Here's how it looks on paper. I'd like to have an open and honest discussion around this, however it seems like that is rare in this industry.
A short timeline:
July 24th - CanaryInTheMine starts the rumors thread since he is getting lots of requests around the new pricing, telling us to wait until there is official word and that he won't confirm rumors.
July 27th, 1:40am - Order goes into group buy #14, order confirmed shipped shortly thereafter
July 27th, 8:40pm - Canary opens new order at new price. Claims shipping will begin on Monday (so units in-hand for new pricing?).
July 27th, around 9pm - Independent confirmation acquired from other group buy owners, new pricing was supposed to go into effect at a later date. Also no info for the "returning buyer" discount that we've all heard so much about.
... wind back - Warz0r is trying to get a deal with Canary and is told the best price is still the old price, hint is that now is a good time to order (because he'll be eligible for super-cheap later?), but that turns into a flame war. People take sides, blacklisting happens, blah blah blah.
And SilentSonicBoom, one of the other group runners, is taking orders to place with AsicMiner and is expecting delivery to him on Friday. Meaning he does not have them in-hand, did not try to scoop every other seller, and seems like his posts were in direct response to Canary dropping the bomb early.
So how I read this... Group buy owners have been working on this deal, it wasn't supposed to go into place for some time (possibly to coincide with the voucher deal), Canary swooped in and pre-ordered so he could sell before anyone else (and the agreed upon date for new pricing), meanwhile he likely received the GO #14 units alongside the new, lower priced, seemingly identical units, but continued to sell on GO #14 while waiting to be the first to pull the trigger on the new price. As opposed to saying to everyone on GO #14 "Hey, your units are showing up with the cheaper ones, so to avoid the clusterfuck that is now happening between old buyers and new buyers I'll give you the .55 price, just hush up until I drop the bomb on Saturday", he kept taking orders and now all of the previous customers, for their loyalty, can wait until August 5th to figure out if they qualify for this coupon offer. So while I could buy (from someone else) at this new low price, I have no idea if I qualify for the coupons so I don't want to buy .55BTC units if I am entitled to .15BTC units.
Quite frankly I'm not bashing anyone, business is business, but this looks bad. It looks like Canary simultaneously screwed both current customers and other re-sellers/group owners. Personally, I'd like to collect whatever units make it through the voucher/coupon program and not buy via Canary again. My dealings with him have been professional, shipping was prompt and well packed, but this wreaks of one person taking his insider information, while inside a group that was all privy to this info, and opted to beat everyone to the punch. In my industry we blacklist vendors like this because we value professionalism over profit, since it is understood the people selling the shovels will always be the ones winning.
1. Chinese sellers have been advertising the lower price for a few days now - the "rumor" was already mostly confirmed.
2. BTCGuild is actually the one who jumped the gun and made the announcement in English. Canary simply re posted their announcement.
3. Everything I see looks like the announcement was to stay under wraps until August 5 to coincide with the coupon offering.
4. You can't possibly know how many units Canary had pre-ordered in #14, or how much he paid. You're assuming because he's selling at .55 he paid the discounted price. He has been preordering these for several batches now, and has been fulfilling the Eligius orders. For all you know he's losing money on his in-stock.
Professionalism > Profit. Facts > FUD. You have no way of knowing what prices have been actually paid for the units now offered for sale. The questionable business practice thread should be focused on friedcat, rather than the GBOs.
From my perspective, Canary was abiding by the
unconfirmed details of the price reduction and coupon program announcement date - certainly at friedcat's request.
