Re: Black Arrow 28nm 100Ghash Bitcoin ASIC from $0.49/GH/s

[BitCoin Operated Boy]

Why would a competitor need to try and keep customers away from you? You are doing a DAMN GOOD job of that yourself.

We have always been upfront and never lied to our customers. We always kept them up to date with what is going on.


Regards!

Dear BlackArrow -- I have a very simple question.

You said the following on your most recent update:

3.Deliveries of all X-3 current orders will be completed by the end of the month.

Today is July 29 and my "shipment information" on my Black Arrow account is blank.  I'm assuming that this means you haven't yet shipped my X-3.  

The question is:  Do you promise based on your communication above that my X-3 will be shipped within 2 days, by July 31?

Thank you.

July 31 came and went, despite BA's promise that all X-3 orders would "be completed by the end of the month". 

The worst part is not the delay, it's that I've never seen a company, not only blatantly lie, but then with a completely straight face tell the world that

We have always been upfront and never lied to our customers. We always kept them up to date with what is going on.

Unbelievable.  In my so many years, I've never seen a company lie like this.  I get that sometimes things get screwed up and shit happens.  But ... when you blatantly lie, your credibility is 100% out of the window.  Noone will ever believe you again.  Ever.  Is it that in China when parents raise children they teach them that lying is ok?  Or is it just the parent's of the owners of BA never taught them about lying?  Are the parents of BA owners totally and utterly ashamed of themselves for raising such losers in life?

U.n.b.e.l.i.e.v.a.b.l.e.... 

What do you expect? The director is an international con man who escaped Romanian authorities for major computer hardware fraud in 2003.

[notbatman]

If they x-ray the package will it damage the bitcoin miner?

[notbatman]

At 1.1 lbs perhaps it's one of those power ropes.

[Pentax]

first x3 on the wild

Just curious, as you ordered one X1 at the end of November last year, when did you order the other and the X3?

Edit: I found the post on ecointalk, so I will assume you are not claiming this to be yours after all ;-)
However, it was posted by Jumbley so it doesn't count.

Is that Jumbley in the Pic?

Taller than I pictured him....

[notbatman]

Somebody claimed 800W, what`s going on here?

[DebitMe]

@bobsag
What about the warranty seal?? Do you ship some new ones together with the LCD?
Or how is that working? We have to open the Box to install the display ....

I honestly can't remember what the warranty even is?  what does it cover, what's the length? Is it transferable if the unit is sold? How is it handled if bought through a third party?

[notbatman]

What kind of timeframe are we looking at here to finally be free of this madness; end of August? What about compensation units; September, October?

We'll be approaching a year long wait for some customers.

[notbatman]

"... Scammer or spammer, you decide."

It's been 8 months and no ROI so far. Definitely a scam as the email didn't go in the spam folder like BA emails normally do.

[breakingcode]

Has anyone else just got email spam about an XBTec PACIFIC V2 machine to an email address they've only used at blackarrow? I'm wondering if they've sold/passed-on their customer/victim database to someone else, or had it exploited?

Yep, same here. Email address used only for the Black Arrow order, nowhere else. The bulk mailing has been sent via MailChimp, there's an abuse report address in the email header.

Whois search indicates it's owned by Artem Solodkiy. First registered 16th May 2014, yet the About page reckons they were founded in 2012.

The Pacific 1250 even uses the same PSU as the Prospero X3.
Rear of Pacific 1250


Rear of Prospero X3


X3 PSU (model AP188)


Looks to me like Black Arrow is getting ready to jump ship and start scamming under a new name (seeing as the BA name will be forever mud it's the logical thing to do). In any case XBTec have obtained email addresses without permission, which gives you some idea of how trustworthy they are. Scammer or spammer, you decide.

PACIFIC V2
The Best Miner Available Today
XBTec* unveils a 1.57TH/s compact bitcoin miner with the fastest ROI for a period of less than 3 months, for the price $1399! The power consumption is only 0.8W per GH, which is the most effective solution available today.
 
In development of this miner many shortcomings of previous miners were taken into consideration. In order to achieve such performance with such sizes and power consumption, we had to overcome multiple complex technical problems. Here are some photos of our first model PACIFIC 1250 which is available in stock:
 
XBTec PACIFIC V2 is a joint product of Chinese and Russian engineers. Today it is the most competitive bitcoin miner in terms of price, power consumption and size. Our engineers have optimized the architecture of the PCB board. While developing the miner, we took into account how important it is for the users that the hardware does not emit excessive noise. Indeed, many people use these devices at home, where unnecessary noise is undesirable.

The PCB boards and aluminum cases are ready now! The miners will be shipped on August 31st. We have a special offer on the pre-orders: just use this promotion code kdie8-rjdy2-274jf-3lroe and get $100 extra discount (valid for the first 100 orders only).
 
Moreover, XBTec is preparing to bring a cloud mining solution into the market. The capacity of the data center will be 1 Petahash.
 
*The company’s headquarters is located in Hong Kong. Its developers are based in Moscow and Shenzhen. Factory is located in Shenzhen.

This will let them use the excuse "Oh very sorry please, after giving first compensation Black arrow no longer has money, so NO MORE COMPENSATION FOR YOU!, we did what we could, but you all very bad people, now we go away because you very bad man. Never contact us after this because we all go away now." And just start scamming under new names.

[goozman96]

I never received an email from XBTec. Perhaps because I ordered from Minersource. However, I did receive that one email from Black Arrow about an update not too long ago, so I'm guessing Minersource had passed my email to Black Arrow. Interesting situation indeed..

[breakingcode]

"... Scammer or spammer, you decide."

It's been 8 months and no ROI so far. Definitely a scam as the email didn't go in the spam folder like BA emails normally do.

XBtec obviously has someone inside BA so maybe the delays weren't all BS and they were being sabotaged from within but I'd still lay blame on BA management for not seeing something was amist . I mean who has access to your email list as well as your chip design and your component list .

No one sabotaged their basic ability to design or communicate, that's just the byproduct of being complete fail as a legitimate company. This is standard spin off because their name in the industry is garbage and if they sold those as BA products they would have to admit that they basically never marked the price down for the sole reason of not having to give even more discounts/compensation based on their inability.

New name means new scams and/or ditching inventory without the BA stigma.

[DebitMe]

So now on top of their utter incompetence and failure, one of two scenarios is happening...

One, either they have sold your email to a third party company, which they probably made a lot of money on as a targeted list of emails associated with people who they know have purchased bitcoin miners, will be pretty expensive.
Or
Two, they have spent the last couple of months developing a mew company/brand as anything that has to do with BA is synonymous with fail and utter incompetence.  They have developed slightly different looking cases and are trying to sell products with the same specs as the X-3 to you.

Either way, Bobsag you need to confirm as to whether email addresses from purchases through you have been given to BA?

[notbatman]

"In development of this miner many shortcomings of previous miners were taken into consideration."

Marketing hot tip: don't specifically state that you're an epic failure in your mixed meat byproduct.

[goozman96]

So now on top of their utter incompetence and failure, one of two scenarios is happening...

One, either they have sold your email to a third party company, which they probably made a lot of money on as a targeted list of emails associated with people who they know have purchased bitcoin miners, will be pretty expensive.
Or
Two, they have spent the last couple of months developing a mew company/brand as anything that has to do with BA is synonymous with fail and utter incompetence.  They have developed slightly different looking cases and are trying to sell products with the same specs as the X-3 to you.

Either way, Bobsag you need to confirm as to whether email addresses from purchases through you have been given to BA?

Nope.

Then how come I received an email from black arrow not too long ago about a production update? I never ordered from black arrow. And plus, this was after I had already received my refund and settled my situation. Is it possible that they simply sent that one email to everyone who had registered on ecointalk.net?

[DebitMe]

So now on top of their utter incompetence and failure, one of two scenarios is happening...

One, either they have sold your email to a third party company, which they probably made a lot of money on as a targeted list of emails associated with people who they know have purchased bitcoin miners, will be pretty expensive.
Or
Two, they have spent the last couple of months developing a mew company/brand as anything that has to do with BA is synonymous with fail and utter incompetence.  They have developed slightly different looking cases and are trying to sell products with the same specs as the X-3 to you.

Either way, Bobsag you need to confirm as to whether email addresses from purchases through you have been given to BA?

Nope.

Then how come I received an email from black arrow not too long ago about a production update? I never ordered from black arrow. And plus, this was after I had already received my refund and settled my situation. Is it possible that they simply sent that one email to everyone who had registered on ecointalk.net?

I was going to suggest if you registered on ecointalk, better go check my alternative email address I used there.

[DebitMe]

This XBTec development might give us some great insight into why the multiple redundant design teams (for example, on the backplate) and why compensation promises are not being honored. Definitely a possibility, the hashing screenshots they show are not inconsistent with it being minions, and the specs they quote are totally consistent with an optimistic over promise of minion performance.

This is pretty exhausting now, for the next several months to a year every new ASIC manufacturer is basically going to have to prove that they aren't Black Arrow!

Should be pretty easy, provide some customer support, lol!

This XBtec account already seems to have some marks on it for failure to pay signature campaigns.  Signature campaigns haven't really been BA's style, but not honoring by paying is right up there alley.

[notbatman]

The comments on ecointalk are that XBTec is a Russian BA reseller that jumped ship.

[notbatman]

1Th/s units are being sold from stock by various vendors for about $1500.

[notbatman]

"Our immersion cooling systems are 3 times cheaper than their counterparts from the United States, China and Germany." -- XBTec

This statement raises more questions than it answers.

[notbatman]

I can't seem to wake up from this nightmare, how did I get here? What year is it? Who is that strange man?

Money, time, revenue, boxes full of magic crystals and my sanity all in short supply. I'm also fairly sure they've been draining energy directly from my soul but I can't prove that.