YES, you can get a REFUND from BFL

[GoodStuff]

This thread should be stickied.  

[Radacoin]

You are officially now a verb. and not a bad one at that

He's a verb and Josh is a subject. Or object. Or tool

See: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Inaba

[Kouye]

This thread should be stickied.  

Agreed.

There is not a single chance that they clear their backlog by the end of august.
This was just another lie, and it's becoming obvious that this is a ponzi - the discount coupons offered to shipped customers is a huge red flag, for example.

Get out while you still can, thank me later.

Please, mods, make this thread sticky.

Even if you beleive BLF is not a blatant scam, and they are patiently waiting to use the money they collected 1 year ago to actually build and ship the units of target customer, refunds should not be an issue.

Please help starting this refund tsunami, for the sake of your users.

[k9quaint]

It is hard to type while clapping.

[vcsmith]

FWIW, there was one thing in this ordeal that really rubbed me the wrong way...

When Bruce from BFL called, he made the "under review" status sound like a punishment for my complaining to PayPal. He seemed surprised that I didn't care about being taken out of the queue. I think that was the only card they had.

Again, don't take this lying down. If you want your money back, take it.

[whisper]

This thread should be stickied.  

+3

[Ridicuss]

You are officially now a verb. and not a bad one at that

He's a verb and Josh is a subject. Or object. Or tool

See: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Inaba

Thats funny as hell. I love the urban dictionary.

[Bitcoinorama]

I don't see why this is any surprise to anyone, of course they have to refund, I'm just surprised how many people bitch and keep themselves captive of their own free will.

If you've paid by credit card it's as restrictive as being in an open prison. You call your issuing bank (presuming you checked with them prior to purchase anyway), Paypal have no reason to refund themselves, but they want your repeat business. In any case they turn the screws on BFL and you will get your refund, but it took you aggro, when if you pad by a credit card you just call the issuing bank. It's what you pay their usurious fees for...

so you're saying that if we paid Paypal with a credit card we should have no problem? We'll see. i just sent BFL a refund request since they didn't meet the "end of July" delivery they advertised in May, before they had their "no refund" policy.

Yes, if you paid by CC via Paypal, you should have no problem. Even ACH transactions can be charged back. It just takes a lot of due diligence to get your refund--it took me a month, much like the OP. I sent 5 emails to BFL requesting refunds, spent a good deal of time talking to several PayPal representatives on numerous occasions, and Bank of America several times as well. Paypal actually had me do a charge back via my Bank to initiate the full refund from BFL.

Don't expect BFL to be of any help in your quest for a refund.

If you followed the KnC thread around the start you will see I was instrumental in ensuring KnC accepted CCard. It was the only way I would purchase unknown tech from unknown entities.

It's what makes me laugh my ass off either respect to being called a shill or in on a scam, as obviously I wouldn't encourage payment with recourse if I was!! It's also what permits me to relax and view things a little more optimistically there. That said it was still a matter of feeling confident enough to have what funds I feel comfortable investing being tied up for a period of time whilst other options reveal themselves. That and increasing difficulty is why I'd NEVER bet (which is what it is, an informed gamble) more than I could afford to loose, never use 'credit' (as in money I don't have, I pay with a credit card, as a protected payment choice equal to the amount I'm comfortable spending, and personally have in hand, (though I won't pay it of until I have unit in hand - that way I have nothing to physically refund)) and won't put all my eggs in one basket, i.e. commit all my funds to one company at this stage in the game (what if there's reasonable delays??). I'm not down with f**king over legitimate businesses genuinely intent on delivering to the best of their abilities, or being fickle with funds they are counting on by changing my mind on where my funds are. I perform my due diligence thoroughly, share what I can, meet people, see if I like them, put the feelers out as o what they are capable of delivering, trust my gut, make my own decision and stand by it. Common sense and integrity. No where have I advised anyone to do anything but the same and take responsibility for their own decisions, so let's knock that shill shit on the head.

Again, and crucially it all comes down to your issuing bank, mine is Barclays. I called and recorded the conversation with the lady from the fraud dept giving me the ok. I checked with her twice and hid nothing from her about what it was for.

It's what you pay their usurious fees for, it's why they charge chargeback a to companies for claims. I'm in the UK and we're covered by consumer protection section 75, you have upto 180 days from the agreed date of delivery to make a claim. For sure payment from AmEx covers your ass, merchants hate their cut, it's a lot more than Visa and MasterCard.

It's because of this I've been scratching my head about this whole BFL non-refund issue. I would never have paid for pre-order with an anonymous unprotected currency irrespective of supporting the greater good as pre-orders with Bitcoin payment are a scammers wet dream (ref: Cedartec.net, ASICrigs.com)

FWIW I don't know how enforceable the non-refund agreement some of you agreed to is a couple of months back, someone who knows your US consumer law would be better help there...

NOTE: Some card manufacturers state they will not cover payments made by third party processors such as Paypal and Amazon (I presume it cuts them out of some traditional payment processor interchange fees), which is why I say you MUST confirm with your credit card's issuing bank, it's why I wanted KnC to go the traditional payment processing route (like yalamanchili), but they would then have issues with minimum requirements such as time operating, minimum expenses, monthly minimum transactions, type of goods for sale etc. in any case it prompted me to ring my issuer and they confirmed they would contine to honour OUTSIDE of Paypal's 45 day window, but Paypal were responsible during those 45 days, so I probed no further w.r.t. other issuing banks. This is NOT the case for payment with debit cards, it has to be payment by Credit Card.

I laboured this point in the KnC thread and still get called a shill, scammer etc. when all I've done is performed due diligence and shared my research, so I hope this helps. You have time if you think you'll get your goods, you don't have to ruin BFL out of spite and have others who paid through non refundable means lose their funds, but if you paid by credit and with the right bank you're covered. Just think about the consequence of your actions. Peace.

[Lohoris]

I'm still a bit shocked there are still some people waiting for an order.
They wouldn't recognise a scam if he bit them in the nose...

[Bitcoinorama]

I'm still a bit shocked there are still some people waiting for an order.
They wouldn't recognise a scam if he bit them in the nose...

Benefit of going away your hardware free to unscrupulous journalists. Many do no research, even when the make it as far as this forum.

That said I'm not of the opinion Josh had ill-intentions. I believe he was overly confident they could deliver and had too much pride to loose face and is under a great deal of stress that vents as frustration through poor social skills, compounded by a lot of customers that did no research and won't take responsibility for their own actions. Pre-orders always have an inherent risk. They were able to make the devices, not to spec, which was a risk and not within the promised time, again a risk customers agreed to take de to the nature of bleeding edge tech. I won't judge the guy from the forum, but promising two weeks and knowing that's not at all feasible is not cool. Likely it wasn't his decision either, but he was told to say this by poor management and now he is being demonised.

[dhenson]

I recently received a full refund from BFL for an order I placed several months ago.

I know, I know, BFL claims that "all sales are final".  Well, there's "final", and then there's "final"...

It took a month, but here's what worked for me:

• I sent an email to office@butterflylabs.com in which I politely requested a refund.
• About a week later, I received a reply from BFL denying my request.
• I filed a dispute with PayPal. In this dispute I noted that BFL failed to deliver, denied my refund request, and violated PayPal's Terms of Service for pre-order sales.
• PayPal closed my dispute the same day, stating that I was outside the 45-day window.
• I called PayPal's customer service and complained about my dispute being closed, and explained to PayPal exactly how BFL is violating the ToS.
• I sent an email to fraud@paypal.com in which I listed my transaction and dispute number, and explained how BFL is violating the ToS.
• A few days later, a PayPal Customer Solutions Supervisor called me on the phone. He had already spoken to BFL and assured me that BFL would be contacting me. I told him that I just wanted a refund, and explained to him how BFL is violating the ToS.
• I waited a week to give BFL plenty of time to contact me.  They didn't.
• I emailed the PayPal Customer Solutions Supervisor and told him that BFL had not contacted me. He seemed shocked. I wasn't. He told me that PayPal could take action against BFL if necessary.
• The PayPal Customer Solutions Supervisor escalated my dispute to the next level (whatever that is).  He told me that someone else would call.
• The next day I received a call from a guy named Bruce at BFL. He told me that since I had complained to PayPal, BFL was placing my order "under review" and taking it out of the queue. From his tone, I got the impression that Bruce thought this would bother me. I told him that I didn't need a review, I just wanted my money back. He wouldn't give me a firm answer and just kept repeating that they were placing my order "under review" and taking it out of the queue. I even asked if this review would take a day, week, month, or year. No answer, just the same "under review" statement.
• Within 5 minutes of BFL's call, an Account Representative from PayPal called. I told her about the strange conversation with Bruce. She said that she would contact BFL again.
  
• My payment to BFL was refunded to my PayPal account the next business day.

IMHO, this is the bottom line:

BFL needs PayPal. If you want your money back, complain to PayPal and don't give up.

My process was very similar and I to received a refund.  However, I did not get the $95 expedited shipping back, but meh, something is better than nothing.

[solitude]

I didn't bother contacting BFL or filing an official dispute through Paypal because I knew the outcome of both

I simply called Paypal and explained how BFL was scamming everyone, was told they couldn't do anything because outside 45 days, I bitched and moaned some more, they opened dispute

BFL had like 11 days to prove they shipped me a miner, and they ignored the claim.  I was refunded afterwards.

Don't give up when they give you the "outside 45 day" nonsense.

And stop buying asic preorders, tehy're all scams 100% guaranteed.

[Bitcoinorama]

I didn't bother contacting BFL or filing an official dispute through Paypal because I knew the outcome of both

I simply called Paypal and explained how BFL was scamming everyone, was told they couldn't do anything because outside 45 days, I bitched and moaned some more, they opened dispute

BFL had like 11 days to prove they shipped me a miner, and they ignored the claim.  I was refunded afterwards.

Don't give up when they give you the "outside 45 day" nonsense.

And stop buying asic preorders, tehy're all scams 100% guaranteed.

That last line is crap. Sounds like you got your refund through pure bludgeoning Paypal until they conceded, I don't know when you placed your order, but if it was after march this year and in any case if it has taken you this long for a refund, more fool you for not performing any due diligence.

[cdog]

If Paypal can seriously reverse an ACH transaction all the way back from the beginning of the year, Im going to be impressed. These are both companies Im not big fans of, but in this case I will actually give Paypal major kudos if they can get my $,$$$ back. The lesser of two evils, and they lose their fee for enabling BFL scumbags 

I think now Im much better off just taking the dough and buying BTC or LTC with it. I dont think BFL will deliver any 2013 orders for Singles before 2014, at which point the difficulty will likely be so high (150-300M+) that making back my investment may not be possible.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

[investr]

Please share your emails + language in a public gist.

[Ytterbium]

It's because of this I've been scratching my head about this whole BFL non-refund issue. I would never have paid for pre-order with an anonymous unprotected currency irrespective of supporting the greater good as pre-orders with Bitcoin payment are a scammers wet dream (ref: Cedartec.net, ASICrigs.com)

If you have a lot of BTC from early mining, it can be a pain in the ass to convert it to fiat just to buy more bitcoin equipment.

And stop buying asic preorders, tehy're all scams 100% guaranteed.

OMFG dude. Avalon was only about month and half late with Batch 2, and a couple months late with Batch 3 (which is shipping now if you check the thread).  Apparently some people had problems, but most people got their units.

[CoinHoarder]

YES, you can get a REFUND from BFL*

* If you payed by paypal

[vcsmith]

Please share your emails + language in a public gist.

This was my e-mail to fraud@paypal.com :

Hi,

I used PayPal to place a pre-order with Butterfly Labs on xx-xx-xx for $xxx.xx.
   
This order has still not been filled.  

I politely requested a refund on xx-xx-xx and was declined on xx-xx-xx.

Today I filed Dispute #PP-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.  This dispute was closed for being outside the 45-day window.  

The seller has violated your terms of service which clearly state that the seller "Guarantees shipment within 20 days from the date of purchase".

The seller is continuing to accept pre-orders for a product that they can not ship within any reasonable amount of time. In fact, they do not even pretend to be honoring your 20-day limit.

I have been a PayPal customer for x years.  While I realize that this payment is beyond the 45-day limit, I believe PayPal should honor my request for a refund as the seller is still using PayPal to receive pre-order payments in a manner that clearly violates your terms of service.  

Many people may be harmed financially by this seller if PayPal doesn't step in.

Regards,

Me

[ninjaboon]

Good to see you've got your refund back.
Now you can order Bitfury, K1 miners or ASICminer BTC miners.