Incoming Avalon News 8/9/2013

[bitcoiner49er]

Here's how most contracts for manufacture operate (very general).
A product is requested by the customer.
The manufacturer examines the customer request and requirements.
The two parties come to a agreement for manufacturing.
The manufacturer provides a date for delivery (lead time).
Customer and manufacturer work together to exchange information during manufacturing stage.
Delays/changes/problem are communicated to the customer and concessions are made to keep both parties viable (happy).
Manufacturing completes product and ships to customer.

I've been involved in global manufacturing projects for the past 7 years.
This chip project IS a different animal, but - the contract agreed to by clicking to order and the inability to communicate issues are strikes against YiFu. He is at fault and needs to appease his customers.

[bystander]

Interesting how another company ASICminer, whose operation isn't small by any means is always immune to the Chinese Mafia.  They've shipped thousands of block erupters/blades worldwide without a customs hiccup.

Instead, the ever sharp Chinese Mafia fell asleep and simply let 135 boxes of chips to resellers ship in June, but decided to focus their talents on preventing 200,000 chips from shipping instead.  They sure have their priorities straight.

[HorseRider]

You can never underestimate the dirtyness of Avalon team. I have got a very reliable offer, Avalon chips arrive at 10th Sep,100RMB each. The seller has already supplied tens of thousands chips on a very private market. Some of Avlaon clone manufactur, such as ccmbc on this forum, is the buyer of the seller. By delaying the normal order shipping, Avalon team successfully created another market: expensive Avalon chip with trustworth ETA.

[VolanicEruptor]

Hmm, after the extreme drop of ASICMINER USB miners, Friedcat decided to reward buyers with his "customer loyalty" promotion.  I received 200 miners for ~15 bucks each because of my order history.  

Could Avalon do the same?  This would earn back their respect. 

[dmcdad]

Hmm, after the extreme drop of ASICMINER USB miners, Friedcat decided to reward buyers with his "customer loyalty" promotion.  I received 200 miners for ~15 bucks each because of my order history. 

Could Avalon do the same?  This would earn back their respect. 

They could, but will they? Friedcat has proven himself to be a class act. Yifu has proven to have no honor, and no class. I hope he proves us wrong.

[jspielberg]

Hmm, after the extreme drop of ASICMINER USB miners, Friedcat decided to reward buyers with his "customer loyalty" promotion.  I received 200 miners for ~15 bucks each because of my order history.  

Could Avalon do the same?  This would earn back their respect. 

I am thinking the well may already be poisoned.  With AM, the product while over priced, were delivered on time with good communication. They could earn back trust by addressing the item that people had the biggest issue... price.

Avalon has not appeared to have made any progress on the communication front.

[Xian01]

You can never underestimate the dirtyness of Avalon team. I have got a very reliable offer, Avalon chips arrive at 10th Sep,100RMB each. The seller has already supplied tens of thousands chips on a very private market. Some of Avlaon clone manufactur, such as ccmbc on this forum, is the buyer of the seller. By delaying the normal order shipping, Avalon team successfully created another market: expensive Avalon chip with trustworth ETA.

 Absolutely intriguing insight you have into the situation. Thanks for your anecdotes.

 Very unfortunate to see the Avalon group acting so unscrupulously.

[Bitcoinorama]

Hmm, after the extreme drop of ASICMINER USB miners, Friedcat decided to reward buyers with his "customer loyalty" promotion.  I received 200 miners for ~15 bucks each because of my order history.  

Could Avalon do the same?  This would earn back their respect.  

Dude, you've just said you'll sell your respect and willingly forget everything that's happened for cheap hardware. Nice.

[jspielberg]

You can never underestimate the dirtyness of Avalon team. I have got a very reliable offer, Avalon chips arrive at 10th Sep,100RMB each. The seller has already supplied tens of thousands chips on a very private market. Some of Avlaon clone manufactur, such as ccmbc on this forum, is the buyer of the seller. By delaying the normal order shipping, Avalon team successfully created another market: expensive Avalon chip with trustworth ETA.

I would tend to go with the benefit of the doubt that this could be "leakage" from employees, but if the volumes being quoted are accurate, this isn't skimming, but planned.

[VolanicEruptor]

Hmm, after the extreme drop of ASICMINER USB miners, Friedcat decided to reward buyers with his "customer loyalty" promotion.  I received 200 miners for ~15 bucks each because of my order history.  

Could Avalon do the same?  This would earn back their respect.  

Dude, you've just said you'll sell your respect and willingly forget everything that's happened for cheap hardware. Nice.

What's wrong with that?  You wouldn't be "selling your respect". 
You would be getting compensated for your inconvenience and loss.
All that matters is what you end up with. 

[kano]

Meanwhile the 130k chip comment is even more suggestion of the whole issue with all this.

Why only 130k chips, and why suddenly the comment today?
Customs let a few boxes through and decided to hang on to the rest of them for a few more weeks?

[zumzero]

The only evidence I've seen is the images from the last page.

So the first tonne of chips went from China to Hong Kong, China.

Is that one flight all the evidence of the shipping journey we have?

Could the chips be being held by Hong Kong customs since the end of that first flight?

If Avalon had been ripped off somehow, would they be able to make it public knowledge?  Would they instead attempt to send out another delivery to fullfill those missed orders, hoping to catch up as soon as they could?  Would they be so bad after all, if that were the case?

What other evidence is there please?

If they were ripped-off and tried to fulfill missing orders without telling everyone what actually happened and not stated what they were doing to correct the "theft" then that is a problem.

Agreed.  If true, perhaps time will tell.

EDIT:  corrupt gov officials or mafia?  Certainly a good enough reason to keep things hush hush. 

I see... so folks thinking that BitSyncom sold the chips to the highest bidder and screwed everyone is spreading a "mere conspiracy" in your words, but the Chinese mafia stealing the chips and forcing Yifu to keep it on the down-low makes perfect logical sense.

No.  You are putting words into my mouth.  My 'mere conspiracy' comment was as a direct response to another poster saying words to the effect, "It's about what they did with the chips and who they sold them to."  My response was not in any way an acceptance that I agreed with the posters comment, as you imply.  Rather, it was myself stating that, "Chinese mafia stealing the chips and forcing Yifu to keep it on the down-low" is equal in every regard to that same conspiracy theory.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

There is nothing unique about these delays reported all across the Bitcoin mining industry as it's what we see also see in the 'real world'.  

Companies set deadlines and targets and issue statements which they genuinely believe to be accurate but due to unforseen circumstances are unable to honour.

The only difference is that in the 'real world' I might be getting angry because the roof hasn't arrived for the house I'm building, but the pool table has already.

Or, I might get angry because the Christmas present I wanted to give my wife is stuck in some sorting office somewhere until after New Year.

How we chose to conduct ourselves when we face adversity is what defines us.

None of this matters. Either Avalon contracted to deliver by a certain date or it didn't. If it missed that date it violated contract and can be legally held liable for damages and missing product. You are trying to frame it as if it all no big deal and everyone should just give up on trying to pursue any course of action to rectify the damages - just relax and let it all go. In the real world when people don't meet deadlines they pay for the damages.

you are doing a disservice to the Avalon customers - trying to get them to stay quiet.

I disagree with you.  The only injustice I see here is a small group of people venting their anger and attempting to frame a Bitcoin start-up simply because it's late in delivering goods.

Not every country in the 'real world' has a policy of sueing each other just becuse they feel hard done by.  

I've seen this over and over again.  Mark my words, very soon this will all be forgotten and instead the angry voices will simply move on to another target.

As I said, 'How we chose to conduct ourselves in the face of adversity is what defines us.'

Wow. I just don't even know where to start. Seriously take a look at the evidence presented throughout these forums that BitSyncom has: 1) sold our pre-ordered chips to someone else, 2) been mining with customers' equipment, and 3) is using Chinese mafia + customs hangups as an excuse to screw customers here out of *millions* of dollars. I don't have time to point out all the threads and evidence, but I suggest you read it, analyze it, and then read BitSyncom's lame excuses. If, after all that, you believe BitSyncom's side of the story, then you are a much bigger fool than I.

Zhou Tong II comes to mind.

[powpow]

You can never underestimate the dirtyness of Avalon team. I have got a very reliable offer, Avalon chips arrive at 10th Sep,100RMB each. The seller has already supplied tens of thousands chips on a very private market. Some of Avlaon clone manufactur, such as ccmbc on this forum, is the buyer of the seller. By delaying the normal order shipping, Avalon team successfully created another market: expensive Avalon chip with trustworth ETA.

Well, that matches up with shipping info that we saw earlier if the price is in RMB.  But, why would someone pay $16 USD per chip -- unless you can make the miners at a fraction of the cost to absorb chip price.

[Ytterbium]

In the real world when people don't meet deadlines they pay for the damages.

That's not always true.  Generalizations like this are not helpful.  The bigger the deadline the more wiggle room is usually built in.  Two weeks is really not a ridiculous delay, and anyone with good business sense understands that large projects have large unforeseen problems.  Not anticipating some kind of hiccup is the sign of a bad businessman.  When you are dealing with this kind of money, not at least calculating the risk of a delay (especially with someone at the helm who's never run this scope of a project before) is doing yourself a disservice.  Seriously, who here DIDN'T expect at least a little delay?  Batch #1 #2 and #3 all experienced delays.  

The vitriol and anger spilling out of this thread is extremely telling.  

It's actually really uncommon, from what I understand.  Unless you have a contract stating you'll get X by Y, or else you'll get $Z you won't actually get damages.

If you take Bitsyncom to court, spend years litigating and win, the most you'll likely get  back is the initial purchase cost, or they could even hand you a box of completely worthless chips and call the contract "fulfilled"

It sucks, but the courts are slow, and they judge things on "court time", unless otherwise stated in a contract.

Just look at BFL. So far no one's successfully sued them, although they might have a chance if they are illegally denying refunds.

[Bicknellski]

In the real world when people don't meet deadlines they pay for the damages.

That's not always true.  Generalizations like this are not helpful.  The bigger the deadline the more wiggle room is usually built in.  Two weeks is really not a ridiculous delay, and anyone with good business sense understands that large projects have large unforeseen problems.  Not anticipating some kind of hiccup is the sign of a bad businessman.  When you are dealing with this kind of money, not at least calculating the risk of a delay (especially with someone at the helm who's never run this scope of a project before) is doing yourself a disservice.  Seriously, who here DIDN'T expect at least a little delay?  Batch #1 #2 and #3 all experienced delays.  

The vitriol and anger spilling out of this thread is extremely telling.  

It's actually really uncommon, from what I understand.  Unless you have a contract stating you'll get X by Y, or else you'll get $Z you won't actually get damages.

If you take Bitsyncom to court, spend years litigating and win, the most you'll likely get  back is the initial purchase cost, or they could even hand you a box of completely worthless chips and call the contract "fulfilled"

It sucks, but the courts are slow, and they judge things on "court time", unless otherwise stated in a contract.

Just look at BFL. So far no one's successfully sued them, although they might have a chance if they are illegally denying refunds.

Next gen that comes from Avalon or BFL... BOYCOTT. Don't need lawyers to punish them there are plenty of other mining options at this time no need to ever buy from either of these companies again.

[tiros]

at the moment of writing, another 130k chips have gone out, and will proceed to ship more as we get them. ( and no, they are not samples.)

Not sure how that looks like in your backlog, but hey, any news from you are good news ... right?
What you missed to tell us is what is happening with those chips in customs?

Of course you know already why so many of us are pissed off, but feel free to ignore all these question ... like you already did.
I am sad to say, but I wish I didn't bought any of your damn chips.

[HorseRider]

at the moment of writing, another 130k chips have gone out, and will proceed to ship more as we get them. ( and no, they are not samples.)

Yifu, one of your team member is selling the chips on the private market, are you aware of that? Do you have any explanation why can someone can buy chips with 30% premium at late June and got the chips at early July? This is no fucking rumors, anyone is interested please PM ccmbc, he is one of the private buyers can buy from your team member. The whole "open source" community around the Avalon chips were ruined, including the infamous ASICME and yourself. IF you can ship on time or do something to compensate the loss caused by the delay, things will be much easier.

[Rampion]

at the moment of writing, another 130k chips have gone out, and will proceed to ship more as we get them. ( and no, they are not samples.)

Yifu, one of your team member is selling the chips on the private market, are you aware of that? Do you have any explanation why can someone can buy chips with 30% premium at late June and got the chips at early July? This is no fucking rumors, anyone is interested please PM ccmbc, he is one of the private buyers can buy from your team member.

Greed definitely took over. "ASIC business done right".

[juve4v]

at the moment of writing, another 130k chips have gone out, and will proceed to ship more as we get them. ( and no, they are not samples.)

Yifu, one of your team member is selling the chips on the private market, are you aware of that? Do you have any explanation why can someone can buy chips with 30% premium at late June and got the chips at early July? This is no fucking rumors, anyone is interested please PM ccmbc, he is one of the private buyers can buy from your team member. The whole "open source" community around the Avalon chips were ruined, including the infamous ASICME and yourself. IF you can ship on time or do something to compensate the loss caused by the delay, things will be much easier.

I would like to hear what Yifu has to say about this.