Butterfly Labs have royally screwed Paypal options for crowd funded start-ups in the Bitcoin community.

Coupled with the scam re-sale of BFL pre-orders, Paypal don't want to touch something similar again.

What does that tell you about Paypal's confidence in BFL.

KnC had massive issues because of this and had to go to extreme lengths to secure Paypal, because they know what it means to have the brand on board for pre-order confidence.



Terrahash are smaller and may have a harder time, but it's BFL who have put them in this situation.

Paypal just do the same as John K., escrow funds for 45 days, but for that they get months of bullshit form pissed BFL customers which has left a lasting resentment.

Today sucked big time.  The pool luck was very low. 

Hey I spent some bitcoin on mining hardware that I'd like to earn back.  Everyone in the bitcoin mining community needs to stop mining for a few weeks, so I can earn my coins back.  OK   

I think a lot is riding on paypal.  I don't think we will see a post or blog to say what batch till paypal outcome is known.  If they do tell paypal outcome friday or choose to do something will be a interesting day.  I cant imagine them wanting to loose paypal so i think there will be a bit of quietness and waiting.  Either way get your popcorn.

Going to have to concur with Bargraphics. 

I personally have felt very informed of their progress, and respect their work thus far.  I am actually a bit confused as to all the drama regarding this.  The few messages that I have sent have all been answered relatively quickly...faster than some big tech companies that is for certain.  Also, regarding when your item will ship, having dealt with Paypal and their bothersome ways, I can see how they have no idea which batch you will fall into.  As most purchases were done through Paypal, if they were to block the account for a significant amount of time, Terrahash has already stated they would issue refunds.  Thus, we wouldn't know your place in the queue until people received their refunds and reconfirmed their payment through their new card service or chose to repay in btc.  Prior to this occurring, they would simply be guesstimating.  I generally prefer a definitive answer even if that takes time.

To me so far, they have satisfied their obligation to me.  Emphasis on "so far."  This opinion can most definitely change in the coming months.  Perhaps my comfort level is quite high as I was able to briefly meet with the folks who work at their office and get a quick tour.  Very friendly guys who appear quite knowledgeable.  Although I would love a play by play of daily activities in their office, I realize the useless impracticality of it.  Eventually, we'd just get posts from Terrahash regarding the weird weather in the bay recently or perhaps the odd explosive bowel movement.    

I want to hear relevant information, and that won't come on a daily basis.  Probably more likely a weekly or bi-weekly update. 

-JC

Eh I stopped my GPUs mining... weather is starting to heat up here and the 3 6950s were making my place miserable lol

Why should they?  Because TH SAID THEY WOULD, that's why.

I don't know how much simpler this needs to be made - If you say you're going to do something, then you have obligated yourself to do it and people are entitled to expect you to do it.
If you don't want to do something, don't say you will, and I won't expect you to.  Is that so hard to understand?

Agreed. People complaining here wont make a difference. You can complain 24/7 they cant change what happened with the PayPal thing. It is just a waiting game now. Let them figure things out and stop expecting an answer/update every hour from them. If TH was to answer all your questions and updates he would only be looking at this forum all day and not have time to do anything else.

Give him a break, and give him time.

The facts are TH announced they'd accept preorders.   At the exact moment they said the units would be available for presale - they were.   Their sale was so successful that Paypal is wary about handing over the huge stack of funds for fear of chargebacks -- which was communicated -- along with a potential remedy pending the outcome (cc directly) -  depending on how / when they get their funds, they'll know who paid and when.    

If for some reason they then choose to tell you whether your order will be filled within some specific window of time IMHO is a waste of their time.    Why should they?   You bought it - you'll be served in order...   Were you to learn that you weren't fast enough submitting payment and won't be served until the second or third batch of products, wouldn't they be risking loss of your business as a result of your dissatisfaction with your place in line  and then have to waste even more time refunding your order?

I do have an order - placed and paid for within the first 2 minutes....   These guys haven't done anything to lose any credibility in my mind and like many small businesses before them are faced with growing pains imposed by Paypal.   I'm a huge fan of the community forums but do you really want them responding dozens of posts here about where do I stand in line?   Are you hoping to teach them a lesson in customer service??

Allow me to try to put this in a way you might understand.

It is NOT about getting updates every 5 minutes or every hour or even every day.  It is not about being answered every time we ask a question.  It is not about being told whatever we want to know.
(though with certain things it would be nice to know a little something - like how it's going with testing/development.  No, not a blow by blow, but a splurb once or twice a week oh hey we got this to work or we're testing that.  Oh and don't direct me to the dev thread for BKK - TH has stated they're going to help with working on firmware and drivers, and they have physical hardware, so they will be doing some of this work)

It's about credibility.  No, I don't mean credibility by sitting on forums posting and answering questions all the time.  I mean credibility by doing what they say they're going to do and by being honest and realistic not just with us, but with themselves about what they can reasonably accomplish in a given timeframe and not making commitments they can't keep.  Yes, things happen and things change.  That's normal and to be expected, and nobody can plan for everything. 
But when you make a commitment to do something or give people updates by a certain time, you keep that commitment; if something has changed and you can't, you give an open honest and upfront explanation to people why - and you do it as soon as you know you can't keep the commitment.

Yes they're busy, and yes posting on here takes time.  However, taking 5 minutes to come here, or send out an email, or even just post an update to their site is not going to break anything.  It's not going to significantly adversely affect the work that needs to get done.  What it will do is reinforce their credibility; it will show everyone that their word means a lot to them; it shows people that they are committed to customer service and putting their customers as one of their highest priorities.

I don't think they are scammers or anything like that; right now it just seems that they don't stop to think about what customers might think in a given situation.  For me it's not about updates, it's about keeping their word.
If you don't tell me you're going to give me an update by Friday, then I don't care if you don't do it, BUT...
if you tell me you will, and you don't; you have just broken your word.   THAT is the issue.  If you're not sure if you can do something, then don't commit to it.  Once you commit, as a customer I will hold your feet to the fire on it if you break that commitment and don't at least give a very prompt open and honest explanation why.

Or WHAT?  you gonna yank your order -- what's TH incentive to tell you where you stand?   you shouldn't have bought anything if there was a stipulation that you had to be amongst the first x to receive your order...  get real.  

There's plenty of lists circulating around showing where you likely stand -  

when will we know if our order is in batch 1 or not?

that's the only relevant info we need, everything else is just noise as avalon havent shipped the chips.

Are you arguing that you cant purchase Bitcoins outright from an exchange?

And that the counter party risk of fiat processors is better than the counter party risk of community trusted escrow agents?

Telling people what they do and don't understand is a bit of a stretch here.

Hey you.., lol, quit starting rumors! lmao

that makes sense, but i still wish TH would be more open about what is going on.
I would still like to see the  order and expected shipping dates of the three avalon orders, as well as see them actively participating with bkkcoins over development.

Their pricing system does not change the status whenever your payment has cleared. My payment cleared and all I had to do was give TH a quick call and sey "Hey, did you revive the payment for this order ID?" He asked a few questions like bank account holder and said "Yep! Ill change that order status now." and he did. Immidiately. Just give him a call and stop complaining

my wires cleared late last night sometime.. so hope one of my orders will change status today.
not ready to call this a scam yet though.

I'm sick of all this fud, PayPal would never screw bitcoin users