I'd be treated with more respect if I paid 18K at a car dealership.

[Paladin69]

I am very close to just contacting Dwolla & Paypal to see what recourse I have for getting my money back from BFL and getting away from this headache that unfolded.

I have been waiting for a reply to my e-mails and voicemail for a week and still nothing.  Now they decide to take pre-orders for ASIC when October isn't even close to being here.  My place in line for ASIC is non-existent even though I put in my orders for a mini-rig and 4 sha256 singles in April.  I just can't get a response from BFL customer service.

If you were in my shoes what would you do?

What happens if I take delivery on the fpga mini-rig but do not feel comfortable with shelling out another 15K for the mini-rig SC?  What actual trade-in value do I have?  Can I only get a value of $7500 now in Single SC's if I don't want to spend the cash to match?  If I want my full 15K of value to go toward single SC's, should I just not take delivery on the mini-rig and just cancel it now?  I'm leaning towards this option but I'm really sick of not having product after all this time.  I want to mine some day as well and I will most likely not be in the 1/3 that gets product in October anymore.  Once I finally get mine would it even be worth it?

Does BFL have a payment plan?  For starters, my first payment would be putting the 4 sha256 singles towards the rig sc upgrade.  And additional payments could be made as I mine with the current fpga mini-rig I (hopefully) receive.

It would be nice if this were possible because I have yet to receive any product and shelling out another 15K up front to get on the mini-rig SC list feels very uncomfortable to me.

I'm also not even sure if mining will be worth it anymore.  That is why it is just difficult to pony up another $15K yet with no proof.  I'm beginning to feel like a huge sucker and the more time that goes on without a response makes me want out entirely.  Very upsetting.  They should have finished answering everyone's questions before jumping into new pre-orders IMO.

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[Bitcoin Oz]

You should contact consumer affairs in your state and see what they say about unconscionable conduct. Just because its bitcoin doesnt release them from having to act in good faith. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability

[Cablez]

Snip...

I feel you brother and I hope you come out of this whole mess on top.

[Luceo]

At very worst case scenario, you should be able to sell your Minirig for ~5% under its trade-in value to someone who will trade it up, then spend the proceeds on singles.

[byte1]

I am in the same situation as you are, waiting for a Min Rig.

Their phone number is a Google voice number, so no luck trying to call them. They have promised to give me an answer today. Lets wait and see.

[KIDC]

This might seem ridiculous but if you haven't tried emailing office@butterflylabs.com then email them at that address. The sole person responding to that account appears to be a customer service representative named Jody. She has been very helpful usually and has responded within a few days, sometimes within the hour to my emails. They seem to be overloaded right now due to the ASIC orders - I emailed them on Saturday night and they haven't responded yet.

I originally emailed BFL at support@butterflylabs.com, the address that was listed on their website for customer support. However they didn't respond after a month and I was getting quite pissed since they don't answer their phones either. What ended up happening is either BFL or BFL-Engineer posted about their customer service problems and apologized and recommended that I email office@butterflylabs.com. I received a response the next day. So if you haven't tried emailing the office account then I can only suggest I try that. That's been my only successful means of communication with this vendor.

It's quite ridiculous and needs to be fixed if BFL wants to be considered a business in good standing with their customers. They can only get away with it now because they have an effective monopoly. I'm currently accepting their customer service / shipping problems as a price I have to pay for getting by far the most profitable mining equipment available anywhere. This was my attitude before the ASICs were even announced. Now that they are coming they are even more at an advantage. As somebody said on the thread discussing an ASIC child forum (from Hardware) - all that needs to be done is renaming "FPGA" to "BFL".

[Morblias]

This might seem ridiculous but if you haven't tried emailing office@butterflylabs.com then email them at that address.

I emailed that address 4 days ago, with no response yet. I have also tried multiple times in the forums to ask BFL questions with no response. I feel the OP's pain as I am going through it also. I am very close to cancelling my ~$5k worth of BFL orders.

[CA Coins]

What would you do if BFL is a car dealership?  You should have some consumer protection rights.  I know paypal offer buyer protection.  You may also file a complaint with the BBB.  Either way, good luck.

[||bit]

Same situation here too. Though, I am going to try to be patient a little bit more.

Today I did got some idea on the shipments. About 50 items were going to be shipped (today), which would satisfy upto about mid-April orders. And was informed that Sonny is thinking they will have caught up in two weeks. If that means caught up with all orders more than six weeks ago, I have personal doubts about it by the track record of course. I've gathered from two sources that they are suppose to be increasing shipment rates as well. We'll see.

That is the latest I have.

||bit

[BFL]

Guys, please be patient.  We're severely overloaded with emails.  Regarding any pending orders that you want to cancel or turn into ASIC orders, we've instituted policy to accommodate these situations.  I think it's clear from our trade in and refund policies that our intent is to make our customers happy and whole through the shift to ASIC.  Don't panic.  We'll catch up to your email as soon as we can.

[BFL]

Same situation here too. Though, I am going to try to be patient a little bit more.

Today I did got some idea on the shipments. About 50 items were going to be shipped (today), which would satisfy upto about mid-April orders. And was informed that Sonny is thinking they will have caught up in two weeks. If that means caught up with all orders more than six weeks ago, I have personal doubts about it by the track record of course. I've gathered from two sources that they are suppose to be increasing shipment rates as well. We'll see.

That is the latest I have.

||bit

This is correct, we're shipping about 50 singles and 1.5 mini rigs a day at current rates.

[Entropy-uc]

From the FTC's web site.
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus02-business-guide-mail-and-telephone-order-merchandise-rule

What is the Mail or Telephone Order Rule?

The Rule requires that when you advertise merchandise, you must have a reasonable basis for stating or implying that you can ship within a certain time. If you make no shipment statement, you must have a reasonable basis for believing that you can ship within 30 days. That is why direct marketers sometimes call this the "30-day Rule."

What You Must Do If You Learn You Cannot Ship on Time

When you learn that you cannot ship on time, you must decide whether you will ever be able to ship the order. If you decide that you cannot, you must promptly cancel the order and make a full refund.

If you decide you can ship the order later, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delay. You may use whatever means you wish to do this -- such as the telephone, fax, mail, or email -- as long as you notify the customer of the delay reasonably quickly. The customer must have sufficient advance notification to make a meaningful decision to consent to the delay or cancel the order.

What a First Delay Option Notice Must Say

In seeking your customer’s consent to delay, the first delay notice you provide to the customer (the "delay option" notice) must include:

    a definite revised shipment date or, if unknown, a statement that you are unable to provide a revised shipment date;
    a statement that, if the customer chooses not to wait, the customer can cancel the order and obtain a full and prompt refund; and
    some means for the customer to choose to cancel at your expense (e.g., by providing a postage prepaid reply card or toll-free telephone number).
    the following information when you cannot provide a revised shipping date:
        the reason for the delay, and
        a statement that, if the customer agrees to the indefinite delay, the customer may cancel the order any time until you ship the merchandise.

If your first delay option notice provides a definite revised shipping date of 30 days or less, you must inform customers that their non-response will be treated as a consent to the delay.

When You Must Cancel an Order

You must cancel an order and provide a prompt refund when:

    the customer exercises any option to cancel before you ship the merchandise;
    the customer does not respond to your first notice of a definite revised shipment date of 30 days or less and you have not shipped the merchandise or received the customer’s consent to a further delay by the definite revised shipment date;
    the customer does not respond to your notice of a definite revised shipment date of more than 30 days (or your notice that you are unable to provide a definite revised shipment date) and you have not shipped the merchandise within 30 days of the original shipment date;
    the customer consents to a definite delay and you have not shipped or obtained the customer’s consent to any additional delay by the shipment time the customer consented to;
    you have not shipped or provided the required delay or renewed option notices on time; or
    you determine that you will never be able to ship the merchandise.

Filing a complaint with the FTC
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en

[Paladin69]

Same situation here too. Though, I am going to try to be patient a little bit more.

Today I did got some idea on the shipments. About 50 items were going to be shipped (today), which would satisfy upto about mid-April orders. And was informed that Sonny is thinking they will have caught up in two weeks. If that means caught up with all orders more than six weeks ago, I have personal doubts about it by the track record of course. I've gathered from two sources that they are suppose to be increasing shipment rates as well. We'll see.

That is the latest I have.

||bit

This is correct, we're shipping about 50 singles and 1.5 mini rigs a day at current rates.

This is what worries me.  I'd like to talk to somebody before these things ship out.  Taking delivery on the singles doesn't make much sense any more with the "double-down for ASIC" system.  And the same goes for the mini-rig unless you guys have more lenient options...like a payment plan or something...

[Xian01]

...like a payment plan or something...

 Respectfully, how many hardware manufacturers do you know offer payment plans ?

[||bit]

Same situation here too. Though, I am going to try to be patient a little bit more.

Today I did got some idea on the shipments. About 50 items were going to be shipped (today), which would satisfy upto about mid-April orders. And was informed that Sonny is thinking they will have caught up in two weeks. If that means caught up with all orders more than six weeks ago, I have personal doubts about it by the track record of course. I've gathered from two sources that they are suppose to be increasing shipment rates as well. We'll see.

That is the latest I have.

||bit

This is correct, we're shipping about 50 singles and 1.5 mini rigs a day at current rates.

Is this only a current rate based on recent data? Or are there shipments nearly every day over the past say several months?

Using another forum user's observations, assuming that shipment rate has been sustained per month:

Partial hash rates(phr):
SINGLE's phr = 0.83GHash/single x 50 singles/day x 25days = 1.03 THash/month
MINI RIG's phr = 25GHash/minirig x 1.5minirigs/day x 25 days = 0.94 THash/month
-------------
TerraHash per month increase = 1.03TH/mo + 0.94TH/mo = 1.97TH/mo total

For each months shipments (at that rate) to go online, we would see a ~2TH increase each month. However, I see only about 2TH increase since March (4.5 months ago). The math leads me to think the rate described is based on recent shipment data.
Is this correct?

||bit

[BFL]

Same situation here too. Though, I am going to try to be patient a little bit more.

Today I did got some idea on the shipments. About 50 items were going to be shipped (today), which would satisfy upto about mid-April orders. And was informed that Sonny is thinking they will have caught up in two weeks. If that means caught up with all orders more than six weeks ago, I have personal doubts about it by the track record of course. I've gathered from two sources that they are suppose to be increasing shipment rates as well. We'll see.

That is the latest I have.

||bit

This is correct, we're shipping about 50 singles and 1.5 mini rigs a day at current rates.

Is this only a current rate based on recent data? Or are there shipments nearly every day over the past say several months?

Using another forum user's observations, assuming that shipment rate has been sustained per month:

Partial hash rates(phr):
SINGLE's phr = 0.83GHash/single x 50 singles/day x 25days = 1.03 THash/month
MINI RIG's phr = 25GHash/minirig x 1.5minirigs/day x 25 days = 0.94 THash/month
-------------
TerraHash per month increase = 1.03TH/mo + 0.94TH/mo = 1.97TH/mo total

For each months shipments (at that rate) to go online, we would see a ~2TH increase each month. However, I see only about 2TH increase since March (4.5 months ago). The math leads me to think the rate described is based on recent shipment data.

Is this correct?

||bit

Our understanding from speaking with customers is that a majority of product is simply used to replace phased out GPU.  But yes, you are correct..  that rate is a current snapshot.  It's increased to that point as we've staffed up.

[aTg]

We must be very ignorant to announce months before a new product that will leave your current product obsolete.
Anyone who knows a minimum of marqueting know this has to be taken in secret until the official announcement of sale as hardware companies do not create yourself an avalanche of customers end up buying your product and they feel cheated .

[Bitcoin Oz]

Same situation here too. Though, I am going to try to be patient a little bit more.

Today I did got some idea on the shipments. About 50 items were going to be shipped (today), which would satisfy upto about mid-April orders. And was informed that Sonny is thinking they will have caught up in two weeks. If that means caught up with all orders more than six weeks ago, I have personal doubts about it by the track record of course. I've gathered from two sources that they are suppose to be increasing shipment rates as well. We'll see.

That is the latest I have.

||bit

This is correct, we're shipping about 50 singles and 1.5 mini rigs a day at current rates.

This is what worries me.  I'd like to talk to somebody before these things ship out.  Taking delivery on the singles doesn't make much sense any more with the "double-down for ASIC" system.  And the same goes for the mini-rig unless you guys have more lenient options...like a payment plan or something...

Maybe you could raise the needed funds on glbse so the shareholders and yourself own 50-50. It might not be much but it means you can upgrade without having to fork over the difference.

[Paladin69]

...like a payment plan or something...

 Respectfully, how many hardware manufacturers do you know offer payment plans ?

I know it sounds a bit silly but it would be nice to mine with the fpga mini-rig for a while until the ASIC is ready.  Most people will not get theirs in October.  The initial 1/3 may not either.

They are asking for another $15K from me for the mini-rig SC and I have yet to even make any money off of what I ordered months ago.  The double-down thing really sucks and each day that goes by is money lost.

The only way I can avoid the double-down thing is to cancel all my orders now and put the money towards Single SC's if I still want to do that.  But cancelling means no product again for another 6 months most likely.  And that really sucks.

I would expect that they wouldn't want to ship product until paid off in full anyway.  I guess that is like layaway, heh.

[||bit]

Our understanding from speaking with customers is that a majority of product is simply used to replace phased out GPU.

I guess that makes sense too. I suppose this is not entirely relevant. Customers are just eager to receive the products.
Here's how to calm the mob of aggitated customers. Compenstate them 1 (or 2) bitcoins per late unit per day.

||bit