The Scam List

[Operatr]

It is good to see someone taking up the mantle of my previous scam watch thread, thanks for doing this OP! It is important for new miners to see this before buying.

I went back through my original list to see which of those sites is still operational if you would like to include them, thankfully the majority of them are either offline or completely gone now, unfortunately followed up by this latest crop of swindlers.  

Still Active (not including vendors that proved to be real later on):

http://www.gxmining.com/

http://asicrigs.com/
http://gpurigs.com/

I'm fairly sure all three are the work of the same miscreants due to each being very similar to each other.

[1715006831]

1715006831

[1715006831]

1715006831

[1715006831]

1715006831

[1715006831]

1715006831

[TheRealSteve]

Hey what about https://lsm-labs.com/

They certainly try hard to look legitimate; linkedin profiles and all.

I do however wonder why Brian Chee is aka Dr Ken Chu:

https://lsm-labs.com/team


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Chu_(businessman)

Edit: And Prakash Goya is also very stocktastic: http://smlme.com/images/sliderimage/20130723/bussiness-man.png

[TheRealSteve]

I complied threw in the 3 connecting ribbons [...] 650 dollars thrown out the window.

That's some expensive connectors  Can't just source those locally?  Edit: I see you're trying to do exactly that. Not that you should have to, I know, but...

I don't think Bitmain is a scam operation (plenty of people do have working hardware delivered) so much as just a (potentially) horribly mismanaged operation when it concerns after sales support and possible QC issues.  They wouldn't be the first; lack of organized communication plagued another well-known seller for a whilem but that seems to be in the past and they're now much more responsive).  While it would be great if every company was as communicative and responsible as e.g. BenTuras (OneStringMiner), I think that might be a pipe dream.  But that doesn't really make them scammers.

See also OP's notes and discussion on this on the first page of the thread; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=366659.msg3915964#msg3915964

[Zelek Uther]

Add. Bitmain... sold me a faulty s1 then asked me to disassemble it to send back only hashing boards and controller. I complied threw in the 3 connecting ribbons for good measure in case of broken wires..... Two weeks later they sent back the same equipment minus the 3 ribbons. When I emailed them the ribbons were missing they told me I didn't send them and added a frownie face in the email. 650 dollars thrown out the window. Don't trust them I'm reading more and more. People in the setup and trouble shoot are having the same problems. So basically this is what I learned they don't give fuck that your miners not working or that they fucked up and forgot the wires that connect it....... ohhhh so sorry better luck next time is what they might as well have said. Don't chance your money with Bitmain.

Sorry to hear about your trouble, I hope you are up and hashing soon.

Bitmain are not a scam, I personally own an S1 and an S2. Both are hashing right now.

Scams are companies that take your money and literally do not have a product, and never will have a product. They won't ship you anything, ever. That is what this thread is for.

[retro72]

Not technically a scam, but you need to be very wary when ordering with Cointerra.

If you request a refund you will have a fight getting a penny out of them. I was told 2-4 weeks for my refund. Its been 5 now and I still haven't received a penny of the $25k they owe me. Not only that they have ignored my last couple of emails. There's a growing thread of similar complaints on their forum. So definitely one to keep an eye on. 

It's getting to the point where I am looking at local debt collection agencies and court orders to go in and remove their furniture.

Fun times

[Chazaki]

AMT Should be on the list. Not a single miner which they claim they have shipped thousands of have been seen WORKING in the wild. Everyone has received broken crap, or like me, nothing at all. They don't honor the order numbers (I am 899 and they have shipped orders in the thousands). They refuse requests for refunds and will not even respond to me regarding where my order (that I placed in December 2013) is.

They are also facing a class action lawsuit. People need to watch out for AMT, they will NOT get what they paid for. Plain and simple.

[AngusCanine]

Add. Bitmain... sold me a faulty s1 then asked me to disassemble it to send back only hashing boards and controller. I complied threw in the 3 connecting ribbons for good measure in case of broken wires..... Two weeks later they sent back the same equipment minus the 3 ribbons. When I emailed them the ribbons were missing they told me I didn't send them and added a frownie face in the email. 650 dollars thrown out the window. Don't trust them I'm reading more and more. People in the setup and trouble shoot are having the same problems. So basically this is what I learned they don't give fuck that your miners not working or that they fucked up and forgot the wires that connect it....... ohhhh so sorry better luck next time is what they might as well have said. Don't chance your money with Bitmain.

Sorry to hear about your trouble, I hope you are up and hashing soon.

Bitmain are not a scam, I personally own an S1 and an S2. Both are hashing right now.

Scams are companies that take your money and literally do not have a product, and never will have a product. They won't ship you anything, ever. That is what this thread is for.

they called me liar and refuse to send thhe parts they lost as well as sending back the parts I already had, the thermal paste is still on the boards has same Smear pattern from when I took them off. Ya OK not a scam, but scammers for not doing their part as a business upholding their end. You get broken equipment your basically fucked..... FUCK Bitmain

[TheRealSteve]

Can most probably add http://www.extolabs.com/ to the list.  Thread here: Extolabs - legitimate ASIC maker or scam?.  tl;dr: the usual shiny website with unsubstantiated claims taking pre-orders while having nothing convincing to show and draws their staff member pictures from the interwebs, photoshopped chip images, etc.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

AMT Should be on the list. Not a single miner which they claim they have shipped thousands of have been seen WORKING in the wild. Everyone has received broken crap, or like me, nothing at all. They don't honor the order numbers (I am 899 and they have shipped orders in the thousands). They refuse requests for refunds and will not even respond to me regarding where my order (that I placed in December 2013) is.

They are also facing a class action lawsuit. People need to watch out for AMT, they will NOT get what they paid for. Plain and simple.

AMT should definitely be on the list, for there's still not one working complete unit that they shipped into the wild that's shown or claimed working.

[jjj0923]

Hey what does everyone think of Mining ASICs Technologies B.V. (MAT)?

There was an article about them in Bitcoin mag: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/11125/asics-litecoin-come/

And here is their store: https://www.mining-asics-technologies.com/shop/

With machines like that - I was astounded - yet they featured in Bitcoin mag yet it all looks too good to be true?

The team are listed with Linkedin profiles - one withe 350 connections, so that's two boxes ticked. But very long lead time is not good.

What do you think? Should we be trusting this one?

Regards
Estelle

Looks like a scam.

50mh miner is cheaper than 30mh.

All prices are just too low to be legit.

And September delivery is pretty late. I'm guessing this is so they can keep collecting preorder funds before people wonder why nothing is shipping.

def not a scam....

[crocko]

Put Bitmine.ch here too. http://bitmine.ch
They don't deliver.
They don't refund.
They only stole the money of the customers, me included.

[show_off]

This list is really helpful, thank you very much for your help

[crocko]

It seems that Bitmine.ch like to play with the nerves of the customers.
No sign of refund + penalities for my order #3876 from December 4, 2013 , delivery February week 3 batch #2
No sign of delivery of the Coincraft Desk + CPP  ..
Or Bitmine.ch just stole  my money ?
Hei, Bitmine.ch are you in the "silenzio stampa" ?

[jjj0923]

It seems that Bitmine.ch like to play with the nerves of the customers.
No sign of refund + penalities for my order #3876 from December 4, 2013 , delivery February week 3 batch #2
No sign of delivery of the Coincraft Desk + CPP  ..
Or Bitmine.ch just stole  my money ?
Hei, Bitmine.ch are you in the "silenzio stampa" ?

well then - this forum has members all over the world - ask someone to pay them a visit or even offer them some money to pay them a visit.

[glendower]

I'd like to second having Bitmine.ch added to the scam list.

I placed my order in November 2013 for February delivery.

I cancelled the order in April 2014 and requested a refund due to non-delivery.

I was told in June that due to the large number of refunds requested, they could not make them all in a timely fashion as their bank only allowed a certain number of transactions per month (a likely story... not).

I am still waiting for a refund which I doubt I shall see without legal action.

[clenell]

AMT Should be on the list. Not a single miner which they claim they have shipped thousands of have been seen WORKING in the wild. Everyone has received broken crap, or like me, nothing at all. They don't honor the order numbers (I am 899 and they have shipped orders in the thousands). They refuse requests for refunds and will not even respond to me regarding where my order (that I placed in December 2013) is.

They are also facing a class action lawsuit. People need to watch out for AMT, they will NOT get what they paid for. Plain and simple.

AMT should definitely be on the list, for there's still not one working complete unit that they shipped into the wild that's shown or claimed working.

If AMT miners is not on this list the whole thread had better be deleted. These guys are the biggest scammers on earth. Their newest spin on the mining industry is to take your money ($6,000 in my case) and wait 9 months until comparable hashing rates are a 1/6th of what they were - monetarily speaking. they claimed they had their own miners and were an American company. almost a year later, no miner, no refund, they are trying to give customers a re-branded chinese miner worth a 1/6th of what monies they took from customers LAST YEAR!

[Bicknellski]

Well well well...


How did AMT work out for people? Marto vouched did he?

True ralla, but marto74 is working closely with them.  He is the owner of technobit,and has vouched for them.  Of course that's not proof they are valid.

-edited..  damn spellchecker on my "smart"phone butchered that message and I didn't notice.  I guess they're only as smart as the user. 

Soo,your current 80GH miner consumes 80 watts,1 watt per GH.I read in an earlier post something about this being a Bitfury based miner.

Your 28nm stuff isn't ready yet   When will it go on sale,if it isn't already

Thanks!!!

Their boards they're showing are the Technobit HEX16b boards.
http://technobit.eu/index.php?id_product=54&controller=product&id_lang=1

What they've shown so far is that they can take Technobit's existing PCB and shove some of them into cases with the heatsink fins oriented the wrong way. No credible customers have reported receiving their Bitfury based units.

They haven't shown that they have done any engineering whatsoever, so it's extremely unlikely they have their own 28nm design on the way. By the same token given their pricing it seems hard to believe they could be using anyone else's 28nm products. It is on sale though.

I'd love to be wrong on this, but I would honestly be shocked if anyone who ordered a 1.2TH/s miner ends up getting it. I would suggest staying far away unless they can post something credible detailing their incoming design.

Found that on the AMT thread. Still seems fishy to me, also some people has pointed out that the AMT cabinet is just a NAS server, from another company. And the boards they are posting pictures of, is from technobit.

[t1tans]

Thanks for the list. I'll watch out for these scammers.

[opieum2]

AMT is a scam, plain and simple. The way it works is simple with them:
-Order hardware (Performance specs which is misrepresented on their site even now)
-Get an incomplete unit (in the case of customers months later)
-Run around when requesting replacement/RMA/refund
-They send out an underperforming/undervalued unit weeks/months later
-Profit!

They get to walk away with the amount paid, and people get stuck with an expensive paperweight.

They currently are using our funds to fight the very lawsuit customers brought against them. They also use said funds to get new petahash farms and all sorts of other cloud based mining deals. Additionally in the last few weeks it appears that AMT opened up 2 new offices one in China and another in Bulgaria. This obviously takes money to do. So the question is where are the refunds they promised very publicly? Nowhere. They have made various public claims and many have been lies. They only thing we know for sure is that Joshua Zipkin is a real person. Beyond that very little can be validated. He appears to be running a legitimate operation on the surface, but this is no different than BFL in practice. Delays, Distraction and Ignore all while difficulty rises and hardware does not ship. There are a number of other customers many spend thousands more in larger orders who are still waiting.

[BitcoinRuinedMyLife]

Can we nominate HASHRA?

Seems impossible to find a tracking number for a moonraker, maybe they will be the next BFL.