Had any of those companies only sold hardware from stock then nobody would have been ripped off and I'd bet that CT/HF wouldn't be facing bankruptcy if that was the case.
btw.. dont lump HF and CT together as bankrupt.. thats just silly. they're completely different. HF *is* facing bankruptcy.. actually, I've not kept up to date, it may already be bankrupt or in liquidation as we speak. HF had huge numbers of orders, and barely shipped any of them (lucky me, i was one of the few customers that received their order). By contrast, Cointerra also had large numbers of orders but DID ship them. Sure, they earned a bad rap by shipping a system that was 20% off its expected performance.. but they still had the fastest and cheapest bitcoin miner available for the time that it was launched (early 2014) and did in fact sell - and *ship* thousands of them. I suspect a major chunk of today's bitcoin network is currently powered by Cointerra devices (guessing circa 10%). After BitFury, KnCMiner and Bitmain i think they're the next in popularity (measured in PH).