Re: Butterfly Labs CEO 25 Million USD Mail Fraud — A Concise Summary of Evidence

[evanesce]

Inaba, where's your professionalism?

[Syke]

Think I will add this information to what my attorney general has already got..... He did refund my money but it was only cause I got the Gov involved.

You're lucky. Their official policy is pre-orders are "non-refundable".

[Inaba]

Think I will add this information to what my attorney general has already got..... He did refund my money but it was only cause I got the Gov involved.

You're lucky. Their official policy is pre-orders are "non-refundable".

No luck involved.  Email office@butterflylabs.com and we will happily refund your order at any time.  It's always been that way.

We've had, hmm, 6 order cancellations in the past 3 months.  Each time, the person emailed and we cancelled the order and refunded the money immediately.  BitcoinINV never once asked for a refund.

[Syke]

Think I will add this information to what my attorney general has already got..... He did refund my money but it was only cause I got the Gov involved.

You're lucky. Their official policy is pre-orders are "non-refundable".

No luck involved.  Email office@butterflylabs.com and we will happily refund your order at any time.  It's always been that way.

We've had, hmm, 6 order cancellations in the past 3 months.  Each time, the person emailed and we cancelled the order and refunded the money immediately.  BitcoinINV never once asked for a refund.

If that is truly your policy, why does your website state otherwise?

[dishwara]

Think I will add this information to what my attorney general has already got..... He did refund my money but it was only cause I got the Gov involved.

You're lucky. Their official policy is pre-orders are "non-refundable".

No luck involved.  Email office@butterflylabs.com and we will happily refund your order at any time.  It's always been that way.

We've had, hmm, 6 order cancellations in the past 3 months.  Each time, the person emailed and we cancelled the order and refunded the money immediately.  BitcoinINV never once asked for a refund.

If that is truly your policy, why does your website state otherwise?

http://www.butterflylabs.com/faq/

Can I get a refund on my pre-order?
Butterfly Labs, INC. is accepting pre-orders for ASIC based products, expected to begin shipping in late October or early November 2012. Your pre-order with payment confirms your place in line for delivery once we begin shipping. Payments made for pre-orders of ASIC based products now under development should be considered non-refundable until products begin shipping or 1 January 2013, whichever is earlier.

[Raoul Duke]

Think I will add this information to what my attorney general has already got..... He did refund my money but it was only cause I got the Gov involved.

You're lucky. Their official policy is pre-orders are "non-refundable".

No luck involved.  Email office@butterflylabs.com and we will happily refund your order at any time.  It's always been that way.

We've had, hmm, 6 order cancellations in the past 3 months.  Each time, the person emailed and we cancelled the order and refunded the money immediately.  BitcoinINV never once asked for a refund.

If that is truly your policy, why does your website state otherwise?

I would say it's a "Cover Your Ass" policy.

[creativex]

If that is truly your policy, why does your website state otherwise?

That seems consistent with their policy of having conflicting information available for nearly everything.

[Epoch]

Think I will add this information to what my attorney general has already got..... He did refund my money but it was only cause I got the Gov involved.

You're lucky. Their official policy is pre-orders are "non-refundable".

No luck involved.  Email office@butterflylabs.com and we will happily refund your order at any time.  It's always been that way.

We've had, hmm, 6 order cancellations in the past 3 months.  Each time, the person emailed and we cancelled the order and refunded the money immediately.  BitcoinINV never once asked for a refund.

If that is truly your policy, why does your website state otherwise?

I would say it's a "Cover Your Ass" policy.

My experience is consistent with psy's assessment; BFL's official policy is just a fallback ... in reality I have never heard of anyone being refused a refund from them. I've requested an order cancellation/refund from BFL myself and it was processed the same day. No hassles, no questions asked.

[Inaba]

Psy and Epoch are correct.

[tvbcof]

Think I will add this information to what my attorney general has already got..... He did refund my money but it was only cause I got the Gov involved.

You're lucky. Their official policy is pre-orders are "non-refundable".

No luck involved.  Email office@butterflylabs.com and we will happily refund your order at any time.  It's always been that way.

We've had, hmm, 6 order cancellations in the past 3 months.  Each time, the person emailed and we cancelled the order and refunded the money immediately.  BitcoinINV never once asked for a refund.

If that is truly your policy, why does your website state otherwise?

I would say it's a "Cover Your Ass" policy.

My experience is consistent with psy's assessment; BFL's official policy is just a fallback ... in reality I have never heard of anyone being refused a refund from them. I've requested an order cancellation/refund from BFL myself and it was processed the same day. No hassles, no questions asked.

Even if everybody (except BitcoinNV) is being 100% honest and up-front in everything they say, the question remains about when the 'fallback' would be exercised.  Would it be when they run out of money, or when outflows threatened to exceed inflows?  Time will tell, or at least will tell what the answer probably would have been.

[Syke]

Psy and Epoch are correct.

So your policy is that you'll refuse refunds whenever you feel like it. Quality policy you have there.

[Desolator]

Inaba, where's your professionalism?

"One cannot have lost something which he never had in the first place"
- probably some guy somewhere or something

[Meatball]

Why is this thread still alive?  It's just become a trolling/pissing contest.  Simply put, if you don't trust/like BFL, don't buy a BFL.

[tvbcof]

Why is this thread still alive?  It's just become a trolling/pissing contest.  Simply put, if you don't trust/like BFL, don't buy a BFL.

Scams detract from the Bitcoin solution generally and thus directly harm me personally as someone who both holds BTC and appreciates the potential that the solution offers.

I think it quite relevant that potential scams are explored and I appreciate everyone's input.  If there is a legitimate complaint about the community generally it is that they/we are not willing enough to explore potential scams.

If BFL's ASIC campaign is not a scam then at least a thread such as this might coax out a little more transparency which is probably not a bad thing especially since they ride on the back of an open-source project.  Or it might not.

[Rassah]

If BFL's ASIC campaign is not a scam then at least a thread such as this might coax out a little more transparency which is probably not a bad thing especially since they ride on the back of an open-source project.  Or it might not.

It hasn't so far. BFL is just as secretive with their inner workings, and Inaba just as dismissive.

[Meatball]

Why is this thread still alive?  It's just become a trolling/pissing contest.  Simply put, if you don't trust/like BFL, don't buy a BFL.

Scams detract from the Bitcoin solution generally and thus directly harm me personally as someone who both holds BTC and appreciates the potential that the solution offers.

I agree and I'm all for a rational discussion on things, but this thread has long jumped the shark already and is just turning into a sniping contest.

[niko]

Usually I don't respond to unfriendly posts, but maybe this one needs a bit of addressing. We've had the honor of having Sonny in our corporation
for the past year. He is a bright and honorable person who had come face to face with strong forces behind the scenes without knowing. Many movies
have been made to try and demonstrate how governments and lobbying powers operate. They can kill, sabotage, prosecute or pretty much do anything
they desire without consequences as they have the power, money and weapons to make their point.

The United States Government does not recognize international bounderies when it comes to its interests and demands. The attack on the PirateBay
servers in Sweden is a good instance. Should the owners of PirateBay been Americans, I'm sure they'd already been serving for life in some prison in USA,
under charges of money-laundry, tax evasion (ads on the site), child pornography and so on and so forth. It's easy to hurt people who are powerless.
Even in France this may happen, eventhough on a much smaller scale ( I can't recall any at this point ).

{Snip}

Regards,
Nasser

Cross-posting here, in case anyone missed it. Clearly, Sonny did not scam anyone but was a victim of evil government. Also clearly, not only that poor Sonny was and is an honest man, but so are other BFL employees like Nasser. There is no way he would be defending past actions of a crook.

[Syke]

Usually I don't respond to unfriendly posts, but maybe this one needs a bit of addressing. We've had the honor of having Sonny in our corporation
for the past year. He is a bright and honorable person who had come face to face with strong forces behind the scenes without knowing. Many movies
have been made to try and demonstrate how governments and lobbying powers operate. They can kill, sabotage, prosecute or pretty much do anything
they desire without consequences as they have the power, money and weapons to make their point.

The United States Government does not recognize international bounderies when it comes to its interests and demands. The attack on the PirateBay
servers in Sweden is a good instance. Should the owners of PirateBay been Americans, I'm sure they'd already been serving for life in some prison in USA,
under charges of money-laundry, tax evasion (ads on the site), child pornography and so on and so forth. It's easy to hurt people who are powerless.
Even in France this may happen, eventhough on a much smaller scale ( I can't recall any at this point ).

{Snip}

Regards,
Nasser

Cross-posting here, in case anyone missed it. Clearly, Sonny did not scam anyone but was a victim of evil government. Also clearly, not only that poor Sonny was and is an honest man, but so are other BFL employees like Nasser. There is no way he would be defending past actions of a crook.

Wow, I had no idea Sonny was so harrassed by the evil government. I've started a charity fund for him. Donate what you can to 15buHwfhJaAnrJAgdQGrr38abXJvWZnQA6. I'll see that all the donated funds, minus a small management fee, make their way to Sonny.

[The_Duke]

Awwww poor Sonny! So violated by the US government, including all the judges involved in his case. I felt so sorry for poor Sonny that I immediately ordered OVER 9000 BFL Minirigs to ensure his new venture will become a huge success.

I'm only worried a lill for Sonny now. Because since he's already experienced first hand how the US government cares not for borders or legality and will ruthlessly go after the weak victims if they so desire... one can only imagine what they will do to poor Sonny once they decide bitcoin is a threat and bitcoin mining must be stopped... poor, poor Sonny...

[augustocroppo]

Quoted for future reference at 29 October 2012, six weeks after the original date of this post:

Have you considered that you may be (knowingly or not) be furthering a scam?

Yes, and either the scam is so elaborate that we have shipped product and spent a ridiculous amount of money on the development of ASICs as to be almost unimaginable or we are actually legitimate.

Can you provide any convincing argument to the contrary?

 

Yes, check back with me in about 6 weeks.

I pause to note that this should be trivially easy if ASICs are anywhere close to being shipped..

They are, however, you seem to be under the impression that the investment in this venture is trivial.  It's not.  We will not be giving away free strategic information to our competition as to our business plans, technology, etc...  As much as you want it (and the competition wants it), it's simply not going to happen given the amounts of money involved in the development of our ASIC products.

If any of the whiny allegations are unfounded, you are hereby cordially encouraged to demonstrate it by directly confronting them.

Again, I will in ~6 weeks.  When we ship the ASICs can I expect a public apology from you as well in these forums or are you going to slink off with the rest of the people and try to forget what complete asses you've been?

Use this opportunity to crush the "crying whiners" under the heavy heel of the truth!

Then we can stop shouting, go about our business, and everyone will be happy for it.

Do you seriously believe this?  There is literally nothing, nothing I can post short of shipping out free ASIC devices that would satisfy the people of this forum.  Not a single thing.  If you believe otherwise, you are exceptionally deluded.

As it stands, I think you are lying, or being lied to, or some combination thereof.

Come clean.

Great, come the shipping of the ASICs I expect a public written apology to both myself and BFL.