Why is there even polls about if BFL is a scam or not?

[utarinues]

I'm not clear on why people say that BFL is a scam. I guess their definition of "scam" is different from mine, or perhaps I am missing something.

To me, a scam would be taking pre-orders without ever intending to ship anything. BFL is shipping miners, right? So, what is the scam?

I don't think the fact that they are shipping 8 months late is a scam, either. I doubt they intended for the delay to be this long. Without intention, how can there be fraud? No fraud, no scam.

I sympathize with the people that pre-ordered, but this is clearly a case of BFL incompetence, and not a scam.

It is Ponzi scheme because without getting more money with preorders they will be unable to ship all existing orders.

[erk]

I'm not clear on why people say that BFL is a scam. I guess their definition of "scam" is different from mine, or perhaps I am missing something.

To me, a scam would be taking pre-orders without ever intending to ship anything. BFL is shipping miners, right? So, what is the scam?

I don't think the fact that they are shipping 8 months late is a scam, either. I doubt they intended for the delay to be this long. Without intention, how can there be fraud? No fraud, no scam.

I sympathize with the people that pre-ordered, but this is clearly a case of BFL incompetence, and not a scam.

It is Ponzi scheme because without getting more money with preorders they will be unable to ship all existing orders.

And you know this how? Do you have some inside info on BFL finanacials? I just assume BFL are simply greedy until proven otherwise.

[YipYip]

I'm not clear on why people say that BFL is a scam. I guess their definition of "scam" is different from mine, or perhaps I am missing something.

To me, a scam would be taking pre-orders without ever intending to ship anything. BFL is shipping miners, right? So, what is the scam?

I don't think the fact that they are shipping 8 months late is a scam, either. I doubt they intended for the delay to be this long. Without intention, how can there be fraud? No fraud, no scam.

I sympathize with the people that pre-ordered, but this is clearly a case of BFL incompetence, and not a scam.

Its called the LONG CON !!

[YipYip]

You know, every single Ponzi scheme (when they run out of money), makes the same point - we are continuing to make payments/ship/etc., ...

You have a very broad definition of "Ponzi scheme". There is no investment here. The customers are not expecting earnings and getting back portions of their deposits instead. Sorry, it's not a Ponzi scheme, either.

Lets spell it out for u because u are retarded ...

A ponzi defiannition is using new pplz money to pay for previous customers ...

[YipYip]

I'm not clear on why people say that BFL is a scam. I guess their definition of "scam" is different from mine, or perhaps I am missing something.

To me, a scam would be taking pre-orders without ever intending to ship anything. BFL is shipping miners, right? So, what is the scam?

I don't think the fact that they are shipping 8 months late is a scam, either. I doubt they intended for the delay to be this long. Without intention, how can there be fraud? No fraud, no scam.

I sympathize with the people that pre-ordered, but this is clearly a case of BFL incompetence, and not a scam.

It is Ponzi scheme because without getting more money with preorders they will be unable to ship all existing orders.

And you know this how? Do you have some inside info on BFL finanacials? I just assume BFL are simply greedy until proven otherwise.

ERK the Founder & others associated with this company are convicted for this exact crime ... there is NO benifit of doubt when there are signs to show this is happening again !!!!

[k9quaint]

You could take 100 orders for umbrellas, deliver 15 umbrellas, keep the money for the other 85 and disappear. That is a scam, even though you shipped something.

They haven't disappeared.

The scam BFL is accused of is misleading their investors into loaning BFL money in return for a small possibility of receiving a product in return.

There was no misleading. What did you think they were going to do with the pre-order money? Do you think all mining hardware companies are scams? They are all taking pre-orders.

Not sure if serious. But just in case you are not just being outrageously sarcastic...

BFL has not disappeared yet, but they have only delivered 15% of their backorders (less if you go by hashrate). Just like with BFL's FPGAs, they cannot deliver and are trying to convert the orders to the next generation of product for more money. That way, BFL gets another year, more cash and still don't have to deliver anything.

BFL assured their investors on multiple occasions that they were NOT using the pre-order money to fund operations or development, that it was kept in separate accounts until the order had been shipped.  Here is their latest message on that subject that I know of:

For the record, BFL is capable of refunding all of the preorders in the queue and remaining in business.  

This has been their party line since Oct 2012.

[Flying Hellfish]

I'm kind of surprised that various regulators and law enforcement agencies haven't come down on them for breaking consumer laws I wonder if it is because people are screaming "scam!" and "ponzi scheme!".

 So, for anyone else that has an example of why they consider BFL to be a scam, my response is "That may be true, but that doesn't make it a scam."

The regulators and law enforcement have to make a conscious decision to pursue a matter of this type.  Even if they know about it (which they clearly do at this point) they may decide (for any number of reasons) not to pursue it.  With that said IF they do decide to "go after" BFL it will be methodical, slow and fact based.  They would take there time and build a rock solid case (remember a win is all that matters to these folks and their careers, not the consumers best interest).  Lastly there is a very real possibility that the AG may be diving much deeper than say UCC laws, FTC regulations.  If they are investigating BFL and Sonny they may be looking for other violations.  There as so many laws on the books that they may be looking at other avenues to pursue as well.  IANAL and I don't have specifics in mind but it's not hard to believe they may be looking at mail fraud, wire fraud, false advertising tax evasion and the list goes on for a long time.

Just because law enforcement hasn't taken action yet doesn't mean they aren't and won't however you and I won't hear about it until well after BFL does!  They will not tip their hand and they have all the time in the world so to speak.

In 2006 the USA passed the UIEGA which was aimed at stopping online gambling in the US.  A few brazen poker sites still served the US and they "allowed" two of the biggest sites to serve US customers for almost 5 years before going balls deep with indictments on those two corps.

[faiza1990]

big question is here who is believing BFL is ok not scam and doing better for bitcoin