BFL Monarch - Delivery Dates

[heldertb]

Do not have to be a US citizen to get justice.

Good luck.

USA v Vleisides Transcript

Code:

Q. And similar to what we talked about before, is ButterflyLabs keeping 
its customers apprised of its progress in that regard?

A. Yes. I think, you know, we had a newsletter that was just recently released 
to anyone who's ordered from us before advising them of the status of the 
current product.

Q. Okay. So, in other words, they're not hiding from the product, that they are 
trying to address it actively?

A. Yes.

Judge:  But if I find out that there is this fraud word involved in this part,
you know, Mr. Vleisides, as we say here at the courthouse, you need to 
get your toothbrush and get your things in order,  because fraud will not be 
tolerated, you understand that? So I would work very hard to make these 
consumers happy consumers who you've dealt with.

I hope Butterfly Labs is a legitimate company that enjoys success. But 
there's a smell, and that's what I'm addressing today.

Over a year later and we still have to let people know you are NOT required to wait for a refund. Do not believe what BFL tells you are the terms they are counter to FTC regulations. The miner may have changed but this time Sonny V. has to refund or face jail. It is in your best interesting to request a refund now and explain clearly to BFL you will be reporting it to his probation officer.

Let's run this up the flagpole.  Is Butterfly labs breaking any known American federal or state laws?  


I'm wondering about:

Technology Export Laws
Mail or mail order fraud (Like the ?founder? appears to have plead guilty to)
Uniform Commercial Code
Money printing machine laws
FCC (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110805.msg2622757#msg2622757)
other


This is in response to the long running thread here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110805.0

Since they have stopped issuing refunds it certainly appears to me (IANAL) they are at least breaking FTC regulations.  It would seem that UNTIL the product is physically shipped a customer has the right to cancel their order (for ANY reason) and the company MUST issue a prompt refund.  

Below is quoted from the link at the FTC site (bolded is mine)

When You Must Cancel an Order

You must cancel an order and provide a prompt refund when:
•the customer exercises any option to cancel before you ship the merchandise;
•the customer does not respond to your first notice of a definite revised shipment date of 30 days or less and you have not shipped the merchandise or received the customer’s consent to a further delay by the definite revised shipment date;
•the customer does not respond to your notice of a definite revised shipment date of more than 30 days (or your notice that you are unable to provide a definite revised shipment date) and you have not shipped the merchandise within 30 days of the original shipment date;
•the customer consents to a definite delay and you have not shipped or obtained the customer’s consent to any additional delay by the shipment time the customer consented to;
•you have not shipped or provided the required delay or renewed option notices on time; or
•you determine that you will never be able to ship the merchandise.

http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus02-business-guide-mail-and-telephone-order-merchandise-rule

Public Service Announcement:

If you have ordered from Butterfly Labs (BFL) and have not yet received your product, you are entitled to a refund whenever you request one (per FTC rules).

First ask Butterfly Labs (BFL) for one, they will probably say no but you might get lucky.
If you ordered via PayPal you can file a complaint with them even if you are outside the 45 day window. One customer has already gotten a refund from PayPal that was outside the 45 days.

If you ordered via BTC or Bank wire, you can fill out a complaint with the FTC and they will advocate for you with Butterfly Labs (BFL) to get your refund. You can also contact the office of the Kansas Attorney General and inform them that you have had your money taken with no product delivered for months, just more promises.

There are also several threads on how to get a refund from Butterfly Labs (BFL), here are two:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=266945.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=272585.0

Ugh, they are not giving up...
Guess I'm going to file a complaint. Anyone has any more tips for me? All welcome...

Code:

Hello,

We are not able to take action on your orders until they would become 6 months from the order date.
At that time, once they were eligible for a refund we would certainly honor such a request. 
If you do take legal action, we would be unable to take any further action on your order.

Dennis BF Labs

[1714138614]

1714138614

[1714138614]

1714138614

[1714138614]

1714138614

[k9quaint]

No matter what happens, file a complaint with the FTC.

Then let BFL know that you will be taking legal action against them if they refuse the refund.
If they still refuse then do just that:

If you paid by wire or credit card, call your bank and tell them you are a victim of fraud.
Call the Kansas state attorney's office and tell them you are a victim of a fraud put on by a company in their state.
Contact Sonny's probation officer and notify him that BFL is refusing refunds which is against US law.
Contact woodlaw.com, they are putting together a class action suit against BFL. http://www.woodlaw.com/cases/butterfly-labs-and-bf-labs-inc-bitcoin-miners

BFL has already lost one case in court. BFL claimed they would appeal the judgement and get it overturned, but they never did.

It looks like BFL will never get that card working right, it can't even hash for longer than a few minutes without overheating. That means they have never really tested their chips for long duration mining. With BFL's total lack of skills and serious power density, it is likely that the chips themselves will have local hot spots that kill performance.
Even if they get it working, it won't earn back more than you paid for it. Get your money while there is still money left to get.

[heldertb]

No matter what happens, file a complaint with the FTC.

Then let BFL know that you will be taking legal action against them if they refuse the refund.
If they still refuse then do just that:

If you paid by wire or credit card, call your bank and tell them you are a victim of fraud.
Call the Kansas state attorney's office and tell them you are a victim of a fraud put on by a company in their state.
Contact Sonny's probation officer and notify him that BFL is refusing refunds which is against US law.
Contact woodlaw.com, they are putting together a class action suit against BFL. http://www.woodlaw.com/cases/butterfly-labs-and-bf-labs-inc-bitcoin-miners

BFL has already lost one case in court. BFL claimed they would appeal the judgement and get it overturned, but they never did.

It looks like BFL will never get that card working right, it can't even hash for longer than a few minutes without overheating. That means they have never really tested their chips for long duration mining. With BFL's total lack of skills and serious power density, it is likely that the chips themselves will have local hot spots that kill performance.
Even if they get it working, it won't earn back more than you paid for it. Get your money while there is still money left to get.

Thank you so much, complaint is filed, file din at woodlaw, said I will contact Sonny's probation officer and Kansas attorneys,
The problem with the payment is that I payed the card with a wire transfer and upgraded to imperial with Bitcoin...

[heldertb]

Okay so I have been banned from BFL forums for no reason( I didn't post anything on the forums for a few days now, and never posted anything that's really offensive against BFL). I know SloK (administrator of BFL forums) is lurking around here and reading these posts, hey SLoK! How are you? (:
I find it weird that they ban me on their forum when I haven't done anything wrong on it. I feel a little bit attacked here. It was not the right thing to do from them I think. But moving on...

And to be honest, I've been emailing back and forth with customer service of BFL, and it has always been really clean and gentle, I've been very polite from the beginning till the end. I haven't done anything that's out of the blue, haven't contacted Sonny V's probation officer yet or contacted Kansas Attorney's office. To me, it seems they are trying to get rid of me or something...

[Unacceptable]

Tell Josh to "eat a bag of dicks",it's worked for a refund before 

[Bicknellski]

Okay so I have been banned from BFL forums for no reason( I didn't post anything on the forums for a few days now, and never posted anything that's really offensive against BFL). I know SloK (administrator of BFL forums) is lurking around here and reading these posts, hey SLoK! How are you? (:
I find it weird that they ban me on their forum when I haven't done anything wrong on it. I feel a little bit attacked here. It was not the right thing to do from them I think. But moving on...

And to be honest, I've been emailing back and forth with customer service of BFL, and it has always been really clean and gentle, I've been very polite from the beginning till the end. I haven't done anything that's out of the blue, haven't contacted Sonny V's probation officer yet or contacted Kansas Attorney's office. To me, it seems they are trying to get rid of me or something...

Welcome to the club.

Surprised they haven't Doxed you yet... that is the next move.

[heldertb]

Okay so I have been banned from BFL forums for no reason( I didn't post anything on the forums for a few days now, and never posted anything that's really offensive against BFL). I know SloK (administrator of BFL forums) is lurking around here and reading these posts, hey SLoK! How are you? (:
I find it weird that they ban me on their forum when I haven't done anything wrong on it. I feel a little bit attacked here. It was not the right thing to do from them I think. But moving on...

And to be honest, I've been emailing back and forth with customer service of BFL, and it has always been really clean and gentle, I've been very polite from the beginning till the end. I haven't done anything that's out of the blue, haven't contacted Sonny V's probation officer yet or contacted Kansas Attorney's office. To me, it seems they are trying to get rid of me or something...

Welcome to the club.

Surprised they haven't Doxed you yet... that is the next move.

Doxed? :p

[Searing]

Okay so I have been banned from BFL forums for no reason( I didn't post anything on the forums for a few days now, and never posted anything that's really offensive against BFL). I know SloK (administrator of BFL forums) is lurking around here and reading these posts, hey SLoK! How are you? (:
I find it weird that they ban me on their forum when I haven't done anything wrong on it. I feel a little bit attacked here. It was not the right thing to do from them I think. But moving on...

And to be honest, I've been emailing back and forth with customer service of BFL, and it has always been really clean and gentle, I've been very polite from the beginning till the end. I haven't done anything that's out of the blue, haven't contacted Sonny V's probation officer yet or contacted Kansas Attorney's office. To me, it seems they are trying to get rid of me or something...

old 'gestapo' trick....if someone squeaks a bit and disappears...who's to say that they ever 'complained' about anything...? You were mucking up the advertising by BFL for newbie customers....you were 'culled' like a 'loud rooster in the early am"

standard operating procedure..it is 'always the customers fault..never BFL's"

Searing

[Bicknellski]

Okay so I have been banned from BFL forums for no reason( I didn't post anything on the forums for a few days now, and never posted anything that's really offensive against BFL). I know SloK (administrator of BFL forums) is lurking around here and reading these posts, hey SLoK! How are you? (:
I find it weird that they ban me on their forum when I haven't done anything wrong on it. I feel a little bit attacked here. It was not the right thing to do from them I think. But moving on...

And to be honest, I've been emailing back and forth with customer service of BFL, and it has always been really clean and gentle, I've been very polite from the beginning till the end. I haven't done anything that's out of the blue, haven't contacted Sonny V's probation officer yet or contacted Kansas Attorney's office. To me, it seems they are trying to get rid of me or something...

Welcome to the club.

Surprised they haven't Doxed you yet... that is the next move.

Doxed? :p

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

1. doxed

Having your real personal information (e.g. name, address, phone number)
discovered and revealed on the Internet, destroying anonymity.

"This pissed off  BFL so much that heldertb was doxed,
just liked they did to Xian01, Bicknellski and countless others.
BFL are truly assholes ."

Of course BFL usually takes it to another level like calling you a pedophile or try to get you fired from your job.

[joeventura]

Friends if you can't take the following information and use it in an email to Butterfly labs to get an immediate refund then I really don't think you deserve a refund.

I would give them 3 days to issue a refund and then you fax the ADA and Probation officer and you Email the Attorney for Butterfly Labs/Sonny Vleisides

Here you go:

Butterfly Labs Attorney for Sonny Vleisides

Shazzie Naseem

snaseem@berkowitzoliver.com
snaseem@bowse-law.com

District Attorney handling Vleisides Probation

Kate Mahoney
Asst District Attorney Western District
Kansas City MO
Fax # 816 426-4210
Regarding Cases:
 4:11-cr00125-DGK
11-00125-01-CR-W-GK

United States of America
v.
Sonny Vleisides

Vleisides Probation officer


Courtney Pierce
US Probation Officer
Kansas City MO
Fax # 816-512-1313
Regarding Cases:
 4:11-cr00125-DGK
11-00125-01-CR-W-GK

United States of America
v.
Sonny Vleisides


If this helps you get a refund, and you would like to show your appreciation please let me know.

[Bicknellski]

Friends if you can't take the following information and use it in an email to Butterfly labs to get an immediate refund then I really don't think you deserve a refund.

I would give them 3 days to issue a refund and then you fax the ADA and Probation officer and you Email the Attorney for Butterfly Labs/Sonny Vleisides

Here you go:

Butterfly Labs Attorney for Sonny Vleisides

Shazzie Naseem

snaseem@berkowitzoliver.com
snaseem@bowse-law.com

District Attorney handling Vleisides Probation

Kate Mahoney
Asst District Attorney Western District
Kansas City MO
Fax # 816 426-4210
Regarding Cases:
 4:11-cr00125-DGK
11-00125-01-CR-W-GK

United States of America
v.
Sonny Vleisides

Vleisides Probation officer


Courtney Pierce
US Probation Officer
Kansas City MO
Fax # 816-512-1313
Regarding Cases:
 4:11-cr00125-DGK
11-00125-01-CR-W-GK

United States of America
v.
Sonny Vleisides

New Signature linked to this post... thanks Joe.

[Bicknellski]

June... nearly 2nd week in where are the Monarchs?

[Pokokohua!]

Of course BFL usually takes it to another level like calling you a pedophile or try to get you fired from your job.

proof, it is just another lie from bicknell who calls people shills and corrupt at random, but never came up with proof for all his calls when asked for, so try again

just read his post history, you will get the picture

[Bicknellski]

I see nothing.

No miner.

No hashing.

Let us see what BFL customers are posting shall we?

Code:

Imperial Monarch overclocked to 1.6TH/s = 1100W -1200W draw 
(or about 100A @ 12Vdc). 
Feed through 12 (6+ and 6 grnd) 18-20ga wires to two PCIe connectors 
(550W-600W per connector). 
Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. 
Or at best, yet another circuit card re-design/shipping delay.
Adding copper to the power supply plane on the card fixes the 
power plane overheating issue, but one is left with the issue of getting the power into the card.

Not to mention the heat dissipation of ~3600 Btu (per card) each. 
Enough to heat a small well insulated house in a Minnesota winter.

Assuming an 80% efficient supply, current draw "at the wall" will be 
~1500W or 12.5A @ 120VAC (one supply per 15A circuit).

Pretty much condemns this card to one per 4u rackmount case.

Industry standard for 45u-48u racks is a power supply of 4Kw-4.5Kw per rack 
(thermal dissipation into/out of the rack is designed to match this). 

This means 3 overclocked Imperials per rack. Pretty low rack density 
(4.8TH/s per rack).

Another writes:

Code:

Could you please stop ignoring completly your customers and answer the 
question? Will we ALL get a compensation after 6 month of waiting or it's 
just for the first batch of customers and F*** the rest? 

Answer the question or I'll have to ask for a refund. I don't want to receive 
my miner at 50bil difficulty without any compensation. Because if you don't 
realize that already, it will go up like crazy (especially when KnC starts shipping) 
and let's be honest they will probably do it before BFL since all shipping info from 
BFL is completly unreliable.

Josh writes:

Code:

Adding more copper to the power plane is a trivial change. 
The new boards will be in KC on Thursday (I guess that's tomorrow... 
I don't even know what day it is anymore.) last I heard... I will have 
to verify that when I get back.

As a side note, if you are planning on doing any overclocking or running an 
Imperial, please be sure your PSU has 16ga wire for the PCIe connectors. 
If you have a cheap PSU that has 18ga wiring, you are going to be a very 
sad panda at some point I would imagine. The warranty will not cover melted 
connectors due to incorrect wire sizing. Most quality PSUs should have 16ga 
wires for their PCIe connectors.

And it continues on and on...

Code:

I am so deeply sorrowed I had to req. a refund because my 20k order has 
become so worthless after delay by delay, its like someone whom I loved , 
took of without a reason. I know it sounds disturbed/sick. But it's true

and on...

Code:

I don't think there is any debate as to who the market leader is. 
KNC released their 28nm device in october. They are now racing to complete 
their 20nm chip.

Yes BFL shipped a crap load of 65nm devices, maybe more than anyone 
else but they won't publish numbers to verify one way or the other.

As far as shipping this month goes, I wouldn't hold my breath. They might 
get a few boards out to media people and developers by the end of the 
month, but realistically they won't be into full production before mid next 
month if all goes perfectly from this point on.

Here's the math: next revision end of this week (or early next)
At least a week of testing before you can commit to a design
At least two weeks before you can have any volume of boards in your hands
Then they need to get their assembly line going which will take some time (figure another two weeks.)

This puts us in the middle of July, and that's if thins go perfectly from this point forward.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I cant see how its possible to get any volume before mid July.

and on...

Code:

The very best case is July. The realistic best case is mid July. If even 
one single thing doesn't go perfectly we are looking at August before you see any volume.

and on...

Code:

I purchased my order in March of 2013 and I know we have been compensated 
once already because of the initial delay (As I initially bought 6 Monarchs, $28K total, 
which then turned into getting 6 Imperial Monarchs and 6 additional 600GH Monarchs) 
but now because of this delay is BFL still looking at another compensation? I know Josh 
stated they were thinking about MBGH but he wasn't sure if that route would be taken. 
Is there another route that BFL may go Josh?

Feel bad for these people.

[Pokokohua!]

As always, accuses only, and Bicknell is weaseling out again, probably by pretending he has me on ignore

[Zelek Uther]

Of course BFL usually takes it to another level like calling you a pedophile or try to get you fired from your job.

proof, it is just another lie from bicknell who calls people shills and corrupt at random, but never came up with proof for all his calls when asked for, so try again

just read his post history, you will get the picture

Pokokohua!, you called him a pedophile here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=280630.msg6977288#msg6977288

And used his IRL name too. Very bad taste. Nastiest possible smear campaign. What proof do you have for this libel? What motivation do you have for these lies?

This thread is not about Bicknellski, it is about Monarch delivery dates. And yes, we do have proof that they are late because they were planned for delivery in Nov/Dec 2013 and it's now June 2014 and still no Monarchs.

[maxman190]

Of course BFL usually takes it to another level like calling you a pedophile or try to get you fired from your job.

proof, it is just another lie from bicknell who calls people shills and corrupt at random, but never came up with proof for all his calls when asked for, so try again

just read his post history, you will get the picture

Pokokohua!, you called him a pedophile here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=280630.msg6977288#msg6977288

And used his IRL name too. Very bad taste. Nastiest possible smear campaign. What proof do you have for this libel? What motivation do you have for these lies?

This thread is not about Bicknellski, it is about Monarch delivery dates. And yes, we do have proof that they are late because they were planned for delivery in Nov/Dec 2013 and it's now June 2014 and still no Monarchs.

Looool, I just read an article saying that BFL promises that April 2014 was going to be the last set back.

[Bicknellski]

Of course BFL usually takes it to another level like calling you a pedophile or try to get you fired from your job.

proof, it is just another lie from bicknell who calls people shills and corrupt at random, but never came up with proof for all his calls when asked for, so try again

just read his post history, you will get the picture

Pokokohua!, you called him a pedophile here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=280630.msg6977288#msg6977288

And used his IRL name too. Very bad taste. Nastiest possible smear campaign. What proof do you have for this libel? What motivation do you have for these lies?

This thread is not about Bicknellski, it is about Monarch delivery dates. And yes, we do have proof that they are late because they were planned for delivery in Nov/Dec 2013 and it's now June 2014 and still no Monarchs.

Looool, I just read an article saying that BFL promises that April 2014 was going to be the last set back.

There is not limit to where they can delay this product. Read the way they claim to do the testing. They reserve the right to assign units to you only when they deem them "passed" their QC. Now in a real business you would hope that company doesn't start selling units until they have designed and tested them. Unfortunately the pre-order game that BFL plays hurts the customer on so many levels. The only way to get out from under BFL is litigation or threats of litigation. The best way is NEVER GIVE THEM MONEY. Why would anyone do that given there are working cheaper products off the shelf right now.

Here is the irony about being the focus of BFL's hate mongering and slander is they just drive off more and more potential targets to buy their BS Monarch and their EclipseMC Gigahash Buys. Good grief they haven't even given people the hash rate they promised for cloud mining. Can't they fire up some old tech and make people whole?

What a bunch of crooks.

This slander is intended to misdirect the thread off of the following information:

Friends if you can't take the following information and use it in an email to Butterfly labs to get an immediate refund then I really don't think you deserve a refund.

I would give them 3 days to issue a refund and then you fax the ADA and Probation officer and you Email the Attorney for Butterfly Labs/Sonny Vleisides

Here you go:

Butterfly Labs Attorney for Sonny Vleisides

Shazzie Naseem

snaseem@berkowitzoliver.com
snaseem@bowse-law.com

District Attorney handling Vleisides Probation

Kate Mahoney
Asst District Attorney Western District
Kansas City MO
Fax # 816 426-4210
Regarding Cases:
 4:11-cr00125-DGK
11-00125-01-CR-W-GK

United States of America
v.
Sonny Vleisides

Vleisides Probation officer


Courtney Pierce
US Probation Officer
Kansas City MO
Fax # 816-512-1313
Regarding Cases:
 4:11-cr00125-DGK
11-00125-01-CR-W-GK

United States of America
v.
Sonny Vleisides


If this helps you get a refund, and you would like to show your appreciation please let me know.

[smoothie]

Got the first reply saying I'm not eligible and blablabla, going to pull the FTC rules now...
Here's the response:

Code:

Hello Helder,

BF Labs, Inc. is offering refunds for any orders 6 months or older. If your order is less than 6 months old, you are not eligible for a refund at this point in time. 
If your order does not ship within 6 months of the order date, you will be eligible for a full refund OR a 50% voucher for an additional Monarch card, OR a doubling of purchased hashrate of our Mining By The GH service. 
Note: if you purchased your product during our Black Friday or End of Year sales events, you will not receive a 50% off voucher.
At this time, your order dates do not qualify for a refund request. 
If the time should come that they reach 6 months past the order date and we have not filled your order, then a refund request would be honored, or the other options mentioned would be available if you would decide to keep your order.
In addition, when we do refund, we use the same means that we received funds. Bitcoin payments would be refunded through Bitpay, but bank wire transactions would be returned in that manner. 

Dennis BF Labs

Dennis' claim is bullshit.

Saying your order needs to be 6 months old or older is saying that you are an investor that can't pull your money out of the house of cards until we are ready to get you your money back to you.

A consumer has a right to request a refund. Failure to do so has many legal implications.

BFL needs to tread softly or else they will end up in court and bankrupt purely by their customers (i mean investors).

[Bicknellski]

Yup smoothie... that is all true... so where do you go to get that refund? Well just let the court officers know this is the sort of emails you are getting. Let us see how quickly the BFL tune changes. Might be time for ARStechnica to write a new article to include the recent houses and what not bought by BFL shareholders. Nice they have the money to get those nice McMansions but nothing for refunds.

Friends if you can't take the following information and use it in an email to Butterfly labs to get an immediate refund then I really don't think you deserve a refund.

I would give them 3 days to issue a refund and then you fax the ADA and Probation officer and you Email the Attorney for Butterfly Labs/Sonny Vleisides

Here you go:

Butterfly Labs Attorney for Sonny Vleisides

Shazzie Naseem

snaseem@berkowitzoliver.com
snaseem@bowse-law.com

District Attorney handling Vleisides Probation

Kate Mahoney
Asst District Attorney Western District
Kansas City MO
Fax # 816 426-4210
Regarding Cases:
 4:11-cr00125-DGK
11-00125-01-CR-W-GK

United States of America
v.
Sonny Vleisides

Vleisides Probation officer


Courtney Pierce
US Probation Officer
Kansas City MO
Fax # 816-512-1313
Regarding Cases:
 4:11-cr00125-DGK
11-00125-01-CR-W-GK

United States of America
v.
Sonny Vleisides


If this helps you get a refund, and you would like to show your appreciation please let me know.