[Scam] student from Romania is claiming to have ASIC units for sale at 85 GH/s

[coastermonger]

EDIT: As per mod information I am marking this as a likely scam. Be careful who you deal with!

Link: http://www.bitcoinforum.com/mining-discussion/107-units-with-85-ghs-are-ready-for-shipping/

Text: The Unit what we offer to You contains from 5 boards, each board has power 17GH/s and electrical consumption 30W.
Chip was developed on unnamed University with help on GRANT that is focused on the development cryptographic hardware accelerator. When we found potential in Bitcoin mining we decided secretly manufacture first batch on chip´s in Asia. Our University still working on powerful version of these chip's
From september 2012 we are slowly tune up units firmware and units connecting into the network. Bitcoints that we have mined we used to pay the loans manufacturing on first batch and second batch is still in progress. This units we are able to bring on market within 3 weeks.
By selling on this product we put ourself in hazard that University found out our activity and this can lead sanction. To minimize risk of uncover, we decided to receive only orders by e-mail uniasic@techemail.com. In the first round which will be 48 hours its possible to order maximum 2 units on one shipping address. Buyer has 6 hours to pay for the unit after that he will receive confirmation e-mail. If we dont receive payment unit will go to next buyer.  
If after first round will be some units left than in second round won´t be any restraint on the amount limits of order units. Price include shipping and the delivery time is 10 days worldwide.

Price: 70 BTC / unit!!!

My opinion:  Sounds totally bogus, I sent them a formal email basically saying "pics and vids or it didn't happen." 
I think community info/feedback will be more important now than ever to ensure that we don't get ripped off.  Be careful with your BTC people!

[needbmw]

SCAM 

[Blazr]

OH MY GOD!

My scam detector is off the charts.

[fcmatt]

as soon as i read the word romania I stopped reading.

[Bemtje]

Nice, already have a tracking # 

[Elokane]

I find it hard to believe anyone who ever received an academic grant has such shitty English.

[miter_myles]

Still more legit than Tom/bASIC..

[thorvald]

i just send him a email
i`ll post if there are some news
i can go also and check the device if it is real .

[RodeoX]

It has everything I look for in a scam. A promise to get rich by participating in a secret plan. 

[beekeeper]

LOL.. Ask for video or photos..

[wtfvanity]

LOL.. Ask for video or photos..

He said in the OP that he already did.

I sent them a formal email basically saying "pics and vids or it didn't happen"

At least some thought and effort went into the scam. BTC Guild has a feature if you contact them where you can verify an ASIC machine. Not only would some good photos be good, a proof that it can hash the crap out of SHA256 would be great. I could easily put together a PCB board and and take photos of it with some worthless chips on it. That wouldn't prove that it would boot or hash anything.

If this person really used their own funds and developed this, they would have zero incentive to not be mining with them right now. They have no customers and no obligation not to.

[Korbman]

If this person really used their own funds and developed this, they would have zero incentive to not be mining with them right now. They have no customers and no obligation not to.

Haha exactly!

I had a good laugh when I saw this...usually scammers actually try to play out their scam. His was a terrible, terrible attempt.

[John (John K.)]

Scam. He tried to spam here too and wants anyone to pay to him via btc and email him at his hushmail after doing so.

[BlackLilac Jordan]

Just another copycat scam. A lazy one at that, albeit with a half decent story.

[RodeoX]

If this person really used their own funds and developed this, they would have zero incentive to not be mining with them right now. They have no customers and no obligation not to.

Haha exactly!

I had a good laugh when I saw this...usually scammers actually try to play out their scam. His was a terrible, terrible attempt.

Haha, yeah. It reminds me of the TV commercials that promise to show you how to make a a million dollars. They never explain why they are selling books instead of making millions themselves.

[Korbman]

They never explain why they are selling books instead of making millions themselves.

And then you find out that their secret to making millions is actually just selling a book...about making millions...

[Vladimir]

SCAM 

indeed.

geez, I am wondering if anyone will fall for this. But if history repeats itself someone on this forum surely will.

[Tomatocage]

I haven't clicked the thread yet, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say his account was just created recently.  How far off am I?

[gweedo]

And I thought only strippers came from Romania...

[2112]

Bitcoints that we have mined we used to pay the loans manufacturing on first batch and second batch is still in progress.

Yeah, the "loans manufacturing" is a mistake in an otherwise well-crafted story. Active students wouldn't need to borrow money for manufacturing. For students the "sweat capital" would be completely sufficient to get the project running.

The smart students would do everything openly, even if it required setting individual course plan to get grades/points for developing and delivering the Bitcoin ASIC. They would most likely have to share the revenue with the university. There are many precedents for such academia-industry partnerships.

Not-that-smart students would try to do everything on the sly, probably in the hope of avoiding revenue sharing. This is also not unheard of, but you'll mostly read about it when it gets prosecuted and the students/faculty expelled.