Butterfly Labs Shipping Still A Year Behind, Broken Promises
Since beginning to send out a trickle of ASIC orders in April 2013, one year after first taking pre-orders, Butterfly Labs continues to anger customers, break promises and fail to meet their own expectations.
An official post from BFL_Josh (read here) said that all pre-orders will be fulfilled by mid-September 2013. This looks to have been sheer guesswork, and terribly inaccurate.
"We still expect the current back order backlog to be cleared by the middle of September or so, although given what we can likely achieve with our production rate, I suspect it may be sooner than that. No guarantees on that either way, though." - BFL_JoshShare This Quote:
For a moment, if you can, bravely lift your head out of your hands, stop rolling your eyes, and don’t get angry. But I have something to point out.
Butterfly Labs customers who ordered bitcoin mining hardware over one year ago are STILL waiting for their Single SC’s.
With mining difficulty rising and practically no hope of achieving return on investment (save for a 10x increase in bitcoin price), many customers are seeking refunds.
Adding more fuel to the fire, Butterfly Labs’ early promises of shipping hardware in the order in which they were paid has proven to be yet another dagger in the eye of previously happy customers.
Jody’s Shipping blog clearly shows the order position has no bearing on when units will be shipped.
"Jalapenos 4.5 and 5 gh/s: Feb 12-14, 2013, Little Singles 30 and 25 gh/s: Nov. 6, 2012, Singles 60 and 50 gh/s: Aug 6,7, 2012, MiniRigs: June 23 orders (3rd 500gh/s unit), July 2 orders 2nd 500 gh/s August 2 for 1st 500 g/s units." - BFL_JodyShare This Quote:
Possibly, in an attempt to stop the blood-loss, Butterfly Labs have launched a marketplace for selling your pre-order position to other suckers customers.
BFL announced on their Facebook page the following:
New customers frequently ask us how they can move up in the order queue, and at times offer us more money to do so. Of course, we refuse. We also have customers who decide to sell their orders on eBay or other venues. Unfortunately, doing so requires a secure form of transfer, and the trust factor simply makes it difficult for a seller to find buyers.
Butterfly Labs is excited to announce a platform that will help merge the needs of both parties. Starting today, a seller will be able to announce the sale of their pre-order position in our classifieds forum. They will establish the terms of sale and make the deal on their own. Once a deal has been made, they will use the transfer system in their account Dashboard to transfer an order to a new owner. When both parties verify and agree to the terms, the order will be moved to the buyer’s account.
We expect the order transfer system to be in place by September 10, 2013. We are posting this information now so that you can get a head start posting and selling your order positions in preparation of the launch of this program.
Butterfly Labs will only provide the platform for the order transfer to take place. We are not responsible for any deals made between our customers. Use of the order transfer system is solely the risk of the parties making the order transfer deal. Buyer’s must agree to the original terms of the sale, and specifically to the no refund policy.
PuertoLibre was brave enough to offer a translation of what this meant.
We couldn’t figure out a way to keep them waiting in line and leaving with their money. We are letting people with spots closer to being serviced in the backlog to sell off their order numbers for some monetary sum. Which means we will keep our newer customers and give “added” value to those who no longer want their orders. (thereby circumventing the forced refund process)
So go along with us. We need this cash. We need to keep our newer customers and our cash flow is probably running real low.
Transfer your unwanted position in line for some cash and keep us solvent, pretty please!
Are you still waiting to receive your Butterfly Labs units?