1GH/s, 20w, $500 — Butterflylabs, is it a scam?

[saethan]

Gotta love their storefront on streeview.  "Chambers Lofts" in Kansas City.  An apartment building.  Nice. 

[sadpandatech]

  Has anyone tried calling this 'company' or doing some due diligence in Kansas City(county) to see if that part of them is atleast real?



  Warning; TinFoil Hat Zone Ahead

  It is also possible that it is completely real, and completly designed under contract of NIST/DoD with a nice lil backdoor built in so they can 'control' the network either thru direct monitoring of IPs(transactions) or through direct attacks thru double spends or just zapping the things remotly all at once after there are enough out in the wild to be a significant part of the network hash rate...  

[gmaxwell]

 Warning; TinFoil Hat Zone Ahead

This isn't a realistic threat.  No sane hardware miner would have any transaction visibility or any communication with the outside of taking block headers in and out.

[sadpandatech]

 Warning; TinFoil Hat Zone Ahead

This isn't a realistic threat.  No sane hardware miner would have any transaction visibility or any communication with the outside of taking block headers in and out.

  Thats only true of the hardware aspect of such a miner. The software(backdoor) side could essentially do whatever the hell they coded it to do......

[wtfman]

+1 for scam.

makes no sense at all to offer such a fine piece for such a price

but gotta admit, the website is well done

[michaelmclees]

I see we haven't had the capitulation event yet.  Guess I'll stay in cash on MtGox for now.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I think it's rather ironic that people are discussing the benefits of being able to issue a chargeback against a merchant, on a bitcoin forum.  One of bitcoin's much touted features is the impossibility of chargebacks from customers who have been ripped off. 

Imagine if Butterfly Labs required payment in bitcoins.  No one would ever touch it.

IF I thought they were legit I would .... with escrow.

Personally I am so convinced that it is scam that I don't find chargeback reassuring.  Trust me it isn't foolproof.

Company says 60 days ETA for shipping.  They collect bunch of orders, collect the money (which clears from paypal within 7 days), close bank account shutdown website.  60 days later people try to chargeback and Paypal shows you the fine print where the 45 day window has elapsed.

[RandyFolds]

I think it's rather ironic that people are discussing the benefits of being able to issue a chargeback against a merchant, on a bitcoin forum.  One of bitcoin's much touted features is the impossibility of chargebacks from customers who have been ripped off. 

Imagine if Butterfly Labs required payment in bitcoins.  No one would ever touch it.

IF I thought they were legit I would .... with escrow.

Personally I am so convinced that it is scam that I don't find chargeback reassuring.  Trust me it isn't foolproof.

Company says 60 days ETA for shipping.  They collect bunch of orders, collect the money (which clears from paypal within 7 days), close bank account shutdown website.  60 days later people try to chargeback and Paypal shows you the fine print where the 45 day window has elapsed.

So you then dispute the charge with your credit card company or your bank, whichever your paypal transaction drew from. Their limits are much longer, on the order of 180 days if not more. This is why tradehill/dwolla was getting screwed, and why no one accepts credit cards for btc.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I am just telling you it isn't that simple. 

1) No cc has 180 day chargeback period.  Almost universally it is 60 days from your bill.  There may be some exceptions but they would be exception not the rule.

2) Your chargeback is against Paypal.  If they complied with all terms of service you have no grounds to change back.  Paypal will contest the chargeback and submit a copy of user agreement that you accepted indicating it if you that is in violation of the agreement.  Remember Paypal isn't the merchant.  You can't dispute the transaction w/ merchant through credit card company because your credit card didn't pay the merchant they paid Paypal.

3) Paypal user agreement states you won't chageback transactions and will submit to binding arbitration for any disputes.  It also gives Paypal the right to consider any chargeback to be a deliquent debt and they will come after any linked bank account for the balance and/or sell debt to collection agencies, and file it on credit reports.

So saying "just charge it back" is naive.  Chargeback should be a last resort.  A good idea is to not buy something you suspect might be scam.  A better idea is to NEVER use Paypal.  Even buying this scam product w/ credit card directly is better than using Paypal as you have more protection.

[Party Hard]

 Has anyone tried calling this 'company' or doing some due diligence in Kansas City(county) to see if that part of them is atleast real?

Smarts ideas - pick up a (gasp!) phone

[sadpandatech]

 Has anyone tried calling this 'company' or doing some due diligence in Kansas City(county) to see if that part of them is atleast real?

Smarts ideas - pick up a (gasp!) phone

  you mean I'd have to remove my fat, greasy fingers from the keyboard?!?!?!  Blasphemy!   

[plastic.elastic]

I am just telling you it isn't that simple. 

1) No cc has 180 day chargeback period.  Almost universally it is 60 days from your bill.  There may be some exceptions but they would be exception not the rule.

2) Your chargeback is against Paypal.  If they complied with all terms of service you have no grounds to change back.  Paypal will contest the chargeback and submit a copy of user agreement that you accepted indicating it if you that is in violation of the agreement.  Remember Paypal isn't the merchant.  You can't dispute the transaction w/ merchant through credit card company because your credit card didn't pay the merchant they paid Paypal.

3) Paypal user agreement states you won't chageback transactions and will submit to binding arbitration for any disputes.  It also gives Paypal the right to consider any chargeback to be a deliquent debt and they will come after any linked bank account for the balance and/or sell debt to collection agencies, and file it on credit reports.

So saying "just charge it back" is naive.  Chargeback should be a last resort.  A good idea is to not buy something you suspect might be scam.  A better idea is to NEVER use Paypal.  Even buying this scam product w/ credit card directly is better than using Paypal as you have more protection.

I dont feel bad for suckers. Afterall, the scam will work even if they only take bitcoin as payment.

[bitleaker]

I can't believe that someone purchased one of these without speaking to someone at the company. The site is such an obvious scam. It is offering technology that even the global masters in chip design have not been able to produce yet... and all produced from a leased inner city apartment.

I mean, come on, seriously?

[plastic.elastic]

I can't believe that someone purchased one of these without speaking to someone at the company. The site is such an obvious scam. It is offering technology that even the global masters in chip design have not been able to produce yet... and all produced from a leased inner city apartment.

I mean, come on, seriously?

no worries, they take paypal bro.

[Party Hard]

 Has anyone tried calling this 'company' or doing some due diligence in Kansas City(county) to see if that part of them is atleast real?

Smarts ideas - pick up a (gasp!) phone

  you mean I'd have to remove my fat, greasy fingers from the keyboard?!?!?!  Blasphemy!   

Nice 

[worldinacoin]

The driver links are all not working.   Nice site but maybe a more functional site will be better.

[Brian DeLoach]

Code:

Phone: 816 226 6966
Fax: 816 226 6966

Can a phone and fax number be the same?

[P4man]

Code:

Phone: 816 226 6966
Fax: 816 226 6966

Can a phone and fax number be the same?

Duh. Of course. Fax machine listens in on calls and if it hears that horrible beeping, it receives the fax. At least it worked like that 10 years ago when I still had a fax and a land line

[P4man]

To possibly prove a scam, Ive been looking very hard for a photo that resembles their "rig enclosure". I found only one that comes pretty close.
Here is the butterfly pic:



This is an OWC NAS:



It is very similar, but I have not been able to find a picture of the OWC from the same perspective and everything, so if this is a scam, it would probably mean they had studio photography done on a similar box (like the OWC) and then photoshopped it. Pretty elaborate for a scam. If its a 3D rendering, then its quite an excellent one.

Its hardly bullet proof evidence, but this thing may be legit. Its not like they needed fancy pictures of enclosures to make the scam work. And a more likely explanation for the similarity is that the cases are build by the same company using off the shelve parts and/or designs.


edit: on second thought, I focused on the white box, but the black box does seem more like a poor photoshop job:



Check the white around the LCD...

Hmmm.. okay, Im undecided

[worldinacoin]

Waiting for the Canary's field report