SCAMMER: Cablepair (Tom) from BTCFPGA.com/bitcoinasic.net

[miter_myles]

We are almost to that "couple more weeks" part.. can we finally get a "scammer" tag put on Tom and bASIC?  Or, do we continue to slow roll this whole sham?

[MPOE-PR]

*whistles*

[Luke-Jr]

Since they don't seem to have posted here on their own accord, a number of bASIC customers have popped into the IRC channel to report having received their Bitcoin refunds.

[miter_myles]

That's great to hear about people FINALLY getting some refunds again.. golf_clapping.wav

However, Tom should STILL be classified as a scammer.. slow rolling refunds doesn't vindicate him at all..

He lied and mis-led people at almost every turn when it comes to bASIC (lol and CAN-ELECTRIC).. lets not sugar coat this pile of dung..

[dmcurser]

https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?topic=1048.0 toms own words
exchange rate should be average on the 23rd or january

[hardcore-fs]

As for the bolded part, people make statements like that about things they don't have first-hand knowledge of all the time. Your point is ridiculous; if a client asks you how many unit of product XYZ you have in stock and they check the inventory system and confirm the number with the warehouse manager, are you deceptive and misleading if you say "We have 37 units in stock" even though you haven't seen it with your own eyes?

If Dave wants to explain what stats it is he saw that convinced him they had ASICs hashing away then he can.  That would be far more credible than having apologists make excuses and weak arguments on his behalf.

Here is an EXACT post on the same subject:

News / Merry Christmas to all our loyal customers!
« on: December 24, 2012, 08:29:36 PM »
Well as it happens I've been down with the flu for the last few days... Tom was sick early last week, and we are on opposite coasts!

In any case I wanted to update you all on progress.  Since you didn't get your bASICs for Christmas, the least we could do is get you some good news.

Tom has been pushing hard - nothing but riding the engineers to the finish line.  We will be in production very soon.  I have also seen the hashing performance stats on a working pre-prod unit!

I hope to have more solid info next week - Tom says we will be in great shape by Jan 1.  We are *almost* there folks!

Tom especially wants to extend his thanks to all of you who have stood by us, and to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

PLEASE see the statement:

I have also seen the hashing performance stats on a working pre-prod unit!

So it is VERY clear that BOTH a unit AND the performance were seen by Dave, and NOT a relay/assumption based on information from Tom

Unfortunately because BOTH people were admin, many of the posts were edited/deleted/re-edited/re-worded,  as a result some posts have absolutely no relation to the material that was originally posted.....

This is also WHY Tom should receive the "Money launderer/Scammer" tag even if he does "pay back" the BTC, because there was a deliberate attempt to mislead the customers, and he  went out of his way to deliberately "break the toys" when he could not get his own way.

[dmcurser]

Since they don't seem to have posted here on their own accord, a number of bASIC customers have popped into the IRC channel to report having received their Bitcoin refunds.

since many irc users are team tommy i will post here.
tom request a btc address from everyone for refund and he gave a date of which he was intending to use for refund the 23rd of jan. so dont we as a community have the right to hold him to that dates exchange rate.?

post of him saying he refund everyone https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?topic=1048.0

[MrTeal]

As for the bolded part, people make statements like that about things they don't have first-hand knowledge of all the time. Your point is ridiculous; if a client asks you how many unit of product XYZ you have in stock and they check the inventory system and confirm the number with the warehouse manager, are you deceptive and misleading if you say "We have 37 units in stock" even though you haven't seen it with your own eyes?

If Dave wants to explain what stats it is he saw that convinced him they had ASICs hashing away then he can.  That would be far more credible than having apologists make excuses and weak arguments on his behalf.

Here is an EXACT post on the same subject:

News / Merry Christmas to all our loyal customers!
« on: December 24, 2012, 08:29:36 PM »
Well as it happens I've been down with the flu for the last few days... Tom was sick early last week, and we are on opposite coasts!

In any case I wanted to update you all on progress.  Since you didn't get your bASICs for Christmas, the least we could do is get you some good news.

Tom has been pushing hard - nothing but riding the engineers to the finish line.  We will be in production very soon.  I have also seen the hashing performance stats on a working pre-prod unit!

I hope to have more solid info next week - Tom says we will be in great shape by Jan 1.  We are *almost* there folks!

Tom especially wants to extend his thanks to all of you who have stood by us, and to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

PLEASE see the statement:

I have also seen the hashing performance stats on a working pre-prod unit!

So it is VERY clear that BOTH a unit AND the performance were seen by Dave, and NOT a relay/assumption based on information from Tom

Unfortunately because BOTH people were admin, many of the posts were edited/deleted/re-edited/re-worded,  as a result some posts have absolutely no relation to the material that was originally posted.....

This is also WHY Tom should receive the "Money launderer/Scammer" tag even if he does "pay back" the BTC, because there was a deliberate attempt to mislead the customers, and he  went out of his way to deliberately "break the toys" when he could not get his own way.

How do you get that Dave has seen a hashing unit with his own eyes from that statement that he's seen the hashing performance stats on a working pre-production unit? If he'd actually seen the unit, don't you think he would have said so rather than just saying he's seen stats?

[cablepair]

Ahhh finally got back into my hacked account. This does not mean I will be a regular on this board anymore it just means I can make some statements that will hopefully be helpful to you.

1) I do not deserve a scammer label. We sold FPGA Mining products since may, when BFL announced their product MONTHS early just to try and squash the competition they lied which was a total lie and dis-service to the community but we wanted to keep our business alive, this led us to begin developing out own ASIC basic based prodcut. Our latest attempt at making the huge leap to ASIC failed. It was never our intention to scam anyone. Anyone who ordered a FPGA mining product has received their unit or their unit is on the way (2 orders slipped through the cracks when shit went bananas but we found these orders and we shipped them out this week.

2) I have paid back over 1 million USD to credit card buyers and BTC buyers alike. I am liquidating assets like a madman and still mining at about 60 gh/s with my FPGA rigs, which brings about 10 btc per day. Every week I gather what assets I have obtained and I distribute them to the customers starting with the earliest customers first and than working my way up to the later buyers. There are many people who can attest to this. One of our largest orders who spent over 100k was refunded by wire transfer just last week and I am sure if you look you can find that thread.

IF you are interesting in reading the actual definition of a scam you may do so here:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scam


Instead I am doing everything I can to make sure every single customer gets a complete and total refund. Unfortunately some people do not like the fact that they are returned less coins than they have sent. Although the fact of the matter is - these units were priced in USD NOT BTC and it is appropriate to use the current exchange rate when converting USD to Bitcoin to make these refunds. Any one who knows what they are doing in e-commerce would agree totally.

3) See a scammer would of taken all the money (over a million dollars) and disappeared, instead I still live in my same house and still go to my regular job every day. I am a family man and the last thing I want is any kind of trouble. You guys have no idea the sleepless nights worrying about this thing, but I am going to keep on this and make sure every customer gets his refund.

4) I am sure its hard to believe but this has hurt and will continue to hurt myself and my family far more than it will hurt any of you, But that's the gamble I took when I decided to make an ASIC device, and take pre-orders, we just could not make the damn thing work (for long) and the chips were clocked wrong or something because they had a very little life especially when you pushed them to any degree.

At any rate that is all behind us. Like I said I have paid over 1 mil in refunds and continue to do so every friday night (20k just last friday) this list is shortening and shortening and before you know it every single person will be paid back in full.

I just hope and pray you give me the time to make this all happen, I sold most of these coins at around $15 and now am buying back at $30 - its very difficult but as the last 2 weeks showed you , you will continue to see 10 refunds every friday until every single person is paid back.

I have been a very strong member of this community for 2 years, and I have always fulfilled my promises - please have a little faith in me is all I am asking - I WANT to do the right thing. Think about what a true scammer would of done with over a million at his disposal???


I have four kids and I am just trying to get by - I am sorry I was not up to meet the challenge of bASIC but I assure you all of you will be paid back.

thank you for listening

Thomas Van Riper
BTCFPGA
P.O. BOX 246
Hannibal NY 13069

(any correspondence sent to any other address other than the business addresss of BTCFPGA will be returned. My house is not my place of business nor is it the address for my business)

i have changed my numbers due to the hundreds of calls I was receiving a day - if you need to get ahold of me email btcfpga@gmail.com
and I will get back to you within a couple of days at the latest

again thank you for reading this and for those who have it - thank you for your compassion and empathy.

Tom
BTCFPGA

p.s. BTCFPGA will continue to sell FPGA based devices to hobbyists and all others who are interested in this device.
http://www.btcfpga.com

[repentance]

You seem to have totally ignored addressing the whole CAN-ELECTRIC hoax, which was outright fraud according to the real owner of Can Electric.

[greyhawk]

That's all well and good, but have you stopped drinking?

[MrTeal]

4) I am sure its hard to believe but this has hurt and will continue to hurt myself and my family far more than it will hurt any of you, But that's the gamble I took when I decided to make an ASIC device, and take pre-orders, we just could not make the damn thing work (for long) and the chips were clocked wrong or something because they had a very little life especially when you pushed them to any degree.

Did you try adding some buffers? You probably needed more buffers.

[Luke-Jr]

Thanks Tom. I'm guessing BitcoinASIC.com was liquidated and whoever bought it was behind the CAN-ELECTRIC scam? Would probably be good to clarify this for the benefit of the accusers here.

Wish you and your family the best.

[dmcurser]

sorry tom but in your own post you set a time frame of when you would be paying. so why is it not theortical to use the exchange rate of that time. if you would have refunded at that time it would of been at the rate you sold so there would of been no lose i dont see why your customers should pay for your mistakes. you chose to sell out and instead of imdeatly refunding like you said in your post you chose to wait till 30+ exchange rate that was your chose not ours

« on: January 23, 2013, 02:10:51 PM »
First I want everyone to know - that all that nonsense that was posted on the Bitcointalk forum last night was not me. In fact I have not been on that forum in quite a while. My forum account was compromised and some people had some fun with it. I can't even get into the account now - so I am assuming that the admins checked the IP address and realized it was not me posting like a madman and locked my account for me. Either that or the intruder changed the password on me. Either way please DO NOT trust or believe anything that has been or is being posted by my Bitcointalk forum account. I plan to email theymos in a few moments to get my account back - I will update you when I once again have control over the account.

Many people have contacted me about buying these 16,000 chips - God I wished I had them, but I am sorry that post was not made by me and I do not have 16,000 chips to sell. I have to pay the second part of the deposit to receive the chips and I am not sure I will even be able to do that - although I am not giving up on the notion. I decided to not accept the loan that was offered to me to keep this company going. With a 90% refund rate there really is no point.

EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER WILL BE REFUNDED. PERIOD.

I have the list of BTC Refunds and should be making those today.
All other CC orders will automatically be refunded today.

I hope you can please accept my deep apologies, I thought I could pull this off but it was just too much of an undertaking for me, I feel ashamed and embarrassed and I am so sorry that I could not come through for you. Everyone will receive their refunds. As a matter of fact I am starting on them now.

This will take a little time, we are talking thousands of refunds. I wish there was just a "refund all" button but unfortunately there is not one and I have to do this manually.

this forum will be locked from this point forward - if I need to tell you anything else I will post again otherwise you will not hear from me - your refund will come automatically and theres no reason for communication.

[repentance]

Thanks Tom. I'm guessing BitcoinASIC.com was liquidated and whoever bought it was behind the CAN-ELECTRIC scam? Would probably be good to clarify this for the benefit of the accusers here.

Tom can certainly claim that, but the "Tom is gone, Dave is gone" post which claimed that bASIC's new owners were a large electronics manufacturer has been quoted all over the place and bears a striking resemblance in style to some of Tom's past "meltdown" posts.  Can Electric isn't an electronics manufacturer, but Tom still needs to explain why he told people that an electronics manufacturer had taken over bASIC if that wasn't the case.  

I hope Tom does continue returning people's money and that he finds peace and stability in his personal life but it's naive to expect that simply returning people's funds is going to restore his credibility given the shit which has gone down in relation to bASIC.

Perhaps Tom's "millionaire friend" could lend him the funds to pay everyone out now and he could repay that person over time.

[Luke-Jr]

Can Electric isn't an electronics manufacturer, but Tom still needs to explain why he told people that an electronics manufacturer had taken over bASIC if that wasn't the case.

You're getting the time frame wrong. The CAN-ELECTRIC scam was long after all hopes of the project completion were off the table. It's quite likely that Tom would have liquidated the domain during the time it happened. All it took was some scammer to offer him a reasonable price, then set it up that way. And by writing the rant such a way that it "sounded like" Tom, they could basically frame him in the eyes of everyone who saw through it, while themselves collecting from those who didn't.

[repentance]

All it took was some scammer to offer him a reasonable price, then set it up that way. And by writing the rant such a way that it "sounded like" Tom, they could basically frame him in the eyes of everyone who saw through it, while themselves collecting from those who didn't.

And people will likely pretend to believe that Tom was framed because his past response to people not giving him warm and fuzzy reactions to his "that's all behind us" posts has been to melt down and go incommunicado.

[abracadabra]

Thanks Tom. I'm guessing BitcoinASIC.com was liquidated and whoever bought it was behind the CAN-ELECTRIC scam? Would probably be good to clarify this for the benefit of the accusers here.

Wish you and your family the best.

People need to stop giving Tom excuses to use and let him explain himself to the community if he has any hope at all of returning to it.  I for one would like to hear the complete story of how bASIC failed.  We now hear for the first time, from the horse's mouth, that the chips as designed were failing.

[hardcore-fs]

Can Electric isn't an electronics manufacturer, but Tom still needs to explain why he told people that an electronics manufacturer had taken over bASIC if that wasn't the case.

You're getting the time frame wrong. The CAN-ELECTRIC scam was long after all hopes of the project completion were off the table. It's quite likely that Tom would have liquidated the domain during the time it happened. All it took was some scammer to offer him a reasonable price, then set it up that way. And by writing the rant such a way that it "sounded like" Tom, they could basically frame him in the eyes of everyone who saw through it, while themselves collecting from those who didn't.

Er....
I have a private email from the people hosting the domain.........
Their comments lead me to think that this is NOT what happened, also remarks from the CC company again lead me to believe this is not what happened.
I have also spoken to a couple of people connected with Bitcoin In Hong Kong.... an offer was made to Tom, where funding could have been provided and he would still be lead, they were even prepared to let him bask in all the glory of being the first to bring  Asics to bitcoin.


From what I can make out theses people were interested more in leveraging bitcoin as a payment method by moving it forward rather than actually getting into the business of manufacturing product, but they were prepared to assist Tom because the connection would have been beneficial to both parties.

When presenting such business opportunities to Asian investors, it would be strategically beneficial to have a well known member of the community on board, the plan was to leverage the association into other business areas not including mining or manufacturing.

The offer was made because he was the lesser of the other currently available evils, that is to say other companies were not considered either because they were illegally operated and were prepared to breach Export regulations or consisted of people with serious Criminal convictions neither of which is acceptable to be associated with when offering business opportunities to investors, because once the press start digging it all comes out.

At a personal level I find it highly suspicious that someone with a 'finished' product  was not prepared to enter into negotiations to save a pet project, especially after the claims about all the work that was put into it.

[repentance]

People need to stop giving Tom excuses to use and let him explain himself to the community if he has any hope at all of returning to it.  I for one would like to hear the complete story of how bASIC failed.  We now hear for the first time, from the horse's mouth, that the chips as designed were failing.

The problem is that after you've given empty assurances several times, "but I'm really telling the truth this time guys" no longer has any credibility - kind of like BFL's estimated delivery dates.

This was a big project where the risk of failure was high from the outset.  It's not the kind of project which should ever have been a one man show.  When something goes wrong in any project, there's always a point when you need to decide whether to keep quiet about the problem and hope you can resolve it without anyone becoming aware of it until after the fact or whether you should announce its existence straight up.  Making the wrong call on that decision can be fatal to a project and to your credibility as an enterprise.