I paid via Paypal and eventually got my money back.

About a week after filing my dispute for refund I got this email from paypal:

Hello <My Name Here>,

The refund sent by Robert Nettlefold (sales@payonix.com) did not clear from the sender's bank. You have not received funds for this payment in your PayPal account.

Please contact Robert Nettlefold regarding this refund.

-----------------------------------
Refund details:
-----------------------------------

Amount: $3,799.00 AUD
Sender: Robert Nettlefold
Sender's email: sales@payonix.com
Transaction ID: <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Transaction date: 18 Nov 2013


Sincerely,

PayPal


Shortly after that email PayPal sent me an email telling me they had retrieved the funds and I should expect them in my account in the next few days, and it eventually came through.

Not sure if it was actually refunded by 'Andrew Thomas/Robert Nettleford' or forcibly refunded by Paypal.

Count me in - I paid via paypal and got a full cash refund after they held my money for around a month.

A friend of mine pre-ordered 2 of the non-existent 500GH/s units and paid in bitcoin, which was 27 bitcoin at the time.  They refunded him 2 weeks later as a cash deposit into his bank account totalling $6400 when at this time the 27 bitcoins were worth $14,000 (approx $500/btc).  The 27 bitcoins at this moment are worth around $30,000 - the $6400 refund, means payonix defrauded approx $24,000 but not refunding in the same method of payment as it was purchased with.  Arbitrage fraud at its best

*edit - it was $6400 because he received some re-imbursements via the 'affiliate program' which was taken out of the refund they issued, so he wasn't refunded 2 x $3799

Did anyone else purchase in Bitcoin?

I got my refund during the week.  Paid via Paypal, put in a paypal claim to get my money back.  First email from paypal says they were unable to withdraw the funds from the sellers account and to contact Robert Nettlefold at sales@payonix.com for a refund.

Got a follow up email from paypal to say they had successfully processed my claim and closed the call.  This was a bit confusing, I spoke to paypal who said that although the seller's account didn't have sufficient funds for the refund, but they are a paypal verified seller paypal can forcibly retrieve funds (still not 100% sure how this works).  Received an email from Andrew Thomas apologizing, explaining the difficulties they are having due to internet forum talk, and that my refund would be processed (Still adamant that their customers will be happy when they receive their miners).  A few days later I had the refund in my account (not sure if the refund was Andrew Thomas issuing the refund, or paypal doing their thing).

Has the payonix.com website mysteriously gone offline on the day of their live video demo?

(update) it's back up now

Probably because people who ordered are now getting concerned and finding this thread at the top of the list when they google search Payonix 

I was able to pre-order one of their 500Gh/s miners via paypal about 2 weeks ago, the paypal link was there and it worked for me.  I'm very keen to see some pics and demo's of their actual product.  A friend of mine has spoken numerous times with Andrew and he does seem like a nice and reasonable guy.  The posts I see on here do make me a little concerned though.

Excellent article - I find it hard to explain the concept to friends (it almost ends up in an argument about me spending time mining for bitcoins which don't actually exist.  It even came to how Tony just invented a new coin called the "Tony-coin" and if I get Tony a beer he'll credit me with 10 "Tony-coins" in the imaginary Tony-coin wallet which he has stored in his head - he'll then declare Tony-coins are worth $10 each so I have $100 worth of Tony-coins, all I need to do is find a buyer.