Butterflylabs Huge SCAM

[eoakland]

In 2013 I bought Bitcoin mining companies from 2 companies.

First, I bought 2 cards from BFL, one full price and one at 50% off. I waited a year, they gave me nothing. Finally they gave me a refund for the first card, and I had to post a lot of negative reviews to get the refund for the second card I got for 50% off (for them being late one the first card). It probably would have been impossible for anyone to get back the money on the discounted card, but I am good with posting online and they didn't want the bad publicity. They wired me for both cards and I was refunded a year later after being on the 45 day waiting list for I don't know how long....

The second place I bought Bitmining equipment was " AMT miners " AKA advanced miners ( www.amtminers.com ) , they did even worse, collected thousands from people and refused to give anyone refunds. They send miners with no power supplies with cut wires and used fans to people on the "naughty list". They charged me $6,000, but they only send me a miner a year later that sold for $899 on their own website! They used our money to expand their business instead of being fair or giving partial refunds. See this post for info....

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=807750.0

Long ago before the internet people would say things like "Do you have the merchandise on you?" and the other person would say "Yea, Do you have the money?"

If everyone did this these companies would not exist and the difficulty would never be this high.

those are called drug deals   

[Keyser Soze]

Has anymore information come out after the court hearing? As the hearing was on the 29th of September

http://ia902308.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531.54.0.pdf is the latest information.

Basically all BFL can do is ship completed miners to those who want them. They are still in receivership and all of their funds are still frozen. They have 45 days to submit a business plan to the FTC and court which must address issues raised by the FTC case. All the details can be found in the linked document.

[Xandrah]

Thank you for the response

[MooC Tals]

In 2013 I bought Bitcoin mining companies from 2 companies.

First, I bought 2 cards from BFL, one full price and one at 50% off. I waited a year, they gave me nothing. Finally they gave me a refund for the first card, and I had to post a lot of negative reviews to get the refund for the second card I got for 50% off (for them being late one the first card). It probably would have been impossible for anyone to get back the money on the discounted card, but I am good with posting online and they didn't want the bad publicity. They wired me for both cards and I was refunded a year later after being on the 45 day waiting list for I don't know how long....

The second place I bought Bitmining equipment was " AMT miners " AKA advanced miners ( www.amtminers.com ) , they did even worse, collected thousands from people and refused to give anyone refunds. They send miners with no power supplies with cut wires and used fans to people on the "naughty list". They charged me $6,000, but they only send me a miner a year later that sold for $899 on their own website! They used our money to expand their business instead of being fair or giving partial refunds. See this post for info....

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=807750.0

Long ago before the internet people would say things like "Do you have the merchandise on you?" and the other person would say "Yea, Do you have the money?"

If everyone did this these companies would not exist and the difficulty would never be this high.

I don't see the connection with higher difficulty? I think these companies need to be made an example out of, you can't just take people's money and give them a fraction of hardware, and in some cases people got no hardware. If someone stole $5,100 from your house, the police would be called and the person would be arrested. But for some unknown reason, companies like AMT Advanced miners, and BFL can just take cash from people and think they can get away with it.  The laws need to change in this area, and we need to hold these companies accountable.

With all due respect, the connection with higher difficulties come from the ability of these companies to acquire the funds to create these machines in the first place.

Lets just say that no one would trust any large scale producers of these mining equipment and they required to receive their funds by traditional means of approaching a lending company like a bank they would have to produce a plan and a time line and show results.

These bitcoin mining manufacturers make their money by using the machines before they ship them out. Thing about it would you hand over a machine that makes money simply by plugging it in? and the longer you wait the less you make?

The whole business model is flawed. imo besides people always have gotten rich by exploiting other people. 

[MooC Tals]

In 2013 I bought Bitcoin mining companies from 2 companies.

First, I bought 2 cards from BFL, one full price and one at 50% off. I waited a year, they gave me nothing. Finally they gave me a refund for the first card, and I had to post a lot of negative reviews to get the refund for the second card I got for 50% off (for them being late one the first card). It probably would have been impossible for anyone to get back the money on the discounted card, but I am good with posting online and they didn't want the bad publicity. They wired me for both cards and I was refunded a year later after being on the 45 day waiting list for I don't know how long....

The second place I bought Bitmining equipment was " AMT miners " AKA advanced miners ( www.amtminers.com ) , they did even worse, collected thousands from people and refused to give anyone refunds. They send miners with no power supplies with cut wires and used fans to people on the "naughty list". They charged me $6,000, but they only send me a miner a year later that sold for $899 on their own website! They used our money to expand their business instead of being fair or giving partial refunds. See this post for info....

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=807750.0

Long ago before the internet people would say things like "Do you have the merchandise on you?" and the other person would say "Yea, Do you have the money?"

If everyone did this these companies would not exist and the difficulty would never be this high.

those are called drug deals   

Are you saying we should all go pickup the miners while carrying heat? haha No no don't do that!!!! hahah

[eoakland]

In 2013 I bought Bitcoin mining companies from 2 companies.

First, I bought 2 cards from BFL, one full price and one at 50% off. I waited a year, they gave me nothing. Finally they gave me a refund for the first card, and I had to post a lot of negative reviews to get the refund for the second card I got for 50% off (for them being late one the first card). It probably would have been impossible for anyone to get back the money on the discounted card, but I am good with posting online and they didn't want the bad publicity. They wired me for both cards and I was refunded a year later after being on the 45 day waiting list for I don't know how long....

The second place I bought Bitmining equipment was " AMT miners " AKA advanced miners ( www.amtminers.com ) , they did even worse, collected thousands from people and refused to give anyone refunds. They send miners with no power supplies with cut wires and used fans to people on the "naughty list". They charged me $6,000, but they only send me a miner a year later that sold for $899 on their own website! They used our money to expand their business instead of being fair or giving partial refunds. See this post for info....

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=807750.0

Long ago before the internet people would say things like "Do you have the merchandise on you?" and the other person would say "Yea, Do you have the money?"

If everyone did this these companies would not exist and the difficulty would never be this high.

those are called drug deals   

Are you saying we should all go pickup the miners while carrying heat? haha No no don't do that!!!! hahah

ha ha ha, they are not worth going to jail over.  and i definitely do not advocate violence, but if someone should make like Nolan Ryan and chuck a jalapeno at their heads i wouldn't mind =)

[Jerome?]

Any update about this?

[SueGiant]

Any update about this?

No update.. I really dont know if this one is true.

[Viceroy]

Don't know if what's true, that BFL was shut down by the Federal Government?  That is definitely true, search google.

[Xandrah]

Its been long overdue, thank god they are now closed.

[Rawted]

Any update about this?

You must not be familiar with the US judicial system. This will take months before any facts come out, and probably years before any action is taken.

[Lassi]

Any update about this?

Updates here

[awesome31312]

It's official - http://www.coindesk.com/ftc-butterfly-labs-held-back-shipments-illicit-mining/

Im glad they deserved it, im shock that people in the first were willing to wait over 3 months for preorders in the first place.

Society will go through the 3 stages of truth. We're now approaching the truth as being self-evident.



 The idiot is now going to jail, I wonder if he'll be an asshole in there?  Yes that was a pun

Or maybe this is just a publicity stunt. Why is the domain still out there? Why didn't the FTC seize the domain?

[Phildo]

In 2013 I bought Bitcoin mining companies from 2 companies.

First, I bought 2 cards from BFL, one full price and one at 50% off. I waited a year, they gave me nothing. Finally they gave me a refund for the first card, and I had to post a lot of negative reviews to get the refund for the second card I got for 50% off (for them being late one the first card). It probably would have been impossible for anyone to get back the money on the discounted card, but I am good with posting online and they didn't want the bad publicity. They wired me for both cards and I was refunded a year later after being on the 45 day waiting list for I don't know how long....

The second place I bought Bitmining equipment was " AMT miners " AKA advanced miners ( www.amtminers.com ) , they did even worse, collected thousands from people and refused to give anyone refunds. They send miners with no power supplies with cut wires and used fans to people on the "naughty list". They charged me $6,000, but they only send me a miner a year later that sold for $899 on their own website! They used our money to expand their business instead of being fair or giving partial refunds. See this post for info....

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=807750.0

Long ago before the internet people would say things like "Do you have the merchandise on you?" and the other person would say "Yea, Do you have the money?"

If everyone did this these companies would not exist and the difficulty would never be this high.

I don't see the connection with higher difficulty? I think these companies need to be made an example out of, you can't just take people's money and give them a fraction of hardware, and in some cases people got no hardware. If someone stole $5,100 from your house, the police would be called and the person would be arrested. But for some unknown reason, companies like AMT Advanced miners, and BFL can just take cash from people and think they can get away with it.  The laws need to change in this area, and we need to hold these companies accountable.

The difficulty is so high because BFL shipped out tons of useless miners.

If they didn't take any preorders, they never would have sold a single Jalepeno because by the time they actually created one no would would buy it because it was obvious that it wouldn't ROI.

Since they got paid up front, they had enough money to make all the worthless miners, and then the rubes who paid for them received the worthless miners and then plugged them because earning a very little amount of bitcoins is much better than earning completely 0.

But plugging in the miners makes the difficulty go up, which in turn makes the miners even more worthless.

That's the funny thing, if people just stopped with the preorders/bad cloud mining purchases, the difficulty would slow down, current miners would earn a little bit more, and things may start to balance out. But, we still have geniuses preordering and buying cloud mining that will never ROI, further fucking everyone else (except the people selling miners and cloud mining of course).

[eoakland]

i don't think that anyone knew (older asics using 65nm chips) that BFL would take a piss and force customers to wait 8 months.  the Chinese are the fast at manufacturing anything, the whole delay was complete bullshit.  now the people that ordered Monarchs, that is a different animal.  BFL was already known for lying and pushing back delivery dates.  either way BFL is an unprofessional company.   

[MooC Tals]

i don't think that anyone knew (older asics using 65nm chips) that BFL would take a piss and force customers to wait 8 months.  the Chinese are the fast at manufacturing anything, the whole delay was complete bullshit.  now the people that ordered Monarchs, that is a different animal.  BFL was already known for lying and pushing back delivery dates.  either way BFL is an unprofessional company.   

Every one knew and they new well enough to argue that I would be missing out on the near future winfall of not having a bitcoin machine. The Stockholm syndrome buffoons greedily rubbed their hands dreaming of butt-coins popping out their rectum.

Don't tell me I should feel sorry for these people. They knew they were being scammed. How could they not. It was everywhere I mean everywhere.

[Xian01]

Don't tell me I should feel sorry for these people. They knew they were being scammed. How could they not. It was everywhere I mean everywhere.

TBH, I ordered and received one of their 800MH/s FPGA's back in the day in fairly short order, not having done any research on Butterfly Labs at the time after seeing their presence on these forums. They released their SC line pre-order announcement fairly soon after I took delivery of my FPGA, so I had no reason to suspect any chicanery at the time, and ordered a couple 60GHs SC's, and then a couple more in April of 2013 right before the time they raised their prices across their entire line IIRC.

... and here we are today, having learned MANY lessons along the way.

[Rawted]

Don't tell me I should feel sorry for these people. They knew they were being scammed. How could they not. It was everywhere I mean everywhere.

TBH, I ordered and received one of their 800MH/s FPGA's back in the day in fairly short order, not having done any research on Butterfly Labs at the time after seeing their presence on these forums. They released their SC line pre-order announcement fairly soon after I took delivery of my FPGA, so I had no reason to suspect any chicanery at the time, and ordered a couple 60GHs SC's, and then a couple more in April of 2013 right before the time they raised their prices across their entire line IIRC.

... and here we are today, having learned MANY lessons along the way.

The FPGAs were not their invention. They repackaged ones from another manufacturer and sold them as their own. They were never genuine.

[Inedible]

Society will go through the 3 stages of truth. We're now approaching the truth as being self-evident.



 The idiot is now going to jail, I wonder if he'll be an asshole in there?  Yes that was a pun

Is there any confirmation that Josh will be going to jail?

I have no skin in this game but for all the awful things he's done to everyone here, I hope so.

[Xian01]

The FPGAs were not their invention. They repackaged ones from another manufacturer and sold them as their own. They were never genuine.

Discovered that after the fact :| I got what I paid for in a reasonable amount of time, drawing no suspicion then.

In retrospect, biggest mistake I've ever made as a consumer; becoming involved with Butterfly Labs.

I guess that's the very definition of a "confidence trick", huh ?