That sucks. On mine they updated the price. With coupon I used and price change, it was under de-minimis and I paid no duty or tariff.

They were removing stickers and leaving glue like that since M3 models. Some people thought it was because they were originally branded as the scam Kodak KashMiner. The real issue may have been from pending litigation with Bitmain over their PSU patent and claims their former engineer, who founded MicroBT, stole designs. That patent was supposedly revoked during litigation, but there was recent news that he was being held by police for new intellectual property infringement claims made by Bitmain involving tens of millions of yuan. They are probably removing the stickers again to avoid units being seized.

This is what they are now saying when requesting a refund, so you may luck out or may not, but they are sending refunds based on price of BTC at time of refund being sent:


The 1-2 month wait gives them plenty of time to send at most opportune time for them.

That looks like they are doing refunds based on BTC price at time they send refund then. I'm surprised because BTC was at $10k in September. For the T17 I ordered, I'd be getting almost 50% BTC back. I paid 0.085 and $284 credit would be 0.039.

Couldn't find your address but didn't look back too far. Was refund based on BTC price at time of purchase?

Yes. This is exactly how tariffs work. The importer pays them, not the country of origin. If you are a consumer importing directly, you're paying 100% of the tariffs to U.S. customs. If you're buying from a re-seller that imported the goods, then they are marking up the goods to offset the tariffs that they paid to U.S. customs. Tariffs primarily hurt the consumer. They only hurt the manufacturers if the tariffs are high enough to make people no longer want to import. While Trump claims China is paying the tariffs, that's simply not true. China pays absolutely nothing on his tariffs. It's 100% on the importer. The billions he claims that are paid by China are actually paid by U.S. importers. He's just clueless.

The chart linked shows it as a 2.6%. The 35% and what's in column 2 only applies to products from Korea and Cuba. Section 301 is still 25%, so it's still 27.6% total. You just add what's in column 1 with what Section 301 ruling is. 8543.70.99 was listed in the June 2018 $16 Billion Trade Action (List 2) proposed listing here and has not changed: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2018-13248.pdf

This is the August 2018 notice of action listing and when it went into effect:
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/2018-17709.pdf

No. I only attempted an order with BTC to see if credit would show up after they told me the credit was on my account. The credit did not show anywhere to be used and I let order expire. Their support then said you have to pay full price with PayPal and then they will manually apply the credit through PayPal.

Based on what their support has been stating, yes, you would pay full 1600 USD via PayPal and then they'd give you 1400 USD back via PayPal. I probably wouldn't attempt that though unless you don't care about potentially getting stiffed on your credit. They were also offering BTC refunds, but stated that could only be requested on orders that have already shipped.

It's at least two different Bitmain CSRs telling multiple people the same thing in regards to paying with PayPal and then requesting credit to be applied. Seems like that's their decided policy if your item hasn't shipped yet. I received the same exact e-mails you did. They said the credit was already on my account, but it showed nowhere on my account or after placing an order to apply it. When informing them this, they told me and others to pay with PayPal and then inform them of the order ID to have the credit applied, or you could wait until original order shipped and have them send refund in BTC.

Maybe they applied smaller credits to accounts directly or the only reason you received it was because your items already shipped? Coupons weren't supposed to be issued until after shipping. Majority of people asking haven't had their items ship yet and for those people they have been saying it's a hidden credit that you need to contact them to apply after paying with PayPal if you want to use it now.

I just checked my account, and there is still no credit showing and no coupons issued.

The only way to get the credit according to their support is to pay with PayPal and then contact them with the order ID. They will then manually deduct the amount from the order. I too tried placing an order over a week ago with BTC after they first told me I had a credit and no credit was shown or applied on the order along with no coupon. I contacted their support again and they gave the pay with PayPal and contact them answer others have also received.

They updated my invoice to show price from November 8 price update email. No coupon still. Seems they are ignoring original information that stated coupons would be based on price within 10 days after shipping as pricing has already changed again since their November 8 email.

Based on what was posted above and what they told me this morning, you don't need to wait until order ships, but you need to place the order with PayPal and then inform them of the order ID for them to apply the credit. You could wait until order ships to see if they actually put coupons on your account. It's not clear if they will be doing that or not, but you can apply existing credit based on latest pricing update they sent out. I would expect them to apply coupons after shipping, otherwise people aren't going to easily know what their "hidden credit" is or how to use it without contacting support. If you apply the credit now, you're at least guaranteed the credit won't reduce, but it could technically increase as well.

I received a different answer from same person, although your response appears more accurate based on the information that was on the site when I ordered. Coupons were only to be provided based on price after shipment and only if price lower than purchase price within 10 days after shipment.



As you can see, they told me it was already released and that I have a credit, however, I have no coupons or credit showing on my account currently and see nothing when trying to place an order. Unless their pricing remains the same, my actual credit can be more or less depending on price once it ships.

They were informal entries and liquidated at time of release when I paid the 2.6% tariff determined by customs agent. This was not me, Bitmain, shipper, broker, or anyone else determining the import duty or classification. It was determined entirely by customs and liquidated by them. Informal entries are classified by customs and liquidated at time of release. Formal entries are classified by importer of record and can be reviewed for over a year prior to CBP liquidating. Liquidation is final. I believe this is where people are confused with CBP or shipper demanding additional fees. Additional fees can only be assessed on entries that have not been liquidated.

When you paid the higher fees for an S17 and S17 Pro, was it an informal or formal entry? If they were both part of the same order then it would be above informal entry limit. I am only speculating that CBP is not applying the 301 rulings on informal entries since all of my informal entries have only been the 2.6%. Everyone I've seen saying they had fees reassessed were for formal entries not liquidated yet.

If they want to come after me and have me pay for already liquidated entries due to their own rulings, I'd have no problem with it, but I don't foresee it happening. I even tried to get paperwork on what they classified the entries as and all I could get was the waybills from DHL with no classification.

I'm not sure how they even keep track of which products/orders were listed with a "Product Reference Price" and should receive a coupon for price difference after delivery if price is lower. The T17 I ordered had the notes about reference and actual price when ordered, but when I checked the product link on my invoice now, the notes about pricing and coupon are all gone so they modified them sometime after I ordered. This was a 38TH/s version which is no longer available and 40TH/s version was launched a couple days after I ordered at $150 cheaper. I'm expecting at least a $150 coupon, but the way they do things leaves them plenty of room to manipulate pricing to not issue coupons.

All of mine with the 2.6% were shipped from China with "Made in China" stamps and SZX (Shenzhen) origin codes on boxes and labels. Still have the boxes. August 2018, April 2019, and May 2019. All single miners and informal entries above de minimis.

I've seen discussion on Pangolinminer being non-responsive or going under, but they just announced this new miner and claim to be shipping within 5 days. Thoughts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrKjGq7cCn8

https://pangolinminer.com/product/hummer-miner-h7-pro/

Two versions with same 65W/TH efficiency. 48TH @ 3120W and 53TH @ 3445W. Probably not efficient enough for most based on more efficient gear that's been out for about a year now.

Official web site here:
http://www.hummerbtc.com

Did your $150 coupons expire when BTC price exceeded $10k over the weekend? I still haven't received a coupon but it didn't have the $10k expiration either.

I bought a T17 4 weeks ago and no coupon yet. Was a 38TH/s version too so I guess I got suckered into using a $350 coupon. I'm assuming they will provide coupons based on price when they ship.

I never claimed to not pay duty fees. They only charged the 2.6% and no additional fees. They were under the amount to meet informal entries, while also being above de minimis. If you have to go through formal entry, then you will definitely pay the higher fee unless you falsify the paperwork. If you go through customs as an informal entry, then it's up to the customs officer filling out the paperwork for how the fee is determined and their responsibility. Informal entries are liquidated at time of release from customs meaning that they can't come back or charge any additional fees. As soon as you pay the fee, it's liquidated and that's final. Customs determines the fee for informal entries and fills out all the paperwork. If they classify an informal entry wrong, then you luck out and pay a lower fee.

Formal entries are different. You, shipper, agent/broker, etc. fill out the paperwork for formal entries and attest to accuracy of classification and fees. Customs has over a year to review formal entries before liquidating. If they find errors with your classification prior to liquidation, they will come back and charge you the additional fees.

The only people I've seen getting hit with additional fees later are from formal entries that haven't been liquidated that were classified incorrectly by themselves, shipper, broker, etc., not already liquidated informal entries classified by customs. In all of my shipments since the Section 301 tariffs went into effect, it would appear that CBP's policy (at least in New York) is to not apply the tariffs on any informal entries, not just de minimis informal entries. FedEx's regulatory update on it interprets the CBP FAQ differently and says only de minimis informal entries are excluded. I would avoid using FedEx since their own brokers are the ones that got them in trouble for misclassification.

I've had multiple orders, all single miners that were informal entries above de minimis, and have yet to pay anything above 2.6%. They were all shipped by DHL. I recently ordered a T17 with coupon that meets de minimis and waiting to see how they interpret that.