[Avalon Asic] trade-in Thread

[rudrigorc2]

My DHL shipment went through without any troubles. I am a US resident, however, I'm not sure if people from other countries should be using it.

Any paperwork in particular?

[allinvain]

What value did you declare Raize? The reason I'm asking is that perhaps below a certain amount no duty is imposed (I thought it was below $100 but I could be wrong).

"Clearance processing complete at HONG KONG - HONG KONG"

Mine says the above..however I suppose that package could still be refused by the receiver if they ask for duty fees.

Who is the gentleman from China that was forwarding duty fees to the receiver? Could I call upon your services if the package gets refused/held up? (BTC tip)

[Raize]

They are computer expansion cards, nothing more. Bitcoin mining capabilities and other people's valuations aside, they are worthless in fiat money valuation, IMHO. I didn't claim they were worth much, and I would recommend that others do the same. It doesn't make sense to pay a fiat-based duty for them, they are being used for a BTC credit, not a fiat credit. If you paid in BTC, the valuation should be based in BTC at the time of purchase.

Here's how you could determine their value:
Price of BTC credit is likely to be ~3BTC (or under) at time of trade-in. Suppose the price of BTC when you purchased the Icaruses was under $5. Therefore, any amount under $15 is a worthwhile fiat valuation.

To price things in terms of fiat representation of BTC today doesn't account for BTC-based Icarus amortization. If that were the case, the Icarus would be valued at what you originally paid for the Icarus in BTC, which for some of us was several hundred BTC. That would be a value of $10,000+ today, and does not make any sense at all, especially since we never use the USD in our mining operations (or, at least, I never have). You should be putting a value based on the trade-in value of the device when it was delivered to you, which to most of us going to be well under $300 per Icarus. The inflation of the USD (and other world currencies) in terms of BTC isn't our problem, it's the government's problem.

I am not an accountant, but this is what you are expected to do over time. The Icarus device has depreciated significantly in BTC value since the time of your purchase. You should account for that.

[loshia]

Guy's

Just to let everybody know my shipment has been delivered successfully:
DHL:
24     Delivered - Signed for by : CHENXUYI      BEIJING     14:10

No custom issues at all.

Best

[allinvain]

Same here. Just delivered (and signed for) today. Package was shipped from Canada. Also no customs issues at all.

[Raize]

"DHL diver: hey you, you know where I can find Mr. Chen? "
"Some guy: I'm Mr. Chen."
"DHL driver: Oh, good, here is a package for you..."

Not only that, but "Chen" in China is about as common as "Smith" in the US. So it might not just be "Some guy", it might actually be "Some guy named Chen".

That said, I'm glad others haven't had any issues with DHL, I was worried I gave the wrong instructions or something. I've only ever sent something back to China once. The only lesson I've learned in the whole entire ordeal was that you should never ever request China Registered Mail for your return order. Their delivery guarantee to the US is somewhere in the order of 30 business days (about a month and a half).

[allinvain]

Same here. Just delivered (and signed for) today. Package was shipped from Canada. Also no customs issues at all.

Did you sent it via DHL?  What was the value of the package?

EDIT:  Just learned that my package has been released from customs.  I gave rudrigorc2 the money to give it to Mr. Chen.
Someone paid the import taxes.  I hope it was Mr. Chen.

Just hope Mr. Chen gets the package not some guy standing on the street at the given address.  

You know, my nightmare scenario is:

"DHL driver: hey you, you know where I can find Mr. Chen? "
"Some guy: I'm Mr. Chen."
"DHL driver: Oh, good, here is a package for you..."

Yep I sent it via DHL, and I declared a value of $65. Determining an a value for these things is a bit tricky. Perhaps I grossly undervalued them.

[bobili]

Guy's

Just to let everybody know my shipment has been delivered successfully:
DHL:
24     Delivered - Signed for by : CHENXUYI      BEIJING     14:10

No custom issues at all.

Best

Is it batch 1# or batch 2# shipment?

[loshia]

Guy's

Just to let everybody know my shipment has been delivered successfully:
DHL:
24     Delivered - Signed for by : CHENXUYI      BEIJING     14:10

No custom issues at all.

Best

Is it batch 1# or batch 2# shipment?

IT IS A TRADE-IN SHIPMENT!

[bobili]

sorry.....

[Littleshop]

They are computer expansion cards, nothing more. Bitcoin mining capabilities and other people's valuations aside, they are worthless in fiat money valuation, IMHO. I didn't claim they were worth much, and I would recommend that others do the same. It doesn't make sense to pay a fiat-based duty for them, they are being used for a BTC credit, not a fiat credit. If you paid in BTC, the valuation should be based in BTC at the time of purchase.

Here's how you could determine their value:
Price of BTC credit is likely to be ~3BTC (or under) at time of trade-in. Suppose the price of BTC when you purchased the Icaruses was under $5. Therefore, any amount under $15 is a worthwhile fiat valuation.

To price things in terms of fiat representation of BTC today doesn't account for BTC-based Icarus amortization. If that were the case, the Icarus would be valued at what you originally paid for the Icarus in BTC, which for some of us was several hundred BTC. That would be a value of $10,000+ today, and does not make any sense at all, especially since we never use the USD in our mining operations (or, at least, I never have). You should be putting a value based on the trade-in value of the device when it was delivered to you, which to most of us going to be well under $300 per Icarus. The inflation of the USD (and other world currencies) in terms of BTC isn't our problem, it's the government's problem.

I am not an accountant, but this is what you are expected to do over time. The Icarus device has depreciated significantly in BTC value since the time of your purchase. You should account for that.

Why all this talk of value?  Maybe it is different for people outside of the USA, but trade ins are not duty taxed if they came from the company that is receiving them.  Neither are returns for repair. 

[allinvain]

They are computer expansion cards, nothing more. Bitcoin mining capabilities and other people's valuations aside, they are worthless in fiat money valuation, IMHO. I didn't claim they were worth much, and I would recommend that others do the same. It doesn't make sense to pay a fiat-based duty for them, they are being used for a BTC credit, not a fiat credit. If you paid in BTC, the valuation should be based in BTC at the time of purchase.

Here's how you could determine their value:
Price of BTC credit is likely to be ~3BTC (or under) at time of trade-in. Suppose the price of BTC when you purchased the Icaruses was under $5. Therefore, any amount under $15 is a worthwhile fiat valuation.

To price things in terms of fiat representation of BTC today doesn't account for BTC-based Icarus amortization. If that were the case, the Icarus would be valued at what you originally paid for the Icarus in BTC, which for some of us was several hundred BTC. That would be a value of $10,000+ today, and does not make any sense at all, especially since we never use the USD in our mining operations (or, at least, I never have). You should be putting a value based on the trade-in value of the device when it was delivered to you, which to most of us going to be well under $300 per Icarus. The inflation of the USD (and other world currencies) in terms of BTC isn't our problem, it's the government's problem.

I am not an accountant, but this is what you are expected to do over time. The Icarus device has depreciated significantly in BTC value since the time of your purchase. You should account for that.

Why all this talk of value?  Maybe it is different for people outside of the USA, but trade ins are not duty taxed if they came from the company that is receiving them.  Neither are returns for repair. 

You are right. It's just that sometimes customs messes up and they levy a duty fee on RMA items. Perfect example is the fact that some of the senders here got charged duty fees. Now, perhaps that was because they did not properly label the package or properly complete the waybill/commercial invoice.

[reedlaw]

The UPS Store with the DHL account that I shipped through has been calling every morning trying to get this sorted out. They covered the customs duty but the package has still not been received. Has anyone had their package received today or yesterday? I'm not sure if DHL delivers to Mr. Chen's address or if he has to pick it up at this point. All I see in the tracking results since last Friday are a lot of "Clearance" events.

[greaterninja]

I sent my package from Arizona Tuesday.   Used Fed Ex international Priority; 

It arrived in Beijing, China today Thursday at 8:30pm MST.

Signed by Mr. Chen.

Godspeed and Thank you Sir.

-GreaterNinja

[mrb]

Just want to add my own experience:
- I shipped 2 x Icarus from the USA to China on April 24, via UPS, with tracking service (which was apparently optional), with a declared value of $60. I made sure to write "China" as the country of origin on the waybill.
- The 1st delivery attempt failed on April 27: "The driver was unable to collect funds on the 1st delivery attempt. a 2nd delivery attempt will be made. / Delivery rescheduled".
- The 2nd delivery attempt succeeded on April 28.

I don't know what the 1st failure mean. Did Mr. Chen pay import tax duties? Did the driver just not ask for them on the 2nd attempt? Anyway the package was delivered.

[rudrigorc2]

  thats fortunate. I deliverd a bunch of pacakges paying slightly more and one with a bigger difference, I still have to return to BJ  and collect  the change with mr Chen. I sincerely cant see him using that $$$ to fix this duties without prior notification.  i wonder why and how the delivery guy.would give up on payment for your package

[allinvain]

Hmm, the lack of feedback from the Avalon team is disappointing to say the least. They received numerous trade in board yet they did not even bother to at least confirm that they received them or to let us know if/when we can pay the difference :/

Any of you still having issues getting them delivered?

[mrb]

They received numerous trade in board yet they did not even bother to at least confirm that they received them or to let us know if/when we can pay the difference :/

What do you mean "we can pay the difference"? I ordered Avalon units, paid $1499, sent my trade-ins, so I expect them to pay me the difference, ie. send me $200 per Icarus.

[allinvain]

They received numerous trade in board yet they did not even bother to at least confirm that they received them or to let us know if/when we can pay the difference :/

What do you mean "we can pay the difference"? I ordered Avalon units, paid $1499, sent my trade-ins, so I expect them to pay me the difference, ie. send me $200 per Icarus.

Well as far as I understood things batch 2 and 3 are separate from trade-ins. So if you're a trade in customer then you are going to be expected to trade in those boards for NEW units that supposedly will be given higher shipping priority. Many of us did not wait for the trade in program and just went ahead and ordered units in batch 2. I do not think the trade-in discount will apply to batch 2. Whether they will allow full price orders (ie batch 2) to convert is another question.

Personally I do NOT want to be given a discount on an existing order. I want the $200 discount per Icarus board to apply to NEW units for which I will pay the remaining difference ($1299) in BTC at the given exchange rate at the time I receive the invoice.


Some snippets from this thread that might shed some light:

"BitSyncom has stated a few times that trade-ins are not subject to batch limitations and will be given priority shipping order" -coretechs

and furthermore:

"A week before batch #2 is ready to ship, we will make an announcement to those who wish to trade-in their last generation units to sent in their units, once we receive the units a custom order will be made for you to pay the difference depending on what you have trade-in, remember 1 trade-in discount/coupon is allowed per 1 Avalon unit. For clarification the shipping priority is as such:" - BitSyncom

I think the above quote vindicates my perspective on things. I am expecting them to send me a custom order and to pay the difference at the batch 2 price level.

[kjj]

Ditto.  I paid full price for my batch #2 order, and I want my trade-ins to be more units at the discounted #2 dollar price.