Good luck to all of those who paid. I don't doubt you'll get your boards eventually, but the way the business side of things is being taken care of makes little to no sense. Their operation strategy didn't sit well with myself and the group purchase members so I cancelled the 163 units we were planning to order.
We take great pride in the way we conduct business. Please let us know why and how we've failed you and we'll try to address your issue. It's a pity that you've canceled 163 units, we're just finishing 50pcs and starting to make 225pcs (ready by early next week).
Regards!
To answer your question:
Just a quick update. We're sending everybody who've placed orders and have not yet paid this message. We think it is the fairest thing to do right now. We welcome useful suggestions.
We have an update for your order:
We will have in stock 50 x Lancelot devices on Friday but this is not enough to complete all our backlog. For this reason you might not get the order in time.
You can now pay your order but if you do so you agree to the following conditions:
We will ship the orders on first paid, first shipped basis.
If we've sold all the above stock and you have not paid by then, we will put your order status back on "Backordered"
If your payment arrives after we've sold this stock you can ask for a refund immediatelly (you will cover all the refund or exchange fees where aplicable - none for Bitcoin) or you can let us know by next Monday how long you are willing to wait for your order to be shipped. Based on this information we will organize our parts order to ensure that we can fulfill your order.
Once you've commited to a shipping date, and we've accepted it, your refund will be available only after that date if we fail to ship it.
Although we accept escrow payments we will favorize all other payment methods but escrow. This means that if you choose to pay with bitcoin escrow, you will only receive your order once we've cleared our backlog of all other orders paid through different payment methods.
Your order is on hold as we are waiting for the payment.
This doesn't seem shady to anyone? Nevermind, what we said before about escrow services, please pay us now to receive your order eventually. When, we can't tell you, but we'll let you know.
As the organizer of a 163 unit order, paying customers would constantly bump our large order to the end of the line because we are requesting escrow service. Receiving inadequate stock of xilinx units as infrequent as 50 at a time with no certain time line for more, guarantees never being able to supply the units in a timely manner. Paying orders would stack up ahead of us faster than they can send them out the door due to inadequate stock of xilinx units. Combine those two factors and we'd end up waiting at absolute minimum a month to receive units and possibly longer.
You also refused to answer my question about escrow and stated that it would be cheaper to fly to China and pay for the boards with
cash in person (RED FLAG) than to ship them and pay customs. I'm currently in the process of importing 88 FPGA boards from China through another company that has operated up to this point without issue and is accepting escrow services.
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I don't want to ruin anyone's parade or cause issues. The only reason I'm passing this information along is to inform buyers of the history of the seller. Everyone should do their due diligence in informing themselves who they choose to do business with. Up to this point they have been delivering boards so this is one hundred percent for you to decide on. Perhaps blackarrow could elaborate on this:
Their site:
http://www.cardreaderfactory.com/shop/about-us.htmlto find:
http://www.cdrex.com/alexandru-ion-sovu/786164.htmlLinked to:
http://www.creditgate.com/company_information/cardreaderfactory+ltd.aspxAlexandru Ion Sovu aka international scammer / credit card fraud:
http://www.gov.ro/comunicat-de-presa__l1a15869.htmlTranslated:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ro&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.ro%2Fcomunicat-de-presa__l1a15869.htmlGoogle search of his name:
https://www.google.com/search?q=SOVU+ALEXANDRU+ION&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-aI have screenshots of all of these pages in case anyone decides they want to change anything really quickly.
Just a quick update. We're sending everybody who've placed orders and have not yet paid this message. We think it is the fairest thing to do right now. We welcome useful suggestions.
This doesn't seem shady to anyone? Nevermind, what we said before about escrow services, please pay us now to receive your order eventually. When, we can't tell you, but we'll let you know.
As we said, we welcome useful suggestions. What would you have done in our place?
As the organizer of a 163 unit order, paying customers would constantly bump our large order to the end of the line because we are requesting escrow service.
I can't understand how anybody would trust you with money for 163 units: $44825. You are obviously a difficult and problematic person.
Receiving inadequate stock of xilinx units as infrequent as 50 at a time with no certain time line for more, guarantees never being able to supply the units in a timely manner. Paying orders would stack up ahead of us faster than they can send them out the door due to inadequate stock of xilinx units. Combine those two factors and we'd end up waiting at absolute minimum a month to receive units and possibly longer.
We've wrote here several times, our suppliers told us initially that they have as many as we want with immediate availability. As soon as we've received orders on the website we've placed the order with them and they've only delivered 46 FPGAs before bailing out. Our company (and no other sane company) wouldn't purchase a lot of FPGAs without knowing if there is a demand for them. We have done and are doing our best to provide
you our customers with the Lancelot devices that they've ordered. Every other supplier raised the price with as much as 50% compared with the initial price but we've still purchased them to honor the orders that we've took, even though we did not make any money.
We have never asked for money from customers without knowing exactly when we can deliver their order.
You also refused to answer my question about escrow and stated that it would be cheaper to fly to China and pay for the boards with cash in person (RED FLAG) than to ship them and pay customs.
Haven't I? I thought I did: Let me repeat and state the facts. Any intelligent person should figure this out:
1. You are asking us to send merchandise from our own money ($44825) to you
2. with an uninsured package (as you're worried about how much you'll pay for the customs).
3. In the same time, you wish to send money to a person from this forum who is refusing to provide an ID and to sign any contract.
I do not know where you live, but loosing $44825 would get us bankrupt.
I'm currently in the process of importing 88 FPGA boards from China through another company that has operated up to this point without issue and is accepting escrow services.
Good luck with that. I can't understand why you pick on honest business like ours and comment nothing about $95940 for 10000 ASICs to Avalon. Avalon don't even have a company and are supplying a commercial center as their address. I'm sure that you've done your due diligence and figured out that they failed to ship batch 2 of ASICs ($5 million dollars) , batch 3 (another $5 million dollars) and they're late with chips ( another 5 million dollars ). I will not talk here about BFL which it's a wonder they're not yet in prison.
I don't want to ruin anyone's parade or cause issues.
I'm sure that this is exactly what you want to do.
This was 10 years ago. Some people change. No matter what were his circumstances back then, Mr. Sovu is our re-seller in UK and has never failed us in 5 years since we work with him. We gave him credit, and always repaid us without any issues. Mr. Sovu is a great gentleman and one of the most honest people we know.
You have the audacity to complain that we do not trust you with $45000 in an uninsured package? After this episode, the only way we would give these to you would be if we would film you while you pick them up yourself so we have a proof in case you run away with them and blame it on us.
I have screenshots of all of these pages in case anyone decides they want to change anything really quickly.
Keep them.
Please, quote the whole conversation instead of taking the pieces of it out that you prefer to respond to. Blackarrow, please don't get upset, start questioning my ability to broker purchases, or call me, "Obviously a difficult and problematic person". Personal attacks get you nowhere in this. All I am doing is wanting to know who Alexandru Ion Sovu, who named in the document above is an idividual guilty of credit card fraud and manufacturing false credit cards is, and how he fits into your business. Thank you for answering this.
To answer your questions directly. I am currently in the process of importing 88 FPGA boards from China through another company as a group purchase. I am personally ordering 3 and 85 are with other people's money with an actual declared value of $14500 USD through John K for escrow. With importing the boards all I am paying is:
Shipping paid for by seller = $0.00
Merchandising processing fee .003464% of cargo + freight value = $50.23
Airport handling fee = $60
Bond fee $5.50 / $1000 of value = $79.75
Broker customs clearance fee = $125
Total = $314.98
In our dealing I had received confirmation of interest for 163 boards. At that point in time you had one person who had confirmation 3 boards which was only part of their order. You had interest from our 163 boards + probably at least another 150 in from other people. I don't know what else you would qualify as needing interest to order the FPGAs.
"Let me repeat and state the facts. Any intelligent person should figure this out:
1. You are asking us to send merchandise from our own money ($44825) to you
2. with an uninsured package (as you're worried about how much you'll pay for the customs).
3. In the same time, you wish to send money to a person from this forum who is refusing to provide an ID and to sign any contract.
I do not know where you live, but loosing $44825 would get us bankrupt."
1. That is how escrow works. On confirmation of receiving the package the funds would've be released. This would take a total of 3-5 business days from the time you shipped the package. I don't know how that would bankrupt your company? Perhaps you could elaborate on that.
2. I only wanted to know how importing these boards would work and the associated costs. You were not able to answer this or provide me with any related information: HTS code, shipping costs, etc... You immediately stated that it would be cheaper to fly to China and pay with cash or BTC in person.
3. John K. was going to be the escrow agent. If you don't accept escrow from John K, I don't know who you would accept it from.
Cost comparison:
Ticket to China: from your quote $1530 along with 23 hours and 52 minutes of travel time to get to China.
Importing cost:
Merchandise processing fee .003464 of $44825 = $155.27
Airport handling fee = $60
Bond fee: $246.54
Duty using proper HTS code = $0
Broker - customs clearance entry = $125
Total = $586.81 + the cost of shipping.
Now, if shipping doesn't cost greater than $943.19 it would cost less than flying to China. That trip to China would also include 49 hours of round trip travel time and the associated travel costs of the trip for food, parking, taxis, hotel, etc... which aren't factored into the ticket price.
The main issue is that shipping wouldn't cost $943.19. The company I'm dealing with spent $186 on shipping 88 FPGA boards that are larger that the Lancelot units insured through EMS Speedpost. Even if your carrier charges a plus size package fee it could easily be split into multiple insured packages below the plus size threshold. As a worst case scenario if the packages were lost or damaged you would receive payment for them as they would be insured and our escrow would be returned to us by John K. That process provides a safety net for both buyer and seller. Whereas flying across the world with $44825 in cash provides absolutely zero safety, in fact it takes even puts the safety factor at a negative value due to the risk of robbery, customs issues, murder, etc...
Just so I am clear as well. I ordered BFL fpga singles from BFL over a year ago and have never dealt with Avalon. You are correct in the way that they operate their business does not make sense and as such I choose not to do business with them. It is a personal choice that everyone should be able to make. I feel that in making this decision everyone should do their due diligence in investigating who they send large amounts of non reversible payment to. It is only common sense. Do you disagree with this?
Alexandru Ion Sovu may be a fantastic business person for you now, but that will never change the fact that he previously robbed people and businesses. Being someone who has fallen victim to credit card fraud i can attest to the fact that it is not a fun thing to deal with. I was without any money for 8 days at the end of the month while all of my bills were due. Thankfully, I was able to prove that fraud had occurred and acquire a deferred payment date. To consider though that the person doing this was spending it on motorcycle parts and other items for personal gain at the expense of someone else is rather horrifying to me.
If you choose not to do business with me because I request escrow that is your choice. It is also one of the same reasons I choose not to do business with you. Bitcoin mining is a business solely about the bottom line. If you can't guarantee a quantity of items available for purchase, confirm delivery on a solid timeline, and / or a safe way to provide payment I don't want to deal with you. I will take my business elsewhere as I have done. I feel other should be able to make the decision of who they send payment to for themselves, which is why I posted this information. Again, do you disagree? For those that do choose to do business with you I hope that everyone works out for them as it has so far and just as I hope it works out for everyone involved in purchasing items from BFL or Avalon. Having your money stolen is not something anyone should have to deal with.
