment.

Starting to get really pissed off. Have never seen a company I have given so much money to, act so unprofessionally before.
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He won't tell us anything. He's too busy silencing dissent on the BFL shout-box and refusing to answer difficult, pointed questions.

Dude just plain does not give a fuck about this place, his behavior, his customers, or his companies public image.
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Josh.

I say this with sincerity.

Get help.

You can rest assured that once BFL ships my back-orders, you will never see another penny from me ever again.
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Not sure about any BFL Wafers breaking, but judging from Josh's behavior on the forums lately, I think his mind may be breaking.

Can anyone over there at BFL try to slip some lithium or anti-psychotics in his drinks, please ?

It is just absolutely mind-boggling how his leash-holders allow him to continue like he does in public. Has developed this split-personality complex that

Inaba/BFL_Josh-Zerlan are two different personalities !

I mean name calling ? Is he still in grade school ? This is the public face of Butterfly Labs ?

For shame !

EDIT: Speak of waffles, perhaps we should send Josh a Blue Waffle ?
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Kinda like your October or November 2012 shipping dates were wrong and "misrepresentation" ?
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So, Mr. Zerlan. Care to explain further about "so many lies and deceit perpetrated by people with agendas, unbalanced sense of reality or just plain crazy"

It would seem clear to me that YOUR agenda is to shirk all responsibility or honor for your prior commitments.
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You have absolutely no license or credibility to speak about having a firm grasp of reality.
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Way to evade again, Josh. So when are you going to do the honorable thing and honor the bet ?

Clearly, you have not met your power targets despite all your previous hubris.
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IANAL. However. There are mountains of documentation across various forums, that up until very very recently, they never had a working physical prototype, and originally
made the claim to be shipping in October of 2012.

If that is not deceptive / fraudulent, I don't know what is.

I would imagine they are completely in a position to have a Judge approve a class-action suit brought against them, and the plaintiffs stand a very good chance at compensation
due to the well documented development circus and constant delays.

And lets not forget that the Minirig SC is no longer available, and they've reorganized their entire product lineup from what they originally offered for sale because their
processes up until now have been such a farce.

EDIT: And I just wanted to add that given Josh's public taunting and ill-behavior, the Judge would have a cause to award additional punitive damages against Butterfly Labs.
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I would tread very carefully bro. Lets not bring the FCC into this.

Also, are you not both COO and CTO ? Sincere apologies if I have not gotten those facts straight.

I may be a "troll asshole customer" in your eyes, but I'll happily eat crow if I'm in error.
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So what you are inferring is if one were to get on Josh's bad-side, their order might be delayed or lost as well ?

Interesting how both BitSyncom and Josh are so seemingly alike.

Josh threatened to adjust my orders in the queue just yesterday before he silenced me on the Butterfly Labs shoutbox.
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Not only is Josh Zerlan / Inaba their CTO, he's also their COO !!!

Dude is going to have a really tough time finding another job after Butterfly Labs, due the mountains of impropriety and unprofessionalism that has been so thoroughly
documented here.

Could not happen to a nicer guy.

... and dude has the fucking gall to call people who ask harsh/pointed questions "trolls"

The man has a complete lack of meta-cognition or modicum of self-awareness.
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I confirmed my orders as well. It's unfortunate to see people supporting and applauding Josh's unprofessionalism on these forums.
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Josh Zerlan is not aware of things enough to know this. In fact, he fancies himself the fattest sow in the mudhole.
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This sums up Josh Zerlan's delusional professional outlook quite succinctly. "Conditional Customer Service".

And you know what the saddest part about all of that, is that in Josh's mind, he probably feels 100% unwaveringly justified in having that attitude due to a complete and
utter lack of self-awareness and a firm mental rooting in his own virtual reality.

I mean, if he's going to have his megalomaniacal temper tantrums and silence customers on their forums / shoutbox with thousands of dollars in preorders, then there is just
no dealing with the man. Professionally or otherwise.

Dude has "loose-cannon" written all over him. It's people like him that sink companies unless management gets things in check pronto.

... and remember folks. Josh himself recently admitted that these forums are not relevant to their business at all, which begs the question "Why does he continue posting
here if he does not consider this place important ? Why does he continue advertising here ?"

Calling Josh Zerlan a "scummy fuck" is a pretty accurate salvo.
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... but, you post lies, bullshit, and are arguably one of the biggest dicks on these forums, so, it's quite the viscous circle you have created, huh ?

Just thought I would take the liberty of showing you a mirror.
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... and you are the competent and experienced CTO and COO of a company that acts in a professional manner or knows what they are doing ? Sure, we believe you... no really.
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Quote from: Inaba on May 05, 2013, 05:48:23 PM
Let me know your order numbers, I will be happy to get your refund taken care of right away.

Josh, throw me a bone here... Do you at least recognize how completely unprofessional and anti-customer this sort of attitude is ?

Do you even care ?

I mean, I'm not telling you how to run your business, but you are playing an extremely dangerous game with this sort of brazen attitude.

You are essentially telling everyone here on these forums "We have you, our customers, bent over, and you just need to keep taking it with this Kong Dong of Penetration +2. Fuck you. I don't care about your orders or your business. We'll happily refund your money because we have more masochistic suckers lined up to fill the vacuum of your refund."

And you are the COO of Butterfly Labs ?

Am I far off ?
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I'd rather he stop making excuses, show some humility, and stop taunting us with such pompous braggadocio whilst having thousands of our dollars in his coffers worth of preorders.
--
I'll just leave this here...

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Fuck you asshole. Where the fuck do you think your first customers came from ?

Eat a bag of dicks.
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Xian (Edit · Delete) 05-01-2013 03:56 PM
So Josh, when are you going to pay the 1000 BTC bet for not meeting 1W/Ghash ? Or are you waiting until you guys get down to 1W/Ghash until you tell everyone to go fuck themselves and say "I TOLD YOU SO!!!" ?

BFL_Josh - 05-01-2013 03:58 PM
Xian: Your trolling pisses me off, but to answer your question, as soon as we get time to take care of it, we will. It's not like we aren't already overworked and it's not exactly a high priority at the moment... however, if you have an order, let me know what it is and I will be sure to put yours on hold when we get to it and work dilligently on the donation thing before we get back to yours.

Xian (Edit · Delete) 05-01-2013 03:58 PM
BFL_Josh: Hey, thanks for threatening your customers ! I appreciate it !

Xian silenced successfully.
BFL_Josh - 05-01-2013 03:59 PM
No problem, thanks for being an annoying troll.

BFL_Josh - Shout 05-01-2013 03:59 PM
Xian silenced successfully.
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Is it just me, or is anyone else laughing that Josh Zerlan refers to himself as "The Josh" ?

He's gone straight from Douche to Ultra-Mega-Douche, bypassing Douche-Bag, Super-Douche, and Giant-Douche altogether !
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Two days and no responses from any staff ?

And Josh wonders why he gets trolled so viciously ?
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Quote from: erk on May 12, 2013, 10:54:56 AM
Don't you think Wired magazine or the author of cgminer are credible?

It would be more credible if cklovias got the Jally; Kano just comes across as a bragging douche-nozzle and, tangentially, probably does more harm to BFL's image than good out of the Jally deal.

Giving one to Wired / Media was a transparent attempt at trying to regain a semblance of legitimacy in the public eye; Josh Zerlan has admitted these forums and patrons are not important to their business so it's pretty evident they are in full-on damage control/survival mode now.
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I need to respectfully disagree. I would take it a step further and argue there are not enough variations of photos of Josh with a clown-nose.

The man did it entirely to himself.
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I'm surprised Josh has not nuked that entire thread from orbit in a fit of rage.

I'm pretty much willing to bet that I'll received my 20 Erupter USB sticks before my day one BFL Single SC 60 GH/s unit pre-order ships.

Pathetic.
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Quote from: hardpick on May 14, 2013, 01:00:24 AM
Bashing Josh is not going to get us anywhere and IMO makes thing worst –he has to spend time defending himself instead of focusing on geting products out the door.

Perhaps Josh should have thought of the consequences of his chest-puffing, posturing, hubris, ignorance, myopia, inexperience, and a trail of broken promises spanning the globe over the last 8 months.

Schadenfreude, in this case, is completely justified.

Especially if you are a multiple pre-order customer waiting to take delivery of a product we have ordered almost a year ago.
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And Josh Zerlan is a paragon of accuracy and truth ?

Respectfully, there is probably more accuracy in my conjectures that Josh's prior attempts at stating fact.
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TL;DR: Josh "Inaba" Zerlan, COO of Butterfly Labs, taunts Bitcointalk forum members. I call him out on his behavior in an incendiary fashion. He tells Jody to cancel my orders (#s 2030, 2158 & 100033486). Check posting history. Is this the kind of company you want to be doing business with in America ?

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I've never felt this abused as a customer before. Filed a complaint with the Missouri AG Customer Complaints dept and the FTC Complaints Dept. Provided a Paypal address to office@bfl to get refunded for $4,698 (edit: refund processed)

Sorry for getting all fired up like that, forum-denizens. I hit a frustration limit I've never experienced before when purchasing products, and way overreacted.

Lessons learned, if I'm going to be critical of a company I plan to do business with, I should probably choose a moniker that they can't trace back to their customer database.

If you are a former, or current customer of Butterfly Labs, and are disgruntled and fed up with how they have conducted themselves over the last year, I would urge you to contact the following agencies and filing formal complaints.

The more light we shed on Butterfly Labs' business practices, the more chance we have to effect positive change and hold them to anything resembling responsible accountability to their customers.

https://www.consumer.ago.mo.gov/ - Missouri Attorney General Customer Complaints Deptartment
https://econsumer.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ - Federal Trade Commission Customer Complaint form


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110805.0 - "Butterfly Labs CEO 25 Million USD Mail Fraud — A Concise Summary of Evidence" is a good thread highlighting historical issues with Butterfly Labs' officers that should document concerns and facts.

I would urge you to not openly complain on these forums if there is any way Butterfly Labs can trace it back to your orders with them. They have demonstrated a will to punitively cancel and refund orders.

Finally, I would be lying if I didn't have a slight concern of someone affiliated with BFL showing up on my doorstep and confronting me for creating this thread, seeing as how they know where I live, given their checkered history. But lets just hope that's my paranoia kicking in.

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https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181098.msg1897893#msg1897893

Inaba @ April 20, 2013, 05:06:30 PM: "BFL has given up on Bitcointalk, so don't expect any official communication from BFL here."

vs

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206304.msg2228269#msg2228269

Inaba @ May.21.2013 @ 05:49:33 PM : "4 @ 5.75"

Spending ~$2,881.90 to advertise on a forum that they have "given up on" is the textbook definition of cognitive dissonance.

---

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=119338.0

An unpaid bet of 1,000 BTC still remains over BFL missing their power consumption by at least a factor of 5, with no movement being made to honor the charity donation. The unpaid bet has resulted in calls for Inaba to be branded with a Scammer tag.

---

Similar experience - "I was just banned from BFL forums" - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=214250.0
--

Is Sonny Chris Vleisides not a felon ? Again, if I am in error with those facts, I'll be the first to stick my foot in my mouth and apologize. Am I an asshole for raising that point ? Probably. Slow-burn frustration has a way of making one exceptionally bitter on a long enough timeline when money has been put up in good-faith.

Please point out the post where I state they still need to prove they are not a scam. That does not sound like something I would say, considering I don't believe they are a scam and already own one of their products. Shady ? Sure. A scam ? Verifiably not, so far.
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Correction: Using bureaucratic agencies to shed light on a company that openly has contempt for it's customers, fires those customers after they've endured one delay after another, one broken promise after another, more taunting and unprofessionalism from an officer of the company - after calling them out on it in a public forum. This is not normal behavior to see from a product developer. I don't know what country you live in, or what other companies you have dealt with that treated you similarly, and think it's OK.

In retrospect, I should indeed have taken a refund sooner rather than having one forced on me. Captain Hindsight and so on and so forth.

There's nothing in there about BFL or Bitcoin.  Why would there be? 

It is United States sales contract law that applies to all sales.  Somebody could easily sue your company for sales of late and/or defective hardware.  Since you made sales within the United States you are bound by contract law. 

That link specifically tells you that you don't need a contract to exercise your rights.  You making a business sale to a consumer binds you to certain regulations in the US that are common law when it comes to sales contracts.  "A Remedy at Law is a right that is automatically available to a contracting party."  When you made a sale to a consumer and they paid you, you entered into a contract to deliver that product at a widely advertised date that you didn't come within countless months of meeting and refused to refund people their money.

You unquestionably violated those provisions, which is why I stated earlier that I am surprised nobody has sued your company yet for horrendously late delivery than what you openly advertised all over the internet in your giant big budget advertising campaign.  It would be simple to prove in court that you widely advertised a deadline and made thousands of sales to people based on that deadline and then refused to refund customers when you failed to meet that deadline.

Do you see any other companies that operate this way in the US?  No?  That's because it's against the law and if somebody does pony up for a lawyer it would be an easy case to prove that you violated basic United States sales contract law.  It is also why all of your payment companies reversed your payments.  It simply is not legal to operate a business like you do.

If you wanted to bring yourself into compliance with the law you would refund anybody who wants to cancel their preorder on the grounds that you have failed to deliver in the specified timeframe.  Eventually somebody with deep pockets is going to get burned by you and you are going to have a lawsuit on your hands.

I'll give you a free tip.  If you want to bring your company into compliance with the law then you need to refund orders when you haven't delivered within your timeframe you have publicly advertised that the product will be delivered.  Not only is this the right and decent thing to do, it is also the law of the land when it comes to sales contracts.

Of course there are.


Here is an excerpt from a site from an ACTUAL (not internet) lawyer.  Sales contracts have certain automatic protections that don't even have to be in the contract.  This is common law in the United States.  If you want to read about sales contract law yourself on a site by an actual lawyer, click this link where I got the excerpt:  

http://www.salescontractseminars.com/leslie_marell_faqs.asp

I'm surprised nobody has actually done this yet.  They sold a bunch of those minirigs for $20k+ and nobody can afford a lawyer to sue these guys?

Most likely answer: YES.  It's well known BFL mined using customer hardware as a "burn-in/testing" process.

why are they not being caught ?