BFL did not receive bitcoins for preorders. BFL received USD and allowed customers to exchange BTC for USD using BitPay for their own convenience.
Customers paid in BTC. Bitpay acted on behalf of BFL (like a bank or credit card company would) to receive that BTC. What BFL instructed Bitpay to do with that BTC after receiving it is BFL's business. If BFL received USD from Bitpay, then it was only because BFL instructed Bitpay to convert the BTC into USD. When a customer placed an order they immediately exchanged their BTC for USD and used that USD to pay for the order. This is exactly the same as if you sold bitcoins for cash, deposited cash into your bank account, then used your debit card to pay for the preorder, except that it is much much easier and quicker. BFL did not gamble on any currency, they did exactly the opposite.
You clearly did not read the bitpay faq here: https://bitpay.com/faqBitpay does what the merchant instructs with the funds. If BFL wanted the BTC so they could escrow it and refund it like they claimed to, then Bitpay would have sent them BTC. If BFL wanted to instead spend that BTC on operations and development, then Bitpay would have converted it to USD for them. At this point I can't tell if some of you are trolling or if you're actually this moronic.
At this point I can tell you didn't pay 200 BTC for a product in June 2012 only to have 12.5 BTC sent back to you now. |
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BFL took a currency risk and apparently did not hedge it. Or they hedged it (by keeping the BTC paid instead of converting to USD) but are now unwilling to part with the profit made by holding that hedge.
The truth is that you won't know in what form and at what ratio (if they received a split) they received money for their products that were very clearly priced in USD. Most people assume that they received some USD, at least. It's nice to think you can use BTC for some things, but in reality it's not very many. BFL has stated over and over that they have not touched customer funds for development and operations. BFL has stated over and over that they put the funds in escrow and that anyone who wants a refund can have one. If BFL was going to put into escrow what they collected from customers, why on earth would they instruct Bitpay to convert the BTC to anything else? That would create the mother of all exchange rate risks. Bitpay will convert BTC into any of 30 other currencies and deposit those funds into a bank account of the merchants choosing. Bitpay will just send the BTC unless the merchant tells them otherwise. https://bitpay.com/faqIf BFL did convert the BTC into USD to pay rent, wages, and buy components, then why did they lie about doing so? |
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Well let's flip the possibilities.. and then add in a dash of reasoning..
If someone paid ~2.5 BTC to buy a Jalapeno right now.. and then 3 months from now BTC plunges to 5$ a BTC again.. Would that customer.. or YOU.. be DEMANDING that you get your 2.5BTC back? You think if BFL forced the 2.5BTC on you when that only added up to ~$12.50, that that would be ok?
If they are selling it for BTC, and I paid for it in BTC, and then I asked for a refund and I got the refund in BTC, what possible cause could I have to complain? BTC is supposed to be a currency. What the company does with that currency after I give it to them is their problem. If they offer to accept it, until they deliver they have a forex risk that they should probably hedge. Let's look at the truths though. When they charged people in BTC.. they were NOT charging people for direct BTC. The site had USD prices listed as the main price.. bolded. Below that they had an amount that added up to however many bitcoins that amount in USD costs. The sale was in USD.
So everyone should print a bold price in Zimbabwean dollars and just refund people with those, no matter which currency they paid in originally? If you wanted to pay in Canadian dollars, or pesos, and if they allowed it, they would have sent you the bill in USD along with an amount in pesos.. or Canadian dollars that equaled the USD price.
When I buy alpaca from Peru on Amazon for USD, I pay USD. The company probably converts that money to Nuevos Sol, but if they refund my money, they will send me USD (no matter what the current exchange rate is, they were holding my dollars, when I want them back, I want the same number of dollars back). If the payments never had USD listed, or the website was not advertising in USD, I could see the confusion, and the complaint but they were. Plain and simple. What you chose to take out of that other than, "This US based company, who buys things with US dollars, who was invested in with US dollars, is selling a product for US dollars" is your own fault.
They accepted BTC, they should refund in BTC, not Zimbabwean dollars or US dollars, or Hong Kong dollars, or any other currency that just happens to have a really favorable exchange rate. If they did not properly hedge their exchange rate risk, that is their problem, not their customers. What about all the online retailers taking bitcoin as payment. Do you mean to tell me if they offer returns (say 30 day for electronics) that I can get my product, but have 30 day insurance that if bitcoin goes WAY up in price I can force a return, and get bitcoins that are worth twice the amount?
Yes. If you hold the BTC, you can refund the BTC. If they get the product back, they get the BTC back. Do you think Sony refunds you less USD when the Yen falls because they price their TV somewhere on a website in Yen? ...can no one see the logic in this? Can no one see the MAJOR scams that would come out of this being a common practice? If the price of bitcoins tanked like my example at the top of this post, and butterfly labs was offering refunds back in BTC worth 1/20th the cost they originally were worth, EVERYONE would be calling that a scam, and so would I.
If a european customer paid US$100 and then USD tanked and they asked for a refund and the company refunded their US$100, why would they complain? 100 USD in 100 USD out. As far as Bitpay, that is BFL subcontracting out the actual exchange. It is just like using Paypal, or Mastercard, or Visa. If I sent Paypal US$1000 to buy a TV direct from Sony. Then Paypal sends 80000 Yen to Sony (because they want to let Paypal handle the currency exchange) for my TV. When I ask Paypal for a refund 44 days later, will I get Yen or Dollars back? Will I get the same number of dollars I sent back? Or will it depend on the current exchange rate? |
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any mining before shipping doesn't help the customer at all... except to test and ensure the device is burned in. I would much rather the customers be the one causing the spike and reaping the benefits, they are the ones who appear to have put the capital into the project. Not that Yifu and Avalon haven't done a good amount of work themselves, and deserve to be compensated... but that's the whole point of them creating a price point on batch 1, and marking up every batch since then. To mark up prices AND mine just seems greedy, and Yifu just doesn't strike me as THAT greedy of a person...
keyword is "at this point". Kate Upton on a horse. |
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If someone paid 300 BTC for 1 Jalapeno last June, how would it make any sense to give them back 300 BTC for their refund now, enabling them to buy ~150 Jalapenos right now? What a stupid argument... Someone that had 300 BTC last June and just kept them on their wallet until now is smarter because they can buy now 150 Jalapenos if they decide to. Only fools paid BFL 300 BTC for 1 Jalapeno last June, right? Excellent point. I proposed that "stupid" argument solely to give an example of what you were asking for. Congratulations, and thank you on proving my point. BFL took a currency risk and apparently did not hedge it. Or they hedged it (by keeping the BTC paid instead of converting to USD) but are now unwilling to part with the profit made by holding that hedge. The only way it matters why BFL does not want to refund either what customers paid or what customers are due is if they deliberately set out to defraud people. BFL had to offer refunds to anyone because otherwise nobody in their right mind would give them money. That might prove to be inconvenient later on |
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I forgot about your severe challenges with logic. Let me illustrate how absurd your position is. I give you $2000 of gold that you need to hold as a reserve, and in return you promise pay me the market value of the gold + $20 interest in 6 months time. 6 months passes. You do not pay. Another 6 months passes, the spot value of gold has now increased 50 fold over when the contract was first entered. You decide that instead of paying me the market value (and $20) that you promised, you will "refund" the $2000 instead of the gold. Now you sell the gold at market for a 50x profit. Then you get sued for breach of contract and lose. Then you sue your lawyer for advising you to go to court instead of settle. Then you get herpes. (its my fact pattern I can stipulate what I want  ). Why are you creating a whole new example? No ASIC company is going to refund 300 BTC right now if you paid 300 BTC a year ago for a pre-order. That statement might be correct and does not conflict with any examples I have provided. BFL will not willingly "refund" 300 BTC. They would have to be compelled to do so. Exactly. No ASIC company with pre-orders would. Any customer expecting it is naive. Customers that expect BFL to follow the law might indeed be naive. Those customers are not without recourse. It will be interesting to see what a judge considers a reasonable time for delivery of product in this case. Presuming of course that BFL does not settle. |
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I forgot about your severe challenges with logic. Let me illustrate how absurd your position is. I give you $2000 of gold that you need to hold as a reserve, and in return you promise pay me the market value of the gold + $20 interest in 6 months time. 6 months passes. You do not pay. Another 6 months passes, the spot value of gold has now increased 50 fold over when the contract was first entered. You decide that instead of paying me the market value (and $20) that you promised, you will "refund" the $2000 instead of the gold. Now you sell the gold at market for a 50x profit. Then you get sued for breach of contract and lose. Then you sue your lawyer for advising you to go to court instead of settle. Then you get herpes. (its my fact pattern I can stipulate what I want ). Why are you creating a whole new example? No ASIC company is going to refund 300 BTC right now if you paid 300 BTC a year ago for a pre-order. That statement might be correct and does not conflict with any examples I have provided. BFL will not willingly "refund" 300 BTC. They would have to be compelled to do so. |
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Markets have no mercy. You are being punished for shorting Bitcoin. I have been punished for BFL gambling addiction. BFL customers have no control over how much will BFL decide to convert in USD and how much will they keep in Bitcoin. This % can vary and depends solely on how the merchant sets up their merchant account with BitPay. Professional traders know what is the meaning of a currency option call. This option call is free for BFL. If BTC/USD gamble is successful the profit is for BFL crooks if it is a loss then it is paid by their customers in the form of partial Bitcoin refunds. Oh, this again. No business selling pre-orders for ASICs is going to give you back more than the value of the item you paid for when you request a refund. That's a completely absurd expectation. If someone paid 300 BTC for 1 Jalapeno last June, how would it make any sense to give them back 300 BTC for their refund now, enabling them to buy ~150 Jalapenos right now?According to you, one need refund "the value of the item you paid for when you request a refund", but BFL did not do this. They refunded the value of the item at the time it was ordered. Especially sinister since BFL had to put twice as many chips into the Jalapeno as planned. These chips could have sold for $75 apiece. But yes, people should have held their BTC instead of investing it in BFLs attempt to make bitcoin mining gear. People could have had dozens of Jalapenos (assuming BFL makes it through their backlog) instead of one. Good correction, thanks. I forgot about your severe challenges with logic. Let me illustrate how absurd your position is. I give you $2000 of gold that you need to hold as a reserve, and in return you promise pay me the market value of the gold + $20 interest in 6 months time. 6 months passes. You do not pay. Another 6 months passes, the spot value of gold has now increased 50 fold over when the contract was first entered. You decide that instead of paying me the market value (and $20) that you promised, you will "refund" the $2000 instead of the gold. Now you sell the gold at market for a 50x profit. Then you get sued for breach of contract and lose. Then you sue your lawyer for advising you to go to court instead of settle. Then you get herpes. (its my fact pattern I can stipulate what I want ). |
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Markets have no mercy. You are being punished for shorting Bitcoin. I have been punished for BFL gambling addiction. BFL customers have no control over how much will BFL decide to convert in USD and how much will they keep in Bitcoin. This % can vary and depends solely on how the merchant sets up their merchant account with BitPay. Professional traders know what is the meaning of a currency option call. This option call is free for BFL. If BTC/USD gamble is successful the profit is for BFL crooks if it is a loss then it is paid by their customers in the form of partial Bitcoin refunds. Oh, this again. No business selling pre-orders for ASICs is going to give you back more than the value of the item you paid for when you request a refund. That's a completely absurd expectation. If someone paid 300 BTC for 1 Jalapeno last June, how would it make any sense to give them back 300 BTC for their refund now, enabling them to buy ~150 Jalapenos right now?According to you, one need refund "the value of the item you paid for when you request a refund", but BFL did not do this. They refunded the value of the item at the time it was ordered. Especially sinister since BFL had to put twice as many chips into the Jalapeno as planned. These chips could have sold for $75 apiece. But yes, people should have held their BTC instead of investing it in BFLs attempt to make bitcoin mining gear. People could have had dozens of Jalapenos (assuming BFL makes it through their backlog) instead of one. |
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That said, I also understand the real world, and how business works. Deadlines are not always met. Estimates can be over optimistic. Customers can get upset, money can be lost.
The money is not lost, it is in BFL's hands. After a reasonable amount of time, failure to deliver becomes breach of contract. Caveat emptor is not a defense when you break a contract to deliver product after the customer has paid in full. The question boils down to: would a judge feel that it is reasonable for someone to wait 7 months to deliver a product that has been paid for. |
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Ok, then we need to ask Theymos if the IP address matches for both Garr/Werner accounts. Either Garr255/Werner is committing fraud or Inaba is committing libel. One has got to go.
If a mod can check that for us I'd be soooo happy  And what would that tell us? I can change my IP in a minute to appear is if it's a thousand miles away. I would rather if a mod just closed the thread, as it seems to have degraded and gone offtrack. If the accounts both originate from the same IP, that would be pretty damning evidence. I Guess nobody is so retarded to log on their sockpuppet accounts without using a proxy and/or Tor. Sure, but if he made the mistake Josh is claiming, then he may have also screwed up in other ways as well. All it takes is one slip up, and the server logs would show it. In this case, absence of evidence cannot be taken as evidence of absence. However, if the two accounts did log in from the same IP it would be very damning evidence indeed. |
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Error level analysis is useless for screenshots. If you're going to fake a screenshot, you use Inspect Element, not resaving the same image with Photoshop. Probably true. Change the HTML via the console, use the browser to render the altered HTML, then screenshot it. |
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nutrubbing on you because you would lose the bet, jackass. Put up or shut up.
You sound very intelligent. Why the fascination with rubbing your testicles on people? You know what. I don't care. You're wasting my time. IGNORED. Rubbing nuts on peoples faces. Totally the way to get credibility to handle thousands of dollars worth of other peoples money...  |
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That's an interesting statement. It's classic "I'm lying, but I'm doing what I feel is best". In other words, it's a misdirection from the bid shilling in order to save Cognitive. Honestly, I'm hoping I'm wrong. It seems like you've been a valued member here for quite some time. But, it's also very easy for a forum owner to determine the truth. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. I'm hoping some photoshop experts will take a look at both Inabas screen-caps and post opinions.
Occam's razor says Werner is a sockpuppet. Too bad scammer tags don't exist anymore. |
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I'm pretty sure everyone considers it more important to get it delivered and mining...
I thought it being "shipped" was good enough.  |
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Ok, then we need to ask Theymos if the IP address matches for both Garr/Werner accounts. Either Garr255/Werner is committing fraud or Inaba is committing libel. One has got to go.
If a mod can check that for us I'd be soooo happy And what would that tell us? I can change my IP in a minute to appear is if it's a thousand miles away. I would rather if a mod just closed the thread, as it seems to have degraded and gone offtrack. If the accounts both originate from the same IP, that would be pretty damning evidence. |
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To all of you that seem concerned about Garr using a sockpuppet account: I was refreshing this thread constantly when Inaba accused Garr of using a sockpuppet account to post and I never saw that happen. I think Inaba photoshopped the image he used. Think about it a minute. Who constantly snap screenshots so fast that they could catch a posting that couldn't have been here for more than a few seconds.
I have caught and screenshot sockpuppets who screw up in that manner. Theymos could shed more light on the subject, but none is needed imo. Inaba finally shit on someone who deserved it.  FYI, anyone who thinks that the screenshot by Inaba is edited can check to see if the pixels match up correctly. Images doctored by amateurs are easy to spot. http://internet.wonderhowto.com/how-to/photo-forensics-check-if-picture-has-been-photoshopped-not-0138649/ |
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Sockpuppets and astroturfing are standard practice in forums and auctions. I am surprised people are surprised.
That doesn't make it okay. Edit: I am not condoning it, this sort of behavior is execrable. I am just saying it happens a lot.
Grr, you guys didn't pick up my edit. |
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Sockpuppets and astroturfing are standard practice in forums and auctions. I am surprised people are surprised.
Little different. The socky was used to intentionally scam active bidders, not to troll or "astroturf". You are kidding yourself if you think auctions that contain fake bids are not common. Especially on these forums and bitcoin in general. Edit: I am not condoning it, this sort of behavior is execrable. I am just saying it happens a lot. |
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