BFL consistenly and systematically fucked customers over last year, denying them refunds although they were required BY LAW to give them, as they didn´t ship their product near advertised time or on spec (efficiency!).
False. There was no law requiring us to give refunds. Please cite caselaw to support your position (you can't, since it doesn't exist. Please consult a lawyer before addressing this issue going forward. As for the advertised spec, people were offered refunds and were in fact REQUIRED to accept the new specs or they would be given a refund if they did not respond in a certain amount of time. How much more proactive and ethical can it get in that regard?
BFL delay tactics in regards to refunds were still a huge issue this year, and have only recently improved slightly, after they essentially got "free loans" (and only because they delayed refunds again).
False. There are no delay tactics. I don't even know what you are referring to. You ask for a refund, you get a refund. How hard is that? Additionally, it was stated BEFORE you ordered that there were no refunds and you were told you NOT TO ORDER if you didn't agree with that.
"Only two more weeks" did not become a phrase because you said it once.
If refunds were so easy, you wouldn't have had several lawsuits, forced paypal/CC refunds, and customer complaints.
BFL pricing is a huge ripoff and nowhere near competetive ( see AM / Bitmain / spondoolies / A1 pricing).
That's your opinion, not really an ethical issue.
It becomes an ethics issue when you advertise the competition as $17.50/GH.
What false advertising would that be?
Here's a bit of it:
1. (monarch) The fastest and most power-efficient Bitcoin miner yet
2. Butterfly Labs has shipped more ASIC products than all competitors combined
3. Our facility in Kansas has the largest production capacity of all Bitcoin hardware manufacturers.
4. The Competition at least $ 17.50 /GH
5. 65nm ASIC chip is now powering the majority of the bitcoin network
6. The bottom line is that BFL is the only 28nm chip manufacturer on its 2nd generation ASIC
7. All manufacturers in this space have experienced some degree of delay with their first generation ASIC
8. 28nm products won't begin shipping til year end
9. (monarch) plan to begin shipments in February, 2014
10. Orders are shipped in order date priority so any order placed now should be expected to be delivered in March.
11. We are pioneers of the industry - having manufactured the first commercial Bitcoin mining hardware.
12. November / December Initial Shipping
13. still on track for December/January
14. As we enter the 28nm era, we're the only competitor with a proven ASIC design in the field.
15. Tape out August 2013
16. Gen1 65nm asics will be around 1w/gh
17. BTC mining, being a zero sum activity, makes it viable and profitable to get as many people to cancel their orders as possible, so your position improves
18. We are so confident in our power consumption that we are offering up 1000 BTC to charity if we miss our power consumption targets by more than 10%
19. Everyone should be aware of the fact that you are allowed to upgrade 1, 2, 3 or 4 Jalepeno's to 1 Single and keep your place in line
20. Individual orders that are less than 6 months old and that paid for the reduced price 600GH or 300GH Monarch will likely not be delayed past the expected delivery date
21. We have developed the most technologically advanced, most power efficient mining chip on the planet by a factor of two.
22. KnC's new 20nm chip isn't even close to our 28nm chip in terms of performance.
23. I have spoken with Theymos, the operator of Bitcointalk, about this and I have his full knowledge and permission to perform this experiment
24. plan to begin shipments in March 2014
25. However, this is our second generation, so we have much greater clarity on the process
26. meaning the deployment of the Monarch will be delayed about 5 weeks from now
27. it is possible we will begin shipping limited quantities by the end of the week of the 21st(april), it's more likely we will begin shipping the following week, assuming no blocking issues arise.
28. our mining chip is more than 2x efficient than any other chip out
29. The Monarch product line is essentially 3x - 5x more efficient at any comparable hashrate than the competition