Alpha Technology Litecoin (Scrypt) ASIC Miner Order Batch 1 Now!

[vesperwillow]

Regarding when they placed the order, supposedly back in mid-May they were 'well on their way through the tapeout process, expecting delivery soon'. I want to say they expected delivery by the end of May, but can't recall if they said that particular deadline.

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[Mikebeav3r]

Does anyone have a copy of their ToS from the original order by any chance? There are 90+ pages in this thread and it'll take a good while to search for it, so just wondered if anyone had it on hand?
As for making a claim via your credit card company, how would that work if you used Paypal but used your card for the PP payment? Getting seriously peeved about this whole thing as I was expecting to see the miner in the next 2 weeks and now looks like we will be lucky to see it in the next 2 months , if ever !


Mike..

[s1gs3gv]

" … we are finalizing our systems to accommodate the ASIC so as soon as the chips arrive the boards will be ready"

It sounds like they are assembling their own boards and will just 'solder in the ASICs' when they get here. Good luck with that if they are BGA or QFN packages … or maybe they have an Infra Red Vapor Phase Reflow Oven in a Clean Room in the garden shed behind their place at 66 Dickenson Road, Moss Side ?

[s1gs3gv]

01/11/2013 Update:

1. Completing the design and prototyping of our ASIC chips has been our priority thus far, we will showcase this in an ASIC prototype in the coming weeks.

6 months later and here we are …

You gotta remember that when these guys talk about 'in the coming weeks', they don't mean yesterday or the day before, they mean some time in the future.

And when they talk about shipping 'from July 15-30' they mean some time in the future after July 15-30.


The most salient attribute of the future is that it is not now, and never will be.

[retro72]

Does anyone have a copy of their ToS from the original order by any chance? There are 90+ pages in this thread and it'll take a good while to search for it, so just wondered if anyone had it on hand?
As for making a claim via your credit card company, how would that work if you used Paypal but used your card for the PP payment? Getting seriously peeved about this whole thing as I was expecting to see the miner in the next 2 weeks and now looks like we will be lucky to see it in the next 2 months , if ever !


Mike..

I see they removed the whole announcement thread from their forum.

Anyway here is the earliest Terms of Order I have (from Feb 2014). It seems to be the original.

Pre-Order Terms and Process

Deposit

30% advance payment to be paid along with booking and registration. Balance payment of 70% shall be collected 8-10 weeks before shipment date. The exact shipment date shall be notified on our website.

Cancellation & Refund Policy

Within 0-1 month after receipt of payment: Full deposit will be refunded.

Within 1-3 months after receipt of payment: 75% of the deposit will be refunded.

Within 3-5 months after receipt of payment: 50% of the deposit will be refunded.

Please note a cancellation fee of £70 towards handling charges will be applicable along with any cancellation.

Shipping, Hashrate, Price Estimates & Announcements

Shipping  Booked shipments will be delivered within Q2/Q3 of Year 2014. Live updates shall be provided on exact shipping date. Shipping is worldwide.

Hashrate A minimum guarantee of 5 Mh/s and 25 Mh/s shall be given for respective products. There is a very high likelihood of hitting higher hash rates however it depends on what performance figures we reach at.

Pricing

Viper-5mh/s which can hash at 5 MH/s: £1350. Deposit- £405.

Viper-25mh/s which can hash rates at 25 MH/s: £5450. Deposit- £1635.

All prices are the same worldwide. And exclude shipping which will be added according to location on final payment.

Updates

As we go through the engineering process we will keep our customers regularly updated on our progress via Live Updates. We will try to disclose as much information as possible including the development updates with images/videos/statistics. It is advised that you subscribe to all the updates including twitter/web/newsletter etc which may contain information related to shipping date, hashing performance etc. We may also arrange for an open door invitation for our customers to witness the development and meet the team at a later point in time.

Dexcel Designs and Alpha Technology are innovators in Scrypt ASIC technology. Dexcel Designs are experts in design and production having rolled out several designs in various fields for various customers worldwide. We have all our target figures officially set, and may be using Global foundries 28nm/40nm process node. The team at Bangalore, India has been hard at work and now it is time for the community to get involved in this project, which should hopefully provide a good ROI to customers. Dexcel Designs having worked with several defense labs are highly experienced on designing high durable hardware. You can expect our products to be as fault free as possible.

Registration and Wishlist

We will open registration for customers before we open our pre-order books. Registration will open on 25/12/2013. During registration you can set up your shipping and billing address in preparation to launch.

You will be able to register here:  https://alpha-t.net/login-register/

We advise customers to add their desired item at the correct quantity.

Payment methods and Orders

Payment will be accepted in Paypal, Bank Transfer and Bitcoins. Please note order number generated is not representative of your place in the queue. Only until payment is made and your order status moves to ‘Processing’ state that is when you are placed in the queue for shipping.

Payments

You can view the status of your order anytime at My Account > View Order.

Paypal: You will be redirected to Paypal to make payment. If at any point your session expires or you exit the webpage your order will remain ‘Pending’ where you can make repayment via My Account > View Order. If your order gets cancelled, please create a new order. Paypal accepts payments in all fiat currencies (converted to £) using debit/credit card.

Bank Transfer: Once order is placed you will be sent an email with bank information. Your account will be set on ‘On-Hold’ status. You will need to make full payment as advised in your proforma invoice including any transfer charges directly into our bank account. For international payments (IBAN & BIC), and for local payments using our Account Number and short code. Once we receive payment we will automatically notify you via email and your My Account > Order Status will be set to Processing.

Bitcoin: You will be redirected to the BitPay processing site. There you will have a 15 minute session to pay via Bitcoins. Upon success your order status will change to ‘Processing’ and you will receive an email confirmation. If at any point your session expires or page cancels, your order will remain On Hold, in this case just create a new order.

Pro-Forma Invoice

While taking a deposit we will provide a pro-forma invoice.

VAT Payment

UK Customers pay added VAT (on final payment). Note. No local import duty and taxes for UK customers.

Non-UK customers will not pay any added VAT but may be responsible for paying local import duty and taxes.

Product Warranty

6 Months after shipment. Shipping charges will be notified at the time of the final payment

Conditions of order

Deposit Payments have open refunds as per the terms highlighted above.

The remaining payment to complete final assembly and shipment, will be required within 8-10 weeks of shipment date. If payment is not made in a set timely manner, we presume you no longer want the item, and will incur a majority penalty fee on your deposit refund and may be forfeited.

Our devices have been standalone with an easy to configure WebGui, however requires some basic technical skills.

Scrypt based cryptocurrency fluctuation and difficulty changes are not controlled by Alpha Technology and will take no responsibility on any kind of fluctuations.

Once you place this order it is understood that you have accepted the terms and conditions explained here.

Wholesale & Special Requests

Due to the high demand of our product and limited availability we will not be offering wholesale options or any special requests. All information regarding products have been publicly released and can be viewed on our website at alpha-t.net. Wholesale and custom options may be available at a later time.

Misc. Updates

Prices are the same worldwide. And any additional shipping cost will be incurred at final payment.

Deposit payment and final payment can be paid through different payment options, e.g. deposit can be paid with Bitcoins, and end payment with Bank Transfer.

After shipment we will be rolling out regular firmware and software updates.

Contact

To get the fastest response in regards to an existing order please email payments@alpha-t.net. Emails will be checked on a regular basis during the pre-ordering phase, and you may expect a response within 24 hours. In all your correspondence you are requested to kindly mention your Order number in the subject.

Alternatively you can contact our office at : +44(0) 161 871 8643. Phone lines will be open during local UK working hours.

All our information for our miners is publicly available and can be viewed at alpha-t.net. Any other questions can be emailed at info@alpha-t.net.
Pre Funding

We would like to double clarify, this is a pre funding project. This product is NOT in stock, shipping is expected to take a minimum of 6 months. Where funds are used to fully design & manufacture your ordered devices.

As for CC refunds, you need to contact your CC company and ask them to initiate a charge back.

[nwfella]

Best-case shipping date was July? Oh on the contrary, for day 1 people the best case was May/June, with a guaranteed-by of July.

My, how things shift. And I believe the others are correct, they'll likely be aiming for late August shipping. This goes back to what was discussed awhile back, they likely ran low on funds, and need the remaining funds to buy chips (either theirs from Drexel who claims they have no business with AT, or someone elses' chips) and then setup hardware to use the chips.

I would hope they already have all of the supporting equipment designed an in-house .... but why wouldn't they post about it if they did? Good luck to anyone stupid/brave enough to complete their orders, hopefully you get your gear.

And bumface, AT did this to themselves. Nobody could possibly harm them more than they did already. You can't possibly do more damage to a company who has shoved its crotch in the face of its customers and cursed them out, and then banned many of them (some who were just asking simple questions about how to complete payment) from the customer-service forum.

all im saying is, its too early to know for sure whats going on, and reporting them to agencys must be viewed as a last resort when we are 100% sure its a scam, that word is used way to loosely in this crypto scene. a delay is not a scam.a scam is a criminal endeavour where no product ever existed.i still give them the benefit of the doubt.and maybe i just refuse to loose the investment ^_^

Granted, still a bit early to call Alpha-t an outright scam...but certainly not too early to label this what it is:
An outright fail.

Given that they don't even have a functional prototype to show and chips haven't even tapped out yet, we will be lucky to see these units by the end of September at this point at which point they will literally be near-worthless.  I suspect most of us will be lucky to recoup 30-35% of our original investments into this hardware even if we manage to keep them running for 4-6 months (which is unlikely unless you have free electricity).

[Mikebeav3r]

Does anyone have a copy of their ToS from the original order by any chance? There are 90+ pages in this thread and it'll take a good while to search for it, so just wondered if anyone had it on hand?
As for making a claim via your credit card company, how would that work if you used Paypal but used your card for the PP payment? Getting seriously peeved about this whole thing as I was expecting to see the miner in the next 2 weeks and now looks like we will be lucky to see it in the next 2 months , if ever !


Mike..

SNIP.....

Thanks bud, will get onto the CC company tomorrow and will fire off an e-mail to Paypal, as I am sure they charge my card, then send the money over to Alpha.

[nwfella]

" … we are finalizing our systems to accommodate the ASIC so as soon as the chips arrive the boards will be ready"

It sounds like they are assembling their own boards and will just 'solder in the ASICs' when they get here. Good luck with that if they are BGA or QFN packages … or maybe they have an Infra Red Vapor Phase Reflow Oven in a Clean Room in the garden shed behind their place at 66 Dickenson Road, Moss Side ?

lmfao...sure they do!  And I'm the King of Sudan or at least I play one on TV

[retro72]

Thanks bud, will get onto the CC company tomorrow and will fire off an e-mail to Paypal, as I am sure they charge my card, then send the money over to Alpha.

NP.

BTW. I'm not sure if your the same guy but I read a post on the Alpha forums regarding UK consumer rights and the ability to send goods back up to 7 working days after receiving them. Well the buyer doesn't have to be in the UK to qualify, only the company does. As Alpha is a UK company, no matter where you are in the world you are covered by the UK DSR if you purchase their products. Alpha are bound by UK consumer law and have to refund you 100% of your money, deposits and all, if you decide to cancel.

Getting them to abide by the law is another matter entirely.

[duniek]

they should refund 100% to everybody

They get 1,6mln pounds minimum, if they put them to bank for deposit- in half year they should get about 40-50k pounds

easy money, 95% ppl wil be happy.

[Mikebeav3r]

Thanks bud, will get onto the CC company tomorrow and will fire off an e-mail to Paypal, as I am sure they charge my card, then send the money over to Alpha.

NP.

BTW. I'm not sure if your the same guy but I read a post on the Alpha forums regarding UK consumer rights and the ability to send goods back up to 7 working days after receiving them. Well the buyer doesn't have to be in the UK to qualify, only the company does. As Alpha is a UK company, no matter where you are in the world you are covered by the UK DSR if you purchase their products. Alpha are bound by UK consumer law and have to refund you 100% of your money, deposits and all, if you decide to cancel.

Getting them to abide by the law is another matter entirely.

Yep, one and the same

[bobtlk]

I don't believe anyone should pay before seeing at least a prototype working.

[anderl]

Best-case shipping date was July? Oh on the contrary, for day 1 people the best case was May/June, with a guaranteed-by of July.

My, how things shift. And I believe the others are correct, they'll likely be aiming for late August shipping. This goes back to what was discussed awhile back, they likely ran low on funds, and need the remaining funds to buy chips (either theirs from Drexel who claims they have no business with AT, or someone elses' chips) and then setup hardware to use the chips.

I would hope they already have all of the supporting equipment designed an in-house .... but why wouldn't they post about it if they did? Good luck to anyone stupid/brave enough to complete their orders, hopefully you get your gear.

And bumface, AT did this to themselves. Nobody could possibly harm them more than they did already. You can't possibly do more damage to a company who has shoved its crotch in the face of its customers and cursed them out, and then banned many of them (some who were just asking simple questions about how to complete payment) from the customer-service forum.

[anderl]

Additionally, some electronic (debit) cards with the Visa or MasterCard logo can be processed. Please be advised that in order to process your card, the name and billing address that you have set in the “My Account” area *must* correspond with the details of your card. Due to security measures, we cannot process your card if there is a different name and/or address associated with the card you’re trying to use, so please double check that your details are correct before trying to pay the invoice with your card. The shipping address can be different, this will cause no issue at all; but the billing address has to be exact and can be changed in your account area. We understand that this might be inconvenient for you should you have to pay multiple invoices, but for enhanced security purposes: we do not store your credit card details on our servers, and as such you must enter your CC details (number, expiration, CVV/CSC) manually for every invoice you wish to pay for. For your safety, it is always recommended to check that the address bar in your browser is green and shows “Alpha Technology (INT) Ltd” and that the address starts with “https://alpha-t.net/checkout”. Should you have any problems paying with your credit card contact us on payments@alpha-t.net and please never e-mail us your credit card details. Be advised that credit card acceptance depends on passing the mandatory fraud check of the credit card vendors themselves, called 3-D Secure. This check is done automatically in the background and requires no input or any action from your side. Please note that using a proxy server may adversely affect the fraud check. We thank you for your patience whilst we were working on adding the ability to accept credit cards and apologize for the delay on this.

And still as of now no confirmation to determine if your credit card is owned by a business and still no verification of a tax id or business number.  My, my they have gone to great lengths to detail all the steps surrounding credit card payment, fraud protection, paying on multiple invoices.  But not a single request to confirm your business identification.

we are finalizing our systems to accommodate the ASIC

What systems???  They have not shown a single photo of a single system/case/board to accommodate event a piece of lint let alone a chip.

so as soon as the chips arrive the boards will be ready and we will be able to produce a prototype

So its TRUE.  They do NOT have chips and will not get chips until they remit final payment to Drexel.  So basically their chips are held hostage because Alpha Tech does not have enough money to pay the remainder of the costs.  That is not good, not good at all.  This means that they could have had chips over a month ago but did not have enough cash to continue development.  Expert management there.

Oh nice finally a prototype!!!  But you first have to pay them so they can get chips so they can show you a machine that actually hashes.

We are aware it is half way through July (and passed our best case scenario date)

LOL Captain Obvious finally got a clue.  This is why they have been silent for so long.  They could not defend their position. 

Best case scenario?  Moving the goal posts.  July was a guarantee for delivery.  Just like the payment processor would be completed July 1st guaranteed.  But every time Alpha Tech fails they don't offer up any consolation to customers.  So what does it really matter if they say they guarantee anything.  Their words are worthless at this point.  SO many false promises broken.

and hope to be able to give you a shipping date as soon as possible

And even now no ship date.  They can't even project if they will get enough funds from credit card processing to remain solvent let alone be able to ship anything but empty cardboard boxes.



Here is how it will probably work. 

Worst Case scenario (most likely at this point.)

• 1 week ultimatum to make a final payment
• if they do not get enough funds, they will offer up a second ultimatum for final payment, they really mean it this time.
• Big discounts on remaining batch 1 units.  All those cancelled orders, and orders that are not completed.
• 3 weeks from now, they go bankrupt because they do not have the funds to get ships and assemble units.

Best Case scenario (rainbow farting unicorns)

• They get the funds to complete Drexel payment in 1 week
• 2 weeks from now they get delivery of the chips.  It is August 1st at this point
• At the same time get get cases and boards
• They hand assemble everything because they cannot afford a factory to build the units.  Yes a bunch of accountants will be working day and night putting chips on boards and putting them in cases and shipping them out.
• 5 unskilled laborers adding chips to PCBs.  They will be lucky to get 10 vipers done a day.
• August 15th - 70 vipers shipped
• August 25th - 70 vipers shipped, first 70 vipers stuck in customs
• Sept 5th - second batch of vipers stuck in customs, first 70 vipers released from customs.
• Sept 15th - first 70 vipers delivered. second 70 vipers released from customs.
• Sept 25th - first customers complain about overheating, hardware nounce errors, poor hashrates, immediately get banned from AT forums.
• Oct 5th - Fiaz stops assembling duties and focuses 24 hours a day on banning disgruntled customers and deleting posts.  Fiaz says that they only guaranteed 5MHs minimum and that the recent upgrades were best case scenario hashrates.
• Oct 15th - Fiaz changes terms and conditions hardware warranty to 10 days limited.

[cerberre]

Do not pay a penny to these guys. All we will get is a worthless piece of hardware in the best case scenario.

[cerberre]

Personally, I decided to file a court claim to get my money back.

[cdog]

I suspect most of us will be lucky to recoup 30-35% of our original investments into this hardware even if we manage to keep them running for 4-6 months (which is unlikely unless you have free electricity).

Why would I pay $7k to get back $3k? Lol

Im better off not paying and not mining at all, which I think should really be the lesson here.

Mining isnt profitable for individuals anymore. If you arent a hardware manufacturer, or a mining conglomerate working directly with the manufacturer, you cant ever win in this game.

But that makes sense, and honestly we are all fools for believing otherwise.

[anderl]

I suspect most of us will be lucky to recoup 30-35% of our original investments into this hardware even if we manage to keep them running for 4-6 months (which is unlikely unless you have free electricity).

Why would I pay $7k to get back $3k? Lol

Im better off not paying and not mining at all, which I think should really be the lesson here.

Mining isnt profitable for individuals anymore. If you arent a hardware manufacturer, or a mining conglomerate working directly with the manufacturer, you cant ever win in this game.

But that makes sense, and honestly we are all fools for believing otherwise.

THIS^^^^.  The major mining farms are all going the route of selling cloud mining shares.  They pass on the diminishing returns to the customers buying shares.  With the cash from the sold shares they buy more mining hardware, further diminishing returns which forces customers to have ot buy more shares, and the cycle goes on.   All the while the farm stays solvent on the backs of fools throwing away money.

[Meanotor]

Amex says:

1) Forget the 30% because they are more than 90 days.

2) For the 70%:
2.a) We understand there is no product and no delivery date.
2.b) We understand that if you do not pay within 2 weeks you can lose your product.
2.c) We advise you to pay today, not within two weeks, check 2.d and 2.e below.
2.d) From the minute you pay the charge will appear 2 days after, consider that time T0.
2.e) Count 80 days from T0. If no product is received then give us a call.
2.f) From the minute you give us a call after 80 days, our Security team will start investigation but you will have your money back regardless of whether they go bankrupt or not.
2.g) We will pay you back only the 70% though, not the 100%.


I really want not to pay because:
1) There is no working prototype.
2) Turns out Bitcoin is the only one that has any sensible value, Scrypt is not accepted anywhere, just a small group of people forging an altcoin. Not that SHA-256 is not THE worst of all.
3) Diminishing returns, cost of electricity, no dB noise information on the machine: it's not a real pot of gold

[anderl]

Anyone planning on starting an AT lawsuit thread?  There seems to be interest and a number of people have already started legal action individually. Better to group together as a class action.