I absolutely agree with you, and even moreso when pre-orders are being taken.  One reason I was so skeptical about the whole "Asian owners" thing was that nobody in their right mind rescues a project without doing considerable due diligence and there had not been enough time for proper due diligence to have taken place when Tom made that post.

My field's business administration so I take it for granted that when a company or a project is in trouble the sharks will start circling.  It's also why I think you have to choose your investors carefully and ideally pick people who bring more than just money to the table if you're a start-up attempting something novel. The experience, influence and contacts that the right investors bring to a project can be more vital to its success than the money they directly contribute.

It would make even more sense to have the units on a flight out of China on Sunday night and landing in nearby destinations early Monday to get them cleared through customs and out to the local delivery services as soon as possible. 

I guess we'll know soon enough exactly what they mean when they say that they'll be "shipping" in 9 and a half hours.

They already posted earlier today that they'll be putting up a form for people to select alternative shipping options.

Bear in mind that it a lot of countries final delivery is handed off to a local service once the goods have cleared customs and not done by DHL itself.

And you can even use your credit card to fund the purchase, so if anything goes wrong you can lodge a dispute with PP or you can do a charge-back.

If you only want to buy a few coins, it's a lot less hassle than funding an account on an exchange.

Logistics companies operate every day of the week and they're using DHL.  The only reason some companies don't ship on weekends is that they only work standard office hours - it's not because courier and logistics companies don't work weekends.  Amazon has shipped my orders on the weekend countless times - it's not that unusual.

When the units will actually leave China will depend on how they're handling the customs process.  You can arrange pre-authorisation if you're willing to pay for it.

I honestly think this is a bit of a problem with Bitcoin enterprises overall.  They're private companies and in many cases very little information is available about who is backing them.  People make their choices based on whether or not the front-man for the company seems credible and questions about the identity and the credentials of those who are actually responsible for getting the product out the door are often met with hostility.

Yep, they've consistently said that the first 300 units would be shipped over a period of about 2 weeks.  It's clear that they're not all being shipped tonight because Avalon is putting up a form today for people to choose alternative shipping options.

Given that they have been posting today, though, it would be a massive PR blunder if they didn't ship any units at all tonight - they should be well aware by now of any obstacles to getting those first units shipped later today.

lukasbradley has posted on the bASIC forums that he is not the party who has provided funds to rescue the project.


Tom's post confirms that bASIC did not have sufficient funds to complete the project prior to this new investment.

Despite Tom's new-found enthusiasm, no-one's offered any evidence whatsoever that the project is now in more competent hands than it was before.  Sniping at those who asked for refunds just makes Tom look petty - he's the one who created the situation which prompted those refund requests.

The countdown timer is for when they ship the first units.  It says "ships in" directly above the timer.

As I understand it, all 300 units won't be shipped tonight.


http://support.avalon-asic.com/solution/categories/40996/folders/66201/articles/31066-when-are-the-avalon-asics-shipping-

This post from BitSyncom earlier today regarding shipping options also suggests that not all units will be shipped tonight.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=120184.msg1464530#msg1464530

If you're going to export 300 units at once, you don't leave sorting out shipping preferences until the day of shipment - the paperwork's too much of a pain in the ass to do it at the last moment.

You can lock your own thread.

Yeah.  It's interesting that the lender described the borrower as a "very friendly person" when that's not the impression that his posts have created.

It's an option in your profile.  Go to profile>Look and Layout Preferences and check the "return to topics after posting by default" box if you want to be returned to the thread when you post and uncheck it if you don't.

Scammers using dormant accounts seem to go on a posting spree just before they ask for a loan to get their post count up.  It's a good idea to check the post history and not just the post count.  While some people genuinely don't post very often, it always looks suspicious to me if someone who hasn't posted for months suddenly makes 30 posts just prior to asking for a loan.

I'm also curious about how hardware failure is going to be handled - because sure as shit sooner or later someone's hardware is going to have a problem.  Is it going to be shipped back to the owner at that point?  Is Dave going to try to fix it?  Individual owners are going to have different configurations and I'm curious about the trouble-shooting process when they don't have physical access to their machines.

I can't see it being financially worthwhile to install inert gas or misting systems to minimise loss in the event of fire, so I'm guessing that you're depending on insurance to compensate for loss.  Presumably that insurance would cover replacement cost of the hardware only.

Latest from Dave on refunds, posted 17 January.


Perhaps now that new investors have been found and the project is "moving forward", Tom can concentrate on processing BTC refunds.

Honestly, the "old money" investors who are trying to salvage this project need to make their identities known.  Right now we have assurances that there's a new team overseeing the project and new funds to complete it but the failure to disclose who these people are leaves everyone having to trust Tom's judgement - which has already proven flawed.  Tom and Dave should be working overtime to convince people that this project is now in the hands of capable people - they can't do that by hiding the identities of those on whom completion of the project now depends. 

In addition, we were told that the identities of the new investors/team would be revealed once a deal was struck, so this is just another broken promise.

Do your prices factor in insurance?

Edit.  I missed that you mentioned insurance.  Can you be more specific about the extent of insurance coverage?

So Tom's post confirms what we all suspected - that they didn't have sufficient funds to take the project to completion.

Which actually makes Tom's comment about being willing to put his own money against anyone who says they won't ship in March ridiculous - why wasn't he putting his own money into completion of the project if he's got spare cash he can afford to lose lying around?

Does Tom even realise that this is no longer just about raising the funds to complete the project?  It's also about convincing people that whoever is leading the project is competent and Tom's "word" is not evidence of that.

Yeah, I've found in the past when shipping shit that some companies really have their shit together when it comes to customs stuff and others don't.  I've also found that sometimes it's better to take your stuff to the airport yourself so that you're there when your consignment gets scanned in than to have it picked up (because if it's picked up you have no control over when it gets processed and can't double check the paperwork and fix errors before it actually gets put on a plane).

Do you ask people you've just met in real life to lend you money?  Do you get butthurt when they refuse?