Bitcoins no longer accepted @ BFL / ordering BFL single / no customer service

[cablepair]

Just curious if anyone has successfully ordered BFL single , and how its going.

Starting to think they are like overwhelmed by orders or something because in the past they answered emails right away and I cant seem to get ahold of them, trying to place an order for 2 BFL singles with dwolla - I was gong to pay in BTC, so I placed an order for it with BTC but then the next day they took BTC off as a payment option so I placed a new order this morning to pay with dwolla and emailed a coulple of times and called them.

Just wondering if anyone else is having better luck

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[cablepair]

How many people actually have these Singles? I am starting to get very suspicious nervous about the actions of BFL lately.

I am not accusing them of some kind of scam but it certainly occurs to me that something is very wrong there, something other than they are just so damn busy shipping out singles that they cant find the time to answer emails.

one thing for sure there is something going on there that we do not know about - some missing piece of this puzzle.

Is it possible their projected cost was totally wrong? That they pre-sold 100s of these things at $600 only to find out it costs twice that just to make them? if they are doing so much business why are they so under staffed? why is it no other fpga vendor can duplicate anywhere near as much speed for the same cost? Why is it that BFL has such little involvement on this forum when clearly the vast majority of their customers congregate here? Why did they stop taking Bitcoins as payment and why even if you order with Paypal and pay instantly do they not email you to confirm the order (this has been confirmed - over a week now no conf email)

I really do not want there to be any problems, and I am not trying to cause any problems or make any accusations but there are a lot of unanswered questions here and I find it very strange that they are not answering any questions or attempting to do any business now all of of the sudden.

I really think that BFL as a business that stands to make a small fortune off of this community they owe us some answers.

I placed my order for two BFL singles 7 days ago today and can not get any answers.

Does anybody else starting to feel like they are not telling us something?

[finway]

Sure, this is a smart scam.

[rjk]

stuff

Patience is a virtue, my friend. How about the rest of us that placed orders in november/october?

In other words, ME FIRST!

[cablepair]

i hope you get it soon!

[Pipesnake]

Sure, this is a smart scam.

Agreed.  Brilliant execution, especially with the pre-production units adding faux validity.

[cablepair]

something is not right here. Supposedly they are working day and night to make shipments happen , to the extent that they have completely abandoned all customer service, yet there are people who have been waiting well over two months that cant get shipping confirmation or even response to email. I placed an order over a week ago (with dwolla) and cant get a response. I have a friend who ordered two of them on the same day and paid with paypal and although they took his money from his paypal account has not even received an order confirmation email.

Goat, would you mind posting a list here of the known people who have received the BFL?

thanks.

[Littleshop]

I find it ironic that people waiting three months for a BFL single who prepaid (I guess that is everyone) could have sunk the money in traditional mining gear and returned most of the money by now.  I know that for people with high electricity costs this may not be true, but for others with average power pricing this probably has not been the best solultion.

I may buy a BFL product, if they start delivering within days instead of months and if BTC maintains profitability like it is now. 

[jago25_98]

this is why i went via paypal. If it doesn't arrive in 3 weeks i'll dispute and order a more dev like board

[koin]

Why did they stop taking Bitcoins as payment and why even if you order with Paypal and pay instantly

so that records for revenues can be audited (without any question as to what the exchange rate will be).  so that suppliers and staff can be paid without having to convert?

just speculating here.

[deepceleron]

Is it possible their projected cost was totally wrong? That they pre-sold 100s of these things at $600 only to find out it costs twice that just to make them?

That would be a way clever scam, ship a few units out that actually cost $1500 to get more preorders before disappearing...

The setting up a run of multilayer circuit board manufacturing would be a big upfront cost, 10 or 1000, they still have to pay the setup fees, and that would be a bit writeoff to cut-and-run. It seems like they hand-assembled a few SMT boards to get them out there (they have pictures of the blank boards at their facility) and to make sure their redesign works with no bugs. After they see it works, then they submit an order for an overseas pick-n-place board assembler to manufacture them (and they have to send their recycled FPGAs to the manufacturer, who may have issues if the chips aren't taped for their assembly machine).

[Pipesnake]

They can't hire a kid for minimum wage whose sole purpose is to answer emails?

Lack of communication is not acceptable.  "Too busy" to answer emails is bullshit.  Even if the singles end up shipping somebody should get in there and teach those kids how to run a business.

[cablepair]

it makes no sense at all. If they were really doing so much business they would  hire someone to handle customer service - I mean seriously, something is really wrong there,  I dont know what it is but something is wrong there - and anyone who denies that is just well, in denial.

[boozer]

I live in KC.... according to their website, their office is close to where my wife works... I'll try to stop by and see what its like in person.  Might be a week or so though.

[legolouman]

I get the impression that a lot of people that spent a lot of money are getting very antsy about this. If one were to scam us, they would do it extremely elaborately; making 10 effective units at 3000 each is nothing if people make a bunch of orders for singles, and people decide to plunge in on a rigbox. It is unlikely that they are THAT busy with the few singles that were made on this production run, and that it is that difficult to prepare them to be shipped.

I've heard that only a few of these Rev2 boards were made, with the rest to be done in Rev3 boards. If they are that busy, they could email someone important about it, or set up auto replies. It is really odd.


RJK: Get the salt, I heard video cards are a little bland.


**The views contained in the preceding post were written by a radical BFL speculator.

[boozer]

I am from KC too. Their "office" is an apartment.

Well, I thought that's what Google Maps said was their, but I was finding that hard to believe, lol.. Guess stopping by wont do much then as it does not say which apartment their "office" is in, lol.

[kliffen]

I've been communicating with the guys over at butterflylabs lately alot. They seem very quick on the replies to me atleast, might just be the guy im mailing.

What worries me is the extreme delivery times, 15 weeks for the rig box

[Matthew N. Wright]

My biggest question about BFL labs is--- why don't they just mine coins themselves?

It's almost the same no-brainer question as with bitScalper.

With the boxes they designed on their own, they could be bigger than Deepbit in a short amount of time.

[jamesg]

My biggest question about BFL labs is--- why don't they just mine coins themselves?

It's almost the same no-brainer question as with bitScalper.

With the boxes they designed on their own, they could be bigger than Deepbit in a short amount of time.

Same reason why people make pickaxes and sell them to gold miners. It is much more predictable and repeatable to build something and sell it for a known price that you set than it is to mining coins who's value may be 0 tomorrow.

As for accepting bitcoins, I think they will start accepting them again soon.

[cablepair]

I've been communicating with the guys over at butterflylabs lately alot. They seem very quick on the replies to me atleast, might just be the guy im mailing.

What worries me is the extreme delivery times, 15 weeks for the rig box

talking to Sonny? Funny how they are answering emails quick for people interested in spending $30k but dont have time for people who have already spent $600

naa that does not sound suspicious at all does it... naaa 

[runeks]

this is why i went via paypal. If it doesn't arrive in 3 weeks i'll dispute and order a more dev like board

Bear in mind that in case of a scammer not using eBay, PayPal will only give you a refund if they can recover the money from the seller's PayPal account:

If you didn’t receive the item and you can’t resolve the problem with the seller, you can ask us to investigate by escalating your dispute to a claim. If we decide you are eligible for a refund, the amount you will receive is limited to the amount we can recover from the seller’s PayPal account balance.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48863.msg633446#msg633446

[Littleshop]

Pay with a credit card (even through paypal) and you can get your money back if nothing ships.  There are rules.  Lots of em but...

You need to file a dispute with paypal, even if it is unsuccessful.  If you do not do a PROPER paypal dispute, they will lock your account when you do the one through your credit card company.  Once the paypal outcome is set, and if you loose, you are allowed to do a credit card dispute.  If you are not doing fraud yourself you SHOULD be able to keep your paypal account and get your money back.  In this case, a seller that never shipped you should be able to get through this process.

[chungenhung]

Pay with a credit card (even through paypal) and you can get your money back if nothing ships.  There are rules.  Lots of em but...

You need to file a dispute with paypal, even if it is unsuccessful.  If you do not do a PROPER paypal dispute, they will lock your account when you do the one through your credit card company.  Once the paypal outcome is set, and if you loose, you are allowed to do a credit card dispute.  If you are not doing fraud yourself you SHOULD be able to keep your paypal account and get your money back.  In this case, a seller that never shipped you should be able to get through this process.

good luck getting anything from paypal.
They do nothing when you dispute, and claims they have fully investigated and still can't recover your funds.

[chungenhung]

I get the impression that a lot of people that spent a lot of money are getting very antsy about this. If one were to scam us, they would do it extremely elaborately; making 10 effective units at 3000 each is nothing if people make a bunch of orders for singles, and people decide to plunge in on a rigbox. It is unlikely that they are THAT busy with the few singles that were made on this production run, and that it is that difficult to prepare them to be shipped.

I've heard that only a few of these Rev2 boards were made, with the rest to be done in Rev3 boards. If they are that busy, they could email someone important about it, or set up auto replies. It is really odd.


RJK: Get the salt, I heard video cards are a little bland.


**The views contained in the preceding post were written by a radical BFL speculator.

They can't be THAT busy.
ngzhang on this forum has been shipping his own FPGA. If he can do it, why BFL can't?
Or maybe Chinese are just 1000x more serious about making money?

[MPOE-PR]

Even if the singles end up shipping somebody should get in there and teach those kids how to run a business.

This is true of most btc businesses tho. Young and wild yet.

[cablepair]

I just want to officially say that I see BFL picking it up and starting to do things right.

I personally believe they are not a scam in any way and are turning around the poor customer service they were offering early on