Bryan Micon's Butterfly Labs Scammer Investigation including Josh Zerlan

[Xian01]

This forum has become irrelevant due to the lack of moderation. The only way to get anything accomplished here is to troll, hence that's what you get. If you want honest dialog without the trolling, i suggest the BFL forums. If you will notice, I only respond to trolls for the most part. If people like Entropy, Micon, Bicknell ski, etc would stick to posting facts and being honest instead of lying constantly, I would have no need to post. But they are incapable of being honest, thus the only way to combat a troll around here is to be as bad as they are. If we could get real moderation, then it wouldn't be an issue.

 While you are active, Josh, care to respond to my prior query ?

the problem arises when you have irrational and totally inappropriate people like Christian "Xian" Antkow, Darin Bicknell, Entropy-UC, et al "participating" with misinformation, outright lies and general trolling.  

 Honest question Josh. Do you recognize that you yourself are trolling ? Do you acknowledge that I was responding poorly to your trolling of these forums, and myself as a former customer of yours, back during your 65nm production debacle ?

 I would honestly like to know how I have spread misinformation, or outright lies about you or Butterfly Labs.

 Please. Let me know with details so I can offer apologies. Spreading lies is not my thing.

 You attempting to besmirch my good name speaks more to you than it does me. I don't think you see this either

 Again, I'm not the bad guy here. Stop trying to paint me out to be one because I responded poorly to you over your consistent inability to offer accurate production information for over six months, all the while taunting and trolling us.

 I've aspired to take a higher road since then, Josh. Maybe that's something you can work towards as well in 2014.

 Thanks Josh,

 -Christian "Xian" Antkow

[tvbcof]

You can distill it down to this:

BFL knowingly made fraudulent representations about the performance and delivery of their ASIC hardware to generate sales.  Fraudulent representations were continuously and repeatedly made by Josh to keep the flow of order money coming in until the company could cure their default and actually ship hardware.  Delivery actually occurred more than a year after the original promise dates if some reports are true.

Josh in particular would regularly promise shipments would begin in 2 weeks when it was definitely known to be false as silicon fabrication schedules would make his statements impossible.

Josh, as an early adopter of Bitcoin should be enormously wealthy, and a very happy camper.  Instead he is filled with rage because essentially everyone in this community considers him to be lower than dogshit.

Personally I think someone who made a large investment in BFL could make a compelling case for damages resulting from detrimental reliance upon BFL's public statements.  But I was never stupid enough to spend a dime with them, so I don't particularly care beyond the entertainment value of the whole soap opera.

Good summary, and captures my posture with respect to personal interest as well.

I would add to this the way Josh went over the top on trying to FUD his competition.  The only similar competition was ~cablepair who was also running a scam with nothing to back it up early on.  He didn't get as far as buying some tech eventually before going tits-up which is the primary diff between BFL and his gig.

The one that I though funny was how Josh was totally dogging on Avalon.  Yifu and company mostly just ignored the increasingly hysterical fuck-head and moved forward to meet their targets.  Small wonder that everyone with an iota of comprehension considers Josh 'lower than dogshit.'

Everything BFL has touched from FPGA upwards has had the same characteristics.  Absurd over-estimates of specs and delivery times and a raft of unhappy customer-victims.  Watch how Josh tries to re-write history and claim some great success with FPGA (which originated out of a crate of obsolete surplus chips.)  He knows that almost nobody is going to try to wade through the thousands of pages of complaints that BFL has generated over the years to confirm anything so he feels free to lie and invent with impunity.

[Inaba]

And I rest my case LOL!  Notice how it's the same people spouting the same tired crap over and over ad nauseum?

They have nothing to actually complain about... So to them repeating the same lies enough times makes them feel like they are important and that they matter.

[Searing]

This forum has become irrelevant due to the lack of moderation. The only way to get anything accomplished here is to troll, hence that's what you get. If you want honest dialog without the trolling, i suggest the BFL forums. If you will notice, I only respond to trolls for the most part. If people like Entropy, Micon, Bicknell ski, etc would stick to posting facts and being honest instead of lying constantly, I would have no need to post. But they are incapable of being honest, thus the only way to combat a troll around here is to be as bad as they are. If we could get real moderation, then it wouldn't be an issue.

hard to get on bfl forums these days..in that I'm 'banned" for stating that essentially bfl bet they we're the only game in town thru the 1st of the year for asic units of any note....and that knc would NOT get out their units till the 1st of the year...so BFL instead of using $$$ for mnfg purposes..used the $$$ to develop the monarch for their own mainly imho cloud hashing service...and got caught with their pants down...ie too little $$ for all the irons in the fire....

ie instead of getting my unit from april in say aug it was the end of oct for the jally and w/o upgrade the others would have been November...not that I have a lot of hope on monarchs...a brick now a brick later...that and the fact the only option is 'forced to upgrade" to monarch plan (no refunds) ..I assume that will also be a brick ie not get ROI...also their loss of paypal and no refund policy btc or wire xfer only says a lot as well imho

so yeah ..that is my issue with bfl that and the fact they take no responsibility for their part in the whole fiasco...and it is all the customers fault...that and the (go ahead and do some research) constant assurances that the stuff would be out "in mass" within the next 60days from april order on

It is hard to fathom on BFL's part but the week I made my orders from BFL ...KNC came into existence and I got my Jupiter 2 weeks before my april 1st order jally on oct 31st..so yeah if people seem a bit peeved...you get the point....anyway KNC saved my bacon on all this 36 btc since oct 18th when I got it so my butt is covered on BFL loss not so ..some folk who waited much longer then myself...

anyway don't mind me ..just look at the threads on BFL it is somewhat self explanatory on how they got into the above mess..google search find you own info...

so essentially imho when the 1st batch or 2nd batch (late really late I expect) comes out..BFL will have the devices needed for their cloud hosting and will likely imho simply move on to that .....I mean who is gonna buy stuff from them from their past actions?

whatever this is my view of the mess.....if they'd have fessed up to some of this ..that would be one thing....but imho denial runs deep in bfl land

heh ..surprise me josh let me back into forums on bfl heh (when pigs fly I'd imagine)

my 2c worth (again ....this is what it looks at to me at the customer end of all this I admit I could be wrong not like some on here...but by all means from those on the thread new to all this ...google..look around get informed..don't just take this threads word for any position)

anyway.......have 900gh of monarch forced upgrade...prove me wrong get me the dang thing on time enough and not way late as has been bfl's past practices and I will gladly get on here and eat crow on my suspicions of the monarch being late and dead on arrival....(past stuff speaks for itself bfl wise) but yeah...would like to see you prove me wrong on the monarch..would like to see bfl get its act together....and the past was an aberration...but at my present state of mind I think I'm being generous and this is very unlikely....

alas I feel I will again be disappointed by BFL in the monarch forced to upgrade situation as well..but am prepared to eat crow...so feel free to put me in my place on the monarch josh...but as to the past practices ...it seems pretty obvious to me that is what happened to get you to this point before monarch in  you BFL PR troubles....

my 2c worth

Searing

p.s and for those on here if for some reason I do get on bfl shoutbox again...I will post stuff here (don't hold your breath though I've a better shot at a powerball win)

[Xian01]

So to them repeating the same lies enough times makes them feel like they are important and that they matter.

 Specifics, Josh. What are the specific points that have been lies ?

 I hope you can appreciate that if you are going to call the people that are critical of you and Butterfly Labs a bunch of liars, you will need to include citations so we can defend ourselves and refute your allegations.

[Syke]

This forum has become irrelevant due to the lack of moderation.

Says the guy spending $9,000 a week advertising here! That's half a million dollars a year on an "irrelevant" forum.

4 @ 2.25

[Xian01]

This forum has become irrelevant due to the lack of moderation.

Says the guy spending $9,000 a week advertising here! That's half a million dollars a year on an "irrelevant" forum.

4 @ 2.25

 It's just sad trying to interact with Josh when trying to have well reasoned, honest, and rational debate.

 By all accounts, it would appear the man is the equivalent of a Hippopotamus spraying feces with his tail all over these forums, while he's paying off the zookeepers to allow him the pleasure of gleefully dropping trou and making sure he covers as many of it's patrons as possible in his fetid waste.

 Quite the little scheme going on here. Josh Zerlan pays Michael Marquardt thousands of dollars for the privilege of being allowed to advertise here and behave badly, and they both get rich at our expense.

 

 

[tvbcof]

...
 Quite the little scheme going on here. Josh Zerlan pays Michael Marquardt thousands of dollars for the privilege of being allowed to advertise here and behave badly, and they both get rich at our expense.

Neither BFL nor Thermos have seen a dime of my money, and due in large part to the appearance of BFL scamvertizing on this board, anything I see advertised here is colored negatively in my eyes.

I have to assume that Thermos sells use pattern data to the highest bidder, but that is not unique to this board.  It is my base assumption anything I do on-line.  Of course it is often not the case, but I have to assume it to be.

[Searing]

Maybe this has already been posted..but bitcoin miners are at CES show

Butterfly labs the quote is they shipped 45,000 cards (ie monarch inferred in the article ...wonder how that happened GASP)

and of course BFL has the most press

also mention in this article KNC miner


man......some honest 'reporting' by some of these news organizations would sure help..do as simple google see the real BFL alas....imho just crank the story out in a day and forget about it...or if it is correct or not and move on to the next story I guess

anyway here is the link on BFL moving 45,000 cards (I swear..I"m from the USA  but I'm not to thrilled with USA asic mnfg companies if you use hashfast and BFL as examples!)

here it the link

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/7/5285242/the-bleeding-edge-in-bitcoin-mining-hardware-comes-to-ces


noobs beware......its a trap....(bfl is the expert at asic porn..resist noobs!)

Searing

[ElGrandJefe]

If you read the BFL forums, you'll notice their latest misbehavior:

In their newsletter of January 2nd, they said (boasted) that all the 65 nm products listed in their shop were in stock and available for immediate shipping:

In Stock Shipping Guarantee

Any 65nm items marked as in stock on the website are sitting on the shelf and will be shipped within a few business days of processing your order.  Please note that orders are only processed when full payment has been received.  This means it may take up to a week for bankwire or ACH transactions because these have to be cleared by the bank.  International wires or ACH and wires initiated around the holidays may take even longer because of bank closures. These things are out of our control.

Once we have confirmation of payment, we process orders immediately.

After reading about the above variables, if you still feel like your order is taking longer than expected, feel free to request a full refund prior to your order having been shipped.

Several people have reported that as soon as they requested a refund, because they had been waiting for several weeks already, their orders magically changed from "Processing" to "Fulfilled". Presto - no refunds.

Here's one:

I replied back to the newsletter that 6 weeks had been too long for a "shipping immediately" order and requested a refund.

I did not spam the office@ email address so as not to waste anybody's time.

Now it is listed as Fulfilled instead of being a refund. Did you guys offer a refund and then pull it out from under my feet? Was this a bait and switch?

Are you using fulfilled as the same thing as refund?

I know that SLoK is just going to tell me to PM this to BFL_Emily and I will.

Anyone else gotten a refund approved and remember what it said in their order screen? Has anyone gotten a refund ever?

[Xian01]

I'm partial to this one.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/post-sales-customer-service/7405-no-refund-me-bad.html

Refund offer from Jan 2014 newsletter is not true, by my experience.

My story goes...

- Ordered Nov 27, paid 28, 50GH boxes @ $2,499 advertised as IN STOCK, SHIPPING IMMEDIATELY!!!
- Followed instructions for payment and emailing office@ with the wire info.
- No email from BFL.
- Missed Black Friday sale, damn.
- More than two weeks later funds confirmed received. I log on everyday to BFL account, that was the only reason I knew of the status change.
- No email from BFL.
- Price drops, grrr. Not a happy Christmas.
- Another two weeks go by then status to processing.
- No email from BFL.
- Price drops, F-me.
- Not a happy new year.
- Jan 2014 newsletter allowing request for refund on 65nm orders that haven't shipped. I emailed office@ right away requesting for refund. PM BFL_Emily the same request. Glimmer of hope. Who would want their $2,499 boxes when they're worth $984 now? Not me.

- Today, I checked my BFL account and its marked as Completed. Ready for pickup via Fedex
- No email from BFL

More hurt…
- I requested USPS for shipping because they won't have brokerage fees or much less than Fedex, items being shipped to Canada.
- I will have to pay sales tax since its being shipped to Canada, by all indication, the invoice will show $2,499 instead of the current $984 price, so I'll end up paying more tax.
- Difficulty level rose 1 or twice already, loss of BTC mining income.

[Searing]

I'm partial to this one.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/post-sales-customer-service/7405-no-refund-me-bad.html

Refund offer from Jan 2014 newsletter is not true, by my experience.

My story goes...

- Ordered Nov 27, paid 28, 50GH boxes @ $2,499 advertised as IN STOCK, SHIPPING IMMEDIATELY!!!
- Followed instructions for payment and emailing office@ with the wire info.
- No email from BFL.
- Missed Black Friday sale, damn.
- More than two weeks later funds confirmed received. I log on everyday to BFL account, that was the only reason I knew of the status change.
- No email from BFL.
- Price drops, grrr. Not a happy Christmas.
- Another two weeks go by then status to processing.
- No email from BFL.
- Price drops, F-me.
- Not a happy new year.
- Jan 2014 newsletter allowing request for refund on 65nm orders that haven't shipped. I emailed office@ right away requesting for refund. PM BFL_Emily the same request. Glimmer of hope. Who would want their $2,499 boxes when they're worth $984 now? Not me.

- Today, I checked my BFL account and its marked as Completed. Ready for pickup via Fedex
- No email from BFL

More hurt…
- I requested USPS for shipping because they won't have brokerage fees or much less than Fedex, items being shipped to Canada.
- I will have to pay sales tax since its being shipped to Canada, by all indication, the invoice will show $2,499 instead of the current $984 price, so I'll end up paying more tax.
- Difficulty level rose 1 or twice already, loss of BTC mining income.

yep....i'm in this poor guys club...from last year...but still in the club....the 'wheel of bfl fraud rolls on" it seems

Searing (hey we we're had too...not that he probably reads bitcointalk or he would of known better ah...my better self when i was a wide eyed NOOB and BFL was good ..alas fooled.)

[smoothie]

So to them repeating the same lies enough times makes them feel like they are important and that they matter.

 Specifics, Josh. What are the specific points that have been lies ?

 I hope you can appreciate that if you are going to call the people that are critical of you and Butterfly Labs a bunch of liars, you will need to include citations so we can defend ourselves and refute your allegations.

Of course you can't expect him to actually come up with facts that support his claims right?

I mean this is JOSH we are talking about. "Two Weeks TM".

[LittleD]

And I rest my case LOL!  Notice how it's the same people spouting the same tired crap over and over ad nauseum?

They have nothing to actually complain about... So to them repeating the same lies enough times makes them feel like they are important and that they matter.

YOU have to remember... "MINERS" we also have POWER and Control over ASIC companies! STOP Crying and STOP BUYING from these companies!!!

[PuertoLibre]

The only people you find complaining on Bitcointalk for the most part are competitors or known trolls like Entropy, Bicknellski, etc...

To answer your question though: No there is nothing valid they bring to the table that qualifies as a scam. Just angry butt hurt trolls who can't stand the fact that all their idiotic "predictions" and false claims turned out to be lies and they are exposed for what they are. So they try to flood the threads and forum with more junk in hopes that people will forget.

Respectfully, you've been just as guilty of that. It's been a very eye opening thread, to say the least.

I have no dog in this fight, just wish there could be some sort of dialogue..."hey, this is what you've done wrong, and here is the evidence" and counters of "We haven't been perfect, and here's how we're working to improve."

Name calling doesn't restore BTC or help reputations.

Josh, as an early adopter of Bitcoin should be enormously wealthy, and a very happy camper.  Instead he is filled with rage because essentially everyone in this community considers him to be lower than dogshit.

Please, don't offend the feces by placing them together in the same paragraph.

The feces does not feel compelled to lie and dance around facts in an attempt to confuse folks.
The feces feels no rage towards customers though sometimes is warm depending on the season.
The feces does not experience malice.
The feces does not experience shame. (well neither does Josh, one thing in common)

The feces feeds trees, the grass and makes the world go round.

Josh, stammers into rage filled tirades when confronted on facts, sometimes smiles, often confuses and delays his customers. When he finally serves a purpose, the time has already passed.

--Can you imagine all the fights he has caused with peoples wives/husbands while he delayed peoples pre-paid miners?
--Can you imagine all the self loathing he inspired in people, who endured, when they bought into the pipe dream that turned into a nightmare?
--Can you see the scope of the endless frustration and disappointments as things dragged on and others with less...provided more?

Don't diss the feces my friends. It has its part in nature. Scammers/liars do not. They serve no purpose. They make nothing in nature grow or blossom. They just rip people off and leave a trail of tears and anger.

When you see Josh with his swagger, just nod your head his way...in a sort of buddha inspired "knowing" and pity. He's doing the best he can muster.

[PuertoLibre]

I thought I did any excellent job of making it clear that feces are superior in every way to Josh.

Alright, just remember he was an AirForce pilot. (or somewhere thereabouts)

They spent thousands of dollars showing him how to blow shit up.

When you ask him to "build" it goes against his agile abilities to rain death and destruction.

-------------------

So when you see a miner puff some magic smoke, it means he is learning a new path of building things out of new parts rather than blowing shit up.

Just be glad there was no shrapnel or napalm. PCB's burn and melt, but they rarely mame.

[ElGrandJefe]

Another satisfied customer: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/post-sales-customer-service/7588-bfl-you-joking-me-order-100091147-a.html

Dear BFL,

I feel like you are joking with me.

-I've placed my order on 4th Dicember - Order #100091147. The 50 Gh/s Bitcoin Miner was labeled "IN STOCK - IMMEDIATE SHIPMENT". This is the main reason i choose to order from you. The price was 2.499 dollars.
- No news for a month. Order in status "PRODUCTION": according to you FAQ, this means that the order is currently being manufactured. So IN STOCK, was a fake..
- The same item passed from 2,499 at 989
-On 2th Jan I've received the REFUND EMAIL from you: "if you still feel like your order is taking longer than expected, feel free to request a full refund prior to your order having been shipped." My order was still in status production, so I've emailed you the same day requesting the full refund.
-On 7th Jan I've received notification from you that my order was sent! No response to my refund email. I've sent another email, asking what was going on and requesting again a full refund.
- Today, my order is on is way and i've received a reply to my emails: "All sales are final according to our terms".

Now, i see on this forum you have granted a full refund to someone, after the refund email.

I DON'T WANT the item, I WANT MY MONEY BACK:

- over 30 days from my order, despite the item was labeled as "in Stock, immediate shipment". It's now useless.
- I've sent you a request of full refund, according to your email. The request was sent when my order was in status "production", as you requested.
- The same item is now priced $984.00, down from $2,499.00.


It's all your fault, I've followed your instructions and belived to what you have advertised.
Please settle this down or I'll go through other actions.

[sid7039]

BFL:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bfl

[Bitcoin Scammer]

BFL:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bfl

Wow lol that's impressive.

Pretty Crazy, but i guess I need to start using this in our daily dealings with people..

[devnullius]

yeah I know all about it

Posted my experiences ++ all I could find out about these bastards, here: http://[Suspicious link removed]/KIaK16

NO Peace!

devnullius