HashFast's behavior has been completely unacceptable by any measure. The fact that they seem to be getting away with it irks me to no end.
The bottom line is that money is power.
A pre-order is you giving that power to a counterparty based on trust, promises and a sales contract.
The counterparty can decide to default on their contract/promises and proceed to use that power against you.
HF has been doing exactly that by hiring Strategic Counsel Corp. and Zuber Lawler & Del Duca.
The bottom line is that the law isnt up to date when it comes to bitcoin and especially bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin mining is a very complicated situation when it comes to refunds and delivery dates etc and there is simply no law speaking yet that takes care of this.
So HF is basically misusing the traditional law of customer protection to fraud their customers, cause in a usual customer protection situation there is nothing wrong with offering a US$ refund.
So there is a gap in lawmaking and HF is using this gap to commit fraud.