Seriously, you had to fuck up a perfectly funny thread by throwing in an Obamaphone?  Get a life.

Also, if this assclown being on welfare while living a life of crime bugs you, fucking report him for fraud.  Because that's what he's committing.  He belongs in fucking prison.

"Only you can prevent welfare fraud." -- Smokey the Pedobear

If Mamet had written this thread, it would actually be a good movie.

I have to admit I kind of like the sideshow geek act it actually is.  I busted a gut laughing at half this thread.

tl;dr for wall of text:  just cause people aren't suing BFL doesn't mean they're 100% legit.  Also they're not a total scam, at least not yet.


Con artists are not necessarily individually very clever, but there has been a lengthy evolutionary process that determines which scams "survive" to be re-used, that is, the scams actually work and get money from people but the scammers don't get prosecuted.  The Nigerian scams and their evolution over time provide a very illustrative example.

First, the initial come-on, you would think, should actually be persuasive and convincing enough that most people don't reject it, but paradoxically, the exact opposite is the case.  Most Nigerian scams are absurd on their face and the vast majority of people instantly laugh and immediately ignore them without paying them a second thought.  

Why should this be?  Shouldn't these come-ons actually be enough to get most people to look?  Actually, no!  They should do exactly the opposite, and that's what they do.  The initial come-on is not intended to convince a "normal" person of its accuracy.  It is a sieving process, where the initial come-on actually weeds out the people the scammer will not succeed with, leaving only the pool of potentially gullible suckers.

This come-on actually serves the purpose of selecting a population for ongoing contact who is actually dumb enough to believe that some person they don't know is just contacting them out of the blue to give them an enormous amount of money for absolutely flimsy and unbelievable reasons.  And dumb enough not to give one chunk of money, but to keep paying more and more over time as the long con continues.

Now, BFL, to the extent it is a scam, is an entirely different one.  The target audience is not stupid.  In fact, the target audience is highly intelligent, since even being able to understand Bitcoin and that it's actually a legitimate thing that is worth real money in the real world requires a high degree of intelligence and knowledge of the technology and math.  

But they also have to be naive enough to believe some company totally out of nowhere, just because it starts out spouting the same rhetoric, taking money in advance for products that don't exist yet, is actually legitimate.  They have to not bother checking the company's principals (like Sonny) and look at how it's actually acting, and be willing to throw money at it in advance.  

This isn't stupidity, like some assholes have said.  There's greed involved, in that people wanted to sign up for this because Bitcoin is a huge money-making opportunity.  That part isn't a scam.  And also, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make money by getting into Bitcoin and advancing this awesome technology.  The financial reward is literally why this technology is bound to succeed, either in Bitcoin form or the form of some other cryptocurrency.

This is, to the extent it is a scam, an affinity scam, like when religious people rip off people of their own faith.  The "hook" is "hey trust me, I'm like you and I share the same beliefs" with a dash of "let's make lots of money."  This kind of scam is very destructive to a community precisely because it destroys trust.  In this case, BFL might have ultimately done us a favor, though.  Unless they actually waltz off with all the money, it isn't really a scam in the criminal sense.  It is more of a burn.  BFL got money that was better directed at more honest players like Avalon (who have been far from perfect themselves).  BFL got a huge batch of BTC that massively appreciated in value while their purchasers waited endlessly.  It is my belief that most BFL purchasers would have been better off doing nothing than pre-ordering from BFL.

But to get back to the Eiffel Tower guy, in the case of that dude, victims didn't call the police because they were embarrassed at being so stupid.  That is not really the case here.  Here, they actually still want the product, and it is actually still reasonable to believe that it will exist at some point and be shipped.

And actually taking these clowns to court, even though there is a good chance there's a cause of action (I've analyzed the legal issues fairly extensively here and on other threads), is a miserable option.  Lawsuits are horrendous, boring, expensive, and very often, at the end of them, the only people who made any money are the lawyers.  Be wary of any lawyer who is eager to go to court.  The best legal advice in the world is to stay out of court if at all possible.

While I wouldn't necessarily take my own advice there at all times, people not suing BFL for their endless bullshit does not mean BFL's actions are okay.  

Simple.  They target the kind of people for their scams who don't get violent.


People who actually would get violent.

I'll note again that with regard to Rounders, the only character in that movie any professional gambler should emulate is Joey Knish, not the Matt Damon character.  Also, balls have NOTHING to do with it.  In fact, it is absolutely to the contrary.  You have to avoid those "ballsy" bets like the plague.  Your bets should be based solely on an evaluation of the edge related to the percentage of your bankroll it will take to make it.  Are the numbers right?  Make it.  Are they not?  Don't.  Period.

"Don't got the stones? You ignorant punk. I play for money. I owe rent. Child support. I play for money, not the fuckin' world series on ESPN."  Joey Knish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7NxEj4A1Cg <-- full scene.  Only worthwhile gambling advice ever given in a gambling movie.

True, but the spastic, spittle-spraying rage into which Micon routinely throws the pathetic Josh Zerlan is certainly evidence he's hurting them.

Of course, you've done a lot of catching up in that regard recently.   

WTF are you on about, you spastic?  How has BFL "taken advantage" of me in any way?

I haven't been stupid enough to give them a dime.

Feel free to bother someone else with your wacko delusions, scumbag.

A legitimate business has a reputation to defend, which is why a legitimate business wouldn't hire a freak like Josh to insult its customers.  A scam, though, might hire a professional troll to disrupt discussions of its misdoings by making outrageous posts.  The hope would be to distract from the real discussion onto whatever crazy thing the troll said.

Of course, it takes a special kind of stupid to make that trolling an official part of your business.

Yes, a court could find that, but they are unlikely simply to take your word for it that you would have made that amount of money.  That kind of what is called consequential damages would have to be established by expert testimony, because a judge is not going to be familiar with Bitcoin or Bitcoin mining and won't be able to make a ruling on it without expert testimony. 

Then BFL would be likely to come up with their own expert to say something self-serving. 

That would take a lot of billable hours.  You might be looking at well over $10,000 just to get that done.  So it probably wouldn't be worth it for one individual to try to do, but it might be worthwhile for a group of people, each with their own claims, to pursue.

Courts are also often reluctant to award consequential damages.  Specifically, the plaintiff has a higher burden of proof when attempting to characterize lost profits as compensable harm in a breach of contract case.  The plaintiff has to prove not only that the damages were reasonably certain to occur (this part is probably easy) but also was within the understanding of both parties, as well as proving the damages themselves to a reasonable degree of certainty.  Now, I think all these elements are present, but it can be tricky to prove them.

For instance, if BFL had just delivered YOUR unit, you would have made out like a bandit.  However, if they had delivered EVERYONE'S unit on time, the difficulty would have started to increase pretty rapidly, and the profit from each unit would begin to decrease more rapidly.  It could be tough to establish "reasonable degree of certainty" as to the amount of the damages considering the nature of the Bitcoin network.

There's also a detrimental reliance case.  I.e., you purchased a BFL because of their false representations, which they knew to be false, and you reasonably relied on their representations and were harmed.  In this case, you argue that had you not been snookered by BFL's lies, you would instead have purchased an alternate unit like an Avalon, and had you done that, you would have made $X in the interim.

There's also unjust enrichment.  With their false representations, they got to acquire tons of BTC which has since vastly appreciated in value.  It is unfair for them to be allowed to keep that ill-gained profit would be the argument.  If they converted to USD since then, presumably they've been collecting the interest on that money.  Basically, they got an interest-free loan and should have to pay prejudgment interest on it.

(Law school grad but not actively licensed in any jurisdiction, this is not legal advice, for real legal advice, seek licensed legal counsel in the appropriate jurisdiction, rinse, repeat.  This post is mostly off-the-cuff speculation about what a plaintiff might do, not a claim that any legal argument presented in it is necessarily likely to succeed.)

His mother has also scammed people as well as trying to sell her shriveled ass camwhoring people incessantly on Seals.  That's why she's banned there, too.

They are both scumbags and scammers.  She's not just some innocent bystander.

Don't hold back.  Tell us what you really think.  I gather you don't like Sonny and his little buttbuddy Josh?

I see no discernible difference between them and other card games played for money, at least in terms of the legal analysis, but I have never heard of law enforcement actually prosecuting them as gambling.

I actually recently discovered that there are even professional Scrabble players who make a living doing it.  Yes, there are tournaments that pay money.  And yes, there are even cheating scandals.

I wouldn't say only because the government enforces them.  Contracts mostly work because people mostly intend to live up to their agreements.  Invoking government intervention to force the other party to live up to the agreement is a last resort.

It's correct that monetary judgments in the United States are going to be in dollars.  However, the court might analyze the actual agreement to find out what that dollar value is.  The dollar value might not be the exact equivalent of the exchange rate between BTC and USD at the time of the agreement.  If the court has to analyze it, it's a very fact-sensitive analysis.

There's another option a court has in a contract case, which is to order one party to do whatever was contracted.  This is called "specific performance."  For instance, you're Liberace and you agreed to do a show at Carnegie Hall.  Or you're BFL, and you agreed to deliver a bunch of shit you have no intention of delivering.  Or you're Josh Zerlan, and you have agreed to suck a hundred cocks in public and swallow every time.  Courts almost never do this.  

They assign a dollar value to whatever you contracted to receive, and that is what you get in the judgment.

I'll agree that the prices were denominated in USD.  I'd also agree that people who purchased would, in a refund situation, only be entitled to USD, not BTC.  I've seen a couple people trying to get refunds denominated in BTC, and that would frankly be complete bullshit.

In a breach of contract situation, you are generally entitled only to the value of what you contracted.  Since BTC has vastly appreciated, you are not entitled to a windfall profit by getting back what you exchanged for USD to purchase something that wasn't delivered.

It still remains a gigantic dick move by BFL, but while I think their violation of consumer protection laws and mail order laws is, in fact, illegal, nobody is going to get back BTC they used to buy BFL equipment.  Even if they won a lawsuit.  Just because that's not how contract law works.

So on this one issue, BFL is in the right.

That doesn't change the fact that people who bought a unit with BTC could have done a hell of a lot better by staying away from BFL and doing something else instead.  It just means that among their other jerk moves, this one wasn't illegal.

So you're saying you have them already and are profiting?

I disagree.  I think it is far more likely that the failure and convicted felon Sonny Vleisides will go back to prison (where he belongs) than it is likely he will successfully flee the country.  Maybe Josh Zerlan can be his cellmate, and the remaining BFL zealots who expect their unit any day now can chip in to contribute for their buttsex lube.

I disagree with your point, but understand it.  People who paid with BTC (assuming they get their units before the difficulty goes through the roof) will probably have more BTC afterward.  However, they would have even more BTC had they done something else, such as if they had sold BTC at $250 and then bought it back at even where it is, $90 (actually $94 just checked).

And if, as most people even those who use BTC, they denominated their net worth in some other currency, like USD, they spent BTC on their pre-orders at USD values back when BTC was worth much less, and had they not even made a purchase, but simply sat on their BTC, they'd already have made a huge profit.  So buying a pre-order was a huge mistake.  It was based on the notion that BFL was going to deliver product with vastly greater specs than anyone else was able to deliver.  It was coming any day now.  So stay away from Avalon and anyone else (those who are actually delivering reliably).

That's really where the scam part comes in.

Anyone who actually recommends gambling as a profession is selling some scam system.

Even those who sell something like the essential book on professional gambling, Gambling for a Living by Sklansky and Malmuth, I strongly suspect are earning more now selling books through Two Plus Two than they ever did gambling.  Neither of those two have, so far as I know, ever been seen at the Big Game in Bobby's Room.  That book is definitely essential if someone is insane or stupid enough actually to want to be a professional gambler.

There are, indeed, a few people who make a lot of money doing this stuff.  Emphasis on few.  But if you walk down the Las Vegas Strip and look at those buildings, they didn't build themselves.  They don't call it "Lost Wages" for nothing.  It is also the suicide capital of the United States, by far.  I don't think anyone sane would claim the fact that it is also the gambling capital of the United States is a coincidence.

To anyone considering gambling as a profession, even someone with the skills and talent actually to do it, consider, if you have a job, how disappointed you are to see your paycheck every week, or at least look it up online with your bank (hey I grew up when you actually got a check on paper).  Now, imagine that you didn't work 40 or even 60 but instead 80 hours, and not only don't you have a check, but you actually lost money.  Imagine this going on for weeks or months. 

Now, there's certainly fun parts, such as when you go on a hot streak and every single bet goes right, and you make more in a week than you ever made in a year, and this also goes on for weeks or months.

But no.  Seriously (to answer again the question of the OP), while it IS possible to gamble for a living, EVEN if you have the skill to do it (and you probably don't), DON'T do it.  Unless you really, really want to.

I think a better question is, "is it possible to gamble profitably?"  The answer to that is definitely yes, and if you aren't depending on it for a living, and finding edges and beating other people and beating your OWN mental weaknesses is fun to you, do it.  Poker especially has a lot of lessons to teach about how other people think and how their actions connect to how they think, and to your own mental weaknesses, and if you learn those lessons, you get paid!  Poker, while it contains life lessons, as a life is a black hole as life itself is concerned.  Stay away from the event horizon.

Just saying.  They'd have been in better shape just to sit on their BTC.

For that matter, they'd have been in better shape to use the same USD to buy BTC.

BFL is one of the kinds of things that happen in a "gold rush economy."  You know who made the most profit on the gold rush (other than the real monsters who moved in like Hearst)?  It wasn't the miners.  It was the people who sold them equipment. 

Funny how history repeats itself.