the amex people said it was likely that because they initiated cc option thru their bank then if/when they can pull the cc option to pay like they did paypal...then cc protection likely will not work again..ie if alpha does not take cc or paypal how would the cc company get the funds back?...at that point..sure you win fraud but hard for a cc
company to get $$$ back w/o the merchant cc account etc...again we 'made this order' it is not 'we did not authorize this order' so because we authorized the 30%
at that point we may be out of luck....but the cc option could let alpha suck a lot more people in for a BFL disappointment experience before turning off the taps
again like they did paypal....as far as I know alpha could argue that you are paying off a bill from last jan 2014 (30% down) thus the other 70% you paid is not
protected becasue you are just paying off your jan bill (more then 60 days)..games like that

it seems pretty messy

ie fraud protection is for 'charges you did not make' ie fraud...we paid the 30% down..thus why amex says i'm right not to pay the remaining 70% and they are still
looking at my dispute..*they could have just cut me off and say I'm out of luck rather then put this much time into it..amex that is....they have not done so yet
amex is annoyed at the idea of 30% down for vaporware ...no way to pay ....you can't even pay the ramaining 70% till they offered such say what was it end of may?
but you are penalized on their refund process for being over 5 months no refund at all.. by that time and can only pay with wire xfer/bank xfer and no prototype and no real info on progress
 .and viola..now the majority of people purchasing alpha 1st batch are over the 5 month limit and can get NONE of their 30% down back...suddenly you can
now they take amex again..and pay the last 70%..amazing how that all works out so well for alpha an't it....tied up our funds nicely ...for 5 months or so
or refund with penalties...etc ....hell if i was amex i'd be p'/o'd too..so from amex reps point of view it is sophisticated extortion...you lose all the 30% unless
you pay the full 70%....at that point is it small
claims court or regulatory agencies and if they pull a BFL that could take more then a year..hell butterfly labs has been stringing on people for more then 14 months...
and again their TOS does not specify when you will get the product even if you do pay in full

so anyway how I understand it so far perhaps I'm wrong..but when amex says not to pay 70% to an amex merchant ...because they too
say it looks fishy as hell....I guess I should listen

again 2 out of 5 shot of getting my 30% back....but I put the odds at a lot worse on getting an actual unit that will not have more of loss in real dollars by sending
them this last 70% imho ..it is probably a draw..by the time w/prototype and chips etc they get their stuff out Titans will likely be out and will blow ROI out of the
water...so best to keep my remaining 1700 usd then throw good money after bad again imho...looking like I'd have lost more on the equip then the 450 I will lose
altogether anyway...esp if best case is them shipping beg of august or so me getting my unit say aug 15th etc

anyway I'll let you know how it shakes out....but no prototype 2 deadlines missed from my jan order....I may just chock this up to a valuable 'life lesson' and move on

after taking the $667 as a business loss I will likely really lose doing that as a depreciation lose only 450 usd or so...again in my case it is not worth it at this point
to toss another 1700 bucks at these guys with shipping and even with cc amex protection somewhat...better to just dispute it with amex and if the 450 goes poof
better odds then 1) equip that would ROI ..hell at this point I'd likely lose 450 or more on the equip not making roi with elec etc or 2) them pulling what seems to
be a BFL just ship so far in the future ALL 100% of your full payment would be a loss ....

it is not like these guys have shown us anything REAL besides a web page

Searing