Quote from: MooC Tals on May 16, 2013, 07:25:16 PM

I embolden them. Also I go into detail of how it is a scam. It is the use of pre-orders until the ~~investor~~ customer refuses to wait any longer and demands a refund. That is a 0% interest loan for an average period of 3 to 4 month (PayPal limits time for a resolution process) however people that put it on their CC have to pay if they don't cover the ballance right away. I know you may have missed most of my previous posts here. (you could go back and check) However I will not hold it against you if you choose not to.

Where I have issue is you feel it is not intentional and that is why I suggested broadening your views. Delays are natural however to insinuate that its complete incompetence is also untrue.

BFL Josh/Inaba w/e his name is has been approached by knowledgeable people in the field that do this work for other manufactures and offered to help them with designs and also cautioned that the power figures are somewhat impossible. However it is my opinion that the low prices and the hubris expectations of power consumptions were intentional to prevent competition.

That is my opinion and it maybe a stretch for you to accept. Here is hoping....

Nicely put. Thanks for taking the time to clarify how you feel. I just take issue with the statement "broaden yours" as you are telling me I should broaden my opinion?

It is ok, we don't know each other so we have no clue how much we have each read and absorbed on this subject. Please understand that I have kept up with the facts and made my decision to pre-order after I waited a good amount of time to collect the data I needed to feel comfortable enough with the risks.

As for your talking points, consider the below rebuttals:

Ever heard of a restocking fee? Did you know if you agree to purchase something that has not been made yet, and the sales receipt includes verbiage detailing a restocking fee, even if the item was never physically in stock at the local depot, or even if it was on back order at the manufacturing facility, legally they can still charge the fee if you request a refund... because in the order first, fulfill on X time frame model, the purchase monies are immediately used to secure your place in line at the manufacturer.

I know this for a fact because the company I used to work for had this policy... it is a bad policy but it is not like the customer was not told that their purchase was a manufacturer direct purchase... they are told and have to sign off that they understand we didn't stock 95% of the product and the moment we finalize paperwork, we order the item from the manufacturer. Not my policy, I hated it, but I watched so many get charged like that... and even the BBB couldn't do anything as the customer signed the contract. Glad I left there... they had another paragraph that stated all dates were estimates and subject to the manufacturers time frame and supply blah blah... let them get away with murder...

The point is, whether BFL anticipated having to refund customers or not, it is not their fault if someone chose to use their credit line to secure their pre-order... that was the customer's decision... and to boot, I was unable to use any of my credit lines with purchase protection to order... I ended up using PayPal... and even they would not let me use a credit card... decided to just use available funds from cashing some coin in and 50% from my best friend to go in with me on this. The same goes for any other payments in fiat... you don't get interest back from a cancelled purchase even if the seller couldn't ship to you on time... you get the amount you paid and that's it... show me a retailer that refunds more than the purchase price because they ran out of stock or could not get stock in the time frame you desired? They might offer a gift card or something else Customer Service related... but not straight cash on top of your purchase price.

I agree it is not complete incompetence... but not everything is 100% in your control when you don't have feet on the ground in the foreign countries that are producing some of your parts. You can't control everything, as a prime example the first company producing the chips gave them a date before Chinese New Year... then subsequently screwed off and almost made Josh have to go sit in their office while they did the job... not something you plan to have to do when you are having millions of $s worth of silicon fabricated. While a good portion of it is due to lack of judgement, and not taking assistance when it was offered, some pieces of it just could not be avoided, like having to transport the remaining wafers to a new facility since the first one caused problems.

The only people I do feel real sympathy for are the average miners who spent all of their BTC minings on these, only to ask for a refund and be cashed at at about 1/7th the amount the total coin is now worth... only the miners though... if someone bought BTC then immediately used it for a miner, they got refunded the same amount of cash they put in. IDC if they could have held the coin and made a killing... their choice to do it that way.

No hard feelings... but nothing in life is 100% the way people plan it to be... another example, I am on a multimillion dollar project right now launching a new manufacturing and warehousing operation on the east coast... and we just got set back a whole year because a drainage ditch sprouted some cattails in it... now the county calls it a wetlands preserve rofl... some 10,000+ feet away from the ACTUAL wetlands preserve, with nothing but high and dry grassy fields between them. Never saw that coming, no sir.