ETHICAL PROBLEM WITH BITMAIN

[ingiltere]

Why else would the OP be complaining?  If he had nothing to hide then it would be little issue to just send the units back, have them evaluated, and issued new components, as Bitmain does every day with other customers.

Maybe instead of complaining he should be grateful that they offer a warranty service and would take the time and money to pay and train employees to do this work.  It surely would be cheaper if they dropped the warranty program and didn't have to worry about faulty units that weren't claimed faulty after a day or two of receiving them.

I think he wants some guarantee. As sending those equipments from Turkey to Serbia costs at least 100$. When you send them if they tell you it's your own fault and they won't replace it, then he'll lose a lot of money from both equipments and shipping costs. Nobody wants to make international shipping for broken equipments.

[Meech]

I gave them high regards since they repaired my out of warranty S4 for only the cost of the part and initial shipping to them.  When it came to pay the bill I was offered choices which in turn were discounted even further on payment.  I didn't ask for it.  I believe they work weekends as well at Denver.  You can't compare Bitmain to a Sony or such company and shouldn't think their product follows the same suit.  You don't see the PS4 selling for 2k then drop to $400 in a few months.  These companies fall into a different demographic unfortunately.

[jdebunt]

People don't make a fuss about these things unless they know it's their own fault & hope to get free replacements for it.

[Furio]

I own and run a miner farm consisting of S5,S4 antminers and SP.

I have experienced serious problems with S5.5 of them are problematic.They have bad boards and controllers.I have contacted with Ms.Sherry who is customer representative of Bitmain.She is very friendly and caring.However, they want me to send broken parts (boards and controllers) with UPS, and they say THEY ARE GOING TO DECIDE WHETHER IT IS DUE TO IMPROPER USE OR NOT.

Is it ethical? The manufacturer will decide if it is due to improper use and if it is her fault she is going to replace it.This is really immoral.How can someone can judge and give decision for himself.This must change.Bitmain must select someone for each country or territory to decide.Bitmain must pay to these guys but they must be independent.

Have you had such an experience?What are your customer experience with them?

My experience with Bitmain support is awfull, they loop you in an endless cycle of posing the same question in a different form, and having me repairing problems that they were responsible for. Having said that, I do think Bitmain is one of the best Hardware suppliers, from over the 20 miners I've bought from them, only one had issues. But support is simply non-existent to me

[gablay12]

My problem is, I will send cargo money to China (60 USD for hasboard, 120 USD for complete S5), and it is up to them to decide whether it is due to bad manufacturing or improper use.

Besides the financial issue, I do not understand why there is not a third party , technical escrow service, who is paid by Bitmain but not binded them.

According to me, if Bitmain should not decide herself whether she manufactured badly or not.I see this not a financial problem but an ethical problem.However, if you agree with the warranty procedure of Bitmain, we are only protected with Bitmain's goodwill but not any written, tangible rules.

We own a mining farm with my partners.We own hundreds of miners.When you make an investment you want to limit your risks and hedge all the risks.Here, I see a risk.Obviously, the majority is fine with the regulation of Bitmain.

There are some problems with S5.It is due to firmware.When the internet is cut but power is on, the fans are not working (if you do not fix it to fixed value with the latest firmware update).There are also some controller problems, you can not access into the miner due to this problem.

There are also some problematic chips which do not work.If a chip does not work all hashboard does not work.

The badly manufactured miners are 5% of the total (for the 90 days period).When usage period increases, this percentage may increase (it increased for S4).

I recommend some solution:

1)A free third part service, financially supported by Bitmain but free administration.
2)An expert employed by Bitmain may come to large farms to perform checks if the farm owner pays the transportation and accomodation costs.
3)Bitmain may agree with local electronic services to make pre controls and service fee is invoiced to customers.

Regards,
Gablay



 

[LordPaco]

I can say with large lots of units, it takes more than a few days to weed out the bad ones. If they are just plain dead that *is* pretty easy to troubleshoot, isolate, and prepare for warranty repair. But most of my faulty units have been intermittent out of box, quickly deteriorating from that state to only one hashing board will be online. It takes alot of monitoring to find these in a large lot. In addition I reseated the faulty hashing boards to try to wake them up again, and was successful half of the time. But this step requires monitoring all over again to check the results of your work. It takes a good 24 hours or more of hashing to get a good reliable reading.

Basically all I am saying here, is it took me a whole month to weed out the bad hardware for warranty repair.

[Finksy]

My problem is, I will send cargo money to China (60 USD for hasboard, 120 USD for complete S5), and it is up to them to decide whether it is due to bad manufacturing or improper use.

Besides the financial issue, I do not understand why there is not a third party , technical escrow service, who is paid by Bitmain but not binded them.

According to me, if Bitmain should not decide herself whether she manufactured badly or not.I see this not a financial problem but an ethical problem.However, if you agree with the warranty procedure of Bitmain, we are only protected with Bitmain's goodwill but not any written, tangible rules.

We own a mining farm with my partners.We own hundreds of miners.When you make an investment you want to limit your risks and hedge all the risks.Here, I see a risk.Obviously, the majority is fine with the regulation of Bitmain.

There are some problems with S5.It is due to firmware.When the internet is cut but power is on, the fans are not working (if you do not fix it to fixed value with the latest firmware update).There are also some controller problems, you can not access into the miner due to this problem.

There are also some problematic chips which do not work.If a chip does not work all hashboard does not work.

The badly manufactured miners are 5% of the total (for the 90 days period).When usage period increases, this percentage may increase (it increased for S4).

I recommend some solution:

1)A free third part service, financially supported by Bitmain but free administration.
2)An expert employed by Bitmain may come to large farms to perform checks if the farm owner pays the transportation and accomodation costs.
3)Bitmain may agree with local electronic services to make pre controls and service fee is invoiced to customers.

Regards,
Gablay

Your concerns are valid as a farm owner, but Bitmain has no reason to change their in-house quality control/technical assessment.  If you don't like the way they do it, you are free to buy elsewhere (but unfortunately, nothing else is available).  This is how free markets work, and at the end of the day if Bitmain adopted your suggested policies, all of their customers would end up paying more for miners (costs incurred are transferred to the customer). It may be a risk, but show me an industry/investment without its risks and I'll show you a liar .  Besides, from a financial risk point of view, the idea that Bitmain may knowingly and wilfully refuse warranty without cause is among the lower of risks IMO.  The farm catching fire, hardware theft, power/internet interruption, crash in bitcoin price, these are the things I would spend my wakeless nights worrying about.

My