BTCFPGA - 115K Refund

[zefir]

As someone who has been monitoring #btcfpga since October, I would be absolutely shocked if Agath was Tom. He's been active in the channel the whole time and they talk nothing alike.

I have no proof that Agath isn't Tom, but for the two to be the same would require Tom be incredibly capable, disciplined and forward looking. Since Tom doesn't appear to be any of those things, I don't think he could keep up a deception like that for months for no real benefit. More likely Tom is still lurking in his channel and has been watching as people are planning their legal action.

Assuming this agath is the same I know from IRC, the numbers posted would be perfectly reasonable. He goes under a different and well-respected nick at bitcointalk and knowing his business, ordering 100 bASICs from Tom and getting them refunded now is plausible.

It is time for this community to leave the trauma behind and come down to a healthy trust level where not everyone entering new is immediately accused of being a liar or scammer.

[||bit]

In his last email (3 february, I never received any other) he was stating that he is going to refund everyone, that he hasn't any bitcoin, but he was trying to buy them at the best price, and that it would have taken some time. These were his words, and at this time I could say he's really trying to refund everyone.

In response to: "that he hasn't any bitcoin, but he was trying to buy them at the best price".

That seems ridiculous.  If you have the money to refund someone, the best exchange price to transfer the value will always be the present exchange price. There is no waiting for a "better price".

There are only two obvious reason that I can think of to want to look for a "better price":

(1) You lost the customers money, and want to buy low and distribute refunds when it is higher price.
(2) You want to try to profit off of other people's money on cycles or bull trends while you have it.

||bit

[||bit]

As someone who has been monitoring #btcfpga since October, I would be absolutely shocked if Agath was Tom. He's been active in the channel the whole time and they talk nothing alike.

I have no proof that Agath isn't Tom, but for the two to be the same would require Tom be incredibly capable, disciplined and forward looking. Since Tom doesn't appear to be any of those things, I don't think he could keep up a deception like that for months for no real benefit. More likely Tom is still lurking in his channel and has been watching as people are planning their legal action.

Assuming this agath is the same I know from IRC, the numbers posted would be perfectly reasonable. He goes under a different and well-respected nick at bitcointalk and knowing his business, ordering 100 bASICs from Tom and getting them refunded now is plausible.

It is time for this community to leave the trauma behind and come down to a healthy trust level where not everyone entering new is immediately accused of being a liar or scammer.

I can respect that notion. I personally don't suspect that agath is Tom. But seeing a little more proof of an actual refund would be nice, considering Tom's complete silence on the matter.

My post to MrTeal was simply to suggest that the possibility of agath being Tom was not improbable on the basis that it would require Tom to have high levels of cunning, discipline etc..

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[punin]

I know Agath from nearly a year back. He runs a massive cluster of hundreds of Ztex Quads and was planning to upgrade it to ASIC. So to me this seems 100% legit report.

[Clearfly]

Maybe the mods can confirm the CIDR IP block ranges where both these guys are connecting from then...

[MonsterZero]

If Tom's smart he knows he needs to be refunding the wire transfers... government authorities are going to get involved in a financial fraud of this scale and he's going to get in trouble.  Wire transfers are more risky than CC transactions but neither are anywhere near btc transfers and he may very well not have the intention to or ability to return those funds.

[johnyj]

I also believe they are trying the best to refund, but it is bad that they are not open about their situation

I guess some of the funds are lost due to whatever reason, but if they communicate with their customer like Greece did with the debtors, they might be able to let the investors share the loss, and return those lost fund at a later time. At least that could reduce the impact on any single customer

[miter_myles]

I'm sensing a "Team Tommy" resurgence... pathetic..

[johnyj]

I'm lucky enough to get my refund, but I was fully prepared for losing all the investment, since at that time, no one knows if all these ASIC things are scam or not, it was a high risk investment, until Avalon officially published their prototype, you can not rule out that possibility

[MrTeal]

I also believe they are trying the best to refund, but it is bad that they are not open about their situation

I guess some of the funds are lost due to whatever reason, but if they communicate with their customer like Greece did with the debtors, they might be able to let the investors share the loss, and return those lost fund at a later time. At least that could reduce the impact on any single customer

I'm not so sure about that. If Tom was making a best effort to refund he would at least pop his head up and discuss it at least with the largest creditors. Even though Agath got his fiat refund there's been no indication that any BTC is going to go out yet. It's possible he might pay all the BTC back some day, but I'd say that's pretty unlikely at this point.

[Evan]

As someone who has been monitoring #btcfpga since October, I would be absolutely shocked if Agath was Tom. He's been active in the channel the whole time and they talk nothing alike.

I have no proof that Agath isn't Tom, but for the two to be the same would require Tom be incredibly capable, disciplined and forward looking. Since Tom doesn't appear to be any of those things, I don't think he could keep up a deception like that for months for no real benefit. More likely Tom is still lurking in his channel and has been watching as people are planning their legal action.

I'm not making a positive claim that agath is Tom. But just countering the need that such a possibility would require a super Tom.  

Name:   cablepair [a.k.a. Tom]
Posts:   2308
Position:   VIP
Date Registered:   April 30, 2011, 11:40:41 PM
Last Active:   January 23, 2013, 04:16:33 AM


Name:   agath
Posts:   11
Position:   Jr. Member
Date Registered:   January 24, 2013, 10:00:12 AM
Last Active:   Today at 06:15:34 AM


||bit

have an admin check IP logs

[makomk]

Almost three hours later, and even later in the evening in EU, you posted

At around 2 AM here in the UK - even deeper into the early morning in mainland Europe. Some banks don't even make their online banking systems available at that hour, let alone process wire transfers.

[lukasbradley]

I am not a troll, and I am not Thomas. I am writing the truth, and who knows me can say it (#btcfpga on freenode). I don't need to prove it to you PG, you probably weren't even his customer.

Come on, be serious.

Agath was indeed a customer, and did indeed receive his money.  The TIMING of receiving it is interesting, as it was within days of him starting to pursue legal action.

(Apologies if I'm telling too much, Aga.)  Agath reached out to me when he received it last night.

[repentance]

Agath, were you purely a customer or were you also one of the original investors Tom spoke of?

[SolarSilver]

Thomas has finally sent his refund through a wire transfer.

Don't lose your hope, probably Tom is not that bad guy that he tries to appear.

I could hardly believe this story when it got posted so I called up Agath today to verify his story. It correlates with the information I
got from Tom back in September. Agath did place an a large order and paid  a fair chunk in EUR up front. He did confirm he got a refund via wire transfer (the phone line is from Italy and Agath did give enough details to confirm the info I got from Tom)

In the mean time, it seems Tom has moved on and started doing BTC refunds

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=143868.0

In his accompanying email he stated it might take a while to get through the whole list but I am happy to see he is fulfilling his promises

W.

[agath]

Agath, were you purely a customer or were you also one of the original investors Tom spoke of?

I don't know whether Tom considered me an investor or a customer, however I contacted it at the very beginning, and I think I was the first to sign an agreement with him.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

As someone who has been monitoring #btcfpga since October, I would be absolutely shocked if Agath was Tom. He's been active in the channel the whole time and they talk nothing alike.

I have no proof that Agath isn't Tom, but for the two to be the same would require Tom be incredibly capable, disciplined and forward looking. Since Tom doesn't appear to be any of those things, I don't think he could keep up a deception like that for months for no real benefit. More likely Tom is still lurking in his channel and has been watching as people are planning their legal action.

Assuming this agath is the same I know from IRC, the numbers posted would be perfectly reasonable. He goes under a different and well-respected nick at bitcointalk and knowing his business, ordering 100 bASICs from Tom and getting them refunded now is plausible.

It is time for this community to leave the trauma behind and come down to a healthy trust level where not everyone entering new is immediately accused of being a liar or scammer.

Now that I've been made aware as to exactly who agath is, I now feel doubly bad.

Hello! I am lurking here since a couple of years. Time to register. :-)

Knowing what I know now, I'm surprised to read the above as agath's first post.

Agath, were you purely a customer or were you also one of the original investors Tom spoke of?

I don't know whether Tom considered me an investor or a customer, however I contacted it at the very beginning, and I think I was the first to sign an agreement with him.

Since I'm the one who basically started this train wreck, it's up to me to humbly apologize to agath, hoping he accepts.

I'm not an asshole, but this time all the clues pointed in the wrong direction. Reminds me of what Mike Rowe said here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IRVdiHu1VCc#t=912s

There's probably no need for agath to show proof of receiving said refund. I further believe that this thread has served its purpose.

Later, bud.

~Bruno K~

[crazyates]

Bruno, You apologize too much.   

Assuming this agath is the same I know from IRC, the numbers posted would be perfectly reasonable. He goes under a different and well-respected nick at bitcointalk and knowing his business, ordering 100 bASICs from Tom and getting them refunded now is plausible.

Has this been verified that it is the same person? I understand they share the same name, but anyone can make a BT account with any name. Also, if he's got "a different and well-respected" account already on BT, why didn't he use that one?

It is time for this community to leave the trauma behind and come down to a healthy trust level where not everyone entering new is immediately accused of being a liar or scammer.

I would like to direct you to this sticky found in the newbie section called Trust No One.

[MrTeal]

Bruno, You apologize too much.   

Assuming this agath is the same I know from IRC, the numbers posted would be perfectly reasonable. He goes under a different and well-respected nick at bitcointalk and knowing his business, ordering 100 bASICs from Tom and getting them refunded now is plausible.

Has this been verified that it is the same person? I understand they share the same name, but anyone can make a BT account with any name. Also, if he's got "a different and well-respected" account already on BT, why didn't he use that one?

It is time for this community to leave the trauma behind and come down to a healthy trust level where not everyone entering new is immediately accused of being a liar or scammer.

I would like to direct you to this sticky found in the newbie section called Trust No One.

He's posted the same info repeatedly  while authed on IRC.

[crazyates]

Has this been verified that it is the same person? I understand they share the same name, but anyone can make a BT account with any name. Also, if he's got "a different and well-respected" account already on BT, why didn't he use that one?

He's posted the same info repeatedly  while authed on IRC.

TY.