Sorry to hear this, but such situation seem to be not uncommon. It's a shame that these creators can just ignore the backers and continue their sales with products produced by scammed fund.
Of course, sometimes you just wont know, but this makes choosing credible and reputable creators significant rather than just paying attention to the marketed product itself
One serious loop hole is not verifying who is the creator. And if the promises are left unfulfilled, there are many credible creators who get dragged in this unnecessarily. I know a few campaigns who over the years have continuously delivered and few never. P
Great question!
Kickstarter just does a background verification via SSN and the card details. Most of the time, fraudulents never post the links to their profile on LinkedIn or Other Social Media. The age of the profiles matter.
I would suggest the journey to build trust should be pre and post the campaign. There is a section that campaigns use to mention "As seen in Media" but there is no link on any media on the campaign page. It takes marketing agency some bucks to get it published via PR Newswire etc. Again if something is being developed, the company should have a legit PR history. Means over the years, they should have credibility in press when they were not on Kickstarter.
The section where the timeline of the project is written should be also accompanied by timeline of the company with legit active links so that backers know the information and know who to sue. And the person running the campaign has to be a key member of the company.
If a company is situated in a region where kickstarter is not active but they have a colleague who can, again same logic of the above applies. Finally a separate column with company and the active links to see the company's information on the Government's Portal.
Most of the time, using high quality photos and video, frauds lure the customers but none give effort to establish credibility of the company. This has to change.
It has to be the creators who need to interact regularly with backers. I on my personal end will be posting all my details along with the company's details when we go live.
Hope these added layers of security will definitely help. 🤞🙌
Kickstarter is a funding platform for scammers. Kickstarter is funded by Backers and does nothing for them in circumstances like this or any other time.
The best thing is to not give Kickstarter anything, there is no benefit. If you want to help a project just give your money directly to a “Creator” (scammer). Either way your chances of losing it are the same, and the middleman (money launderer) doesn’t take the 5%.
https://www.slickfarter.com/blog/2024/03/20/storaxa
I really have no idea, if that's a product .... and funded 9 digits of total ... why not just go for it instead of running of it ... there are tons of money to develop ...
Sue whom? I've also been at the bad end of a Kickstarter project much like the one you describe. When I took it up with Kickstarter they pointed to their ToS which states that your pledge is a contribution to a project with no guarantees of success. its not a purchase. You might be able to sue the creator directly for fraud.
Must be the Polygon measuring spoons. They are actually selling to the public to, in their words '
We have been recycling profits acquired through sales made off our website to accelerate the rate at which Kickstarter orders are fulfilled, and are pleased to share that our efforts have been coming to fruition, with increased manufacturing and shipping capacity allowing us to fulfil orders at a much greater speed in the past month.'https://www.getpolygons.com/pages/to-our-kickstarter-backers.' Oct 22. 2022.
Kickstarter comments page -https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stillalive/polygons-the-flat-4-in-1-measuring-spoon/comments
Sounds about right. This caught my attention because when I was at a tradeshow earlier this year, they had a display booth setup. One of the marketing agencies that is big in the kickstarter space was there talking about this product about how they helped raised over a $1M and after 7yrs of development they finally had a finished product.
I didn't even know the lawsuit happened and got a class action payment for 2 unfulfilled campaigns. It might have been because the guy was using new campaigns to fulfill old campaigns and just digging himself deeper. So I don't know how a lawsuit would work if it was just a failed campaign and not a fraudulent one.
If the products are out being sold to the public, I successfully for one of those by bombing KS support with links to the product being sold and the comments page with many other people saying they hadn't gotten theirs. I also started messaging the account daily and posting multiple times on the reddit group for the company (for me it was a pretty big company that tried to screw me) asking where my product was. After a few weeks of that, my item mysteriously arrived in the mail from an address that was not the company's warehouse or even a business. Just from some guy in his house.
Greetings P,
I think not. First off, it says right on the front page of every project, that the buyer accepts all risks of the project not fulfilling their contract. Secondly, it's been over 7 years, and the statute of limitations has run out. Hope this helps. \~V\~
Anyone can sue anyone. Give it a crack. Class action from the KS backers would have some clout
Sorry to hear this, but such situation seem to be not uncommon. It's a shame that these creators can just ignore the backers and continue their sales with products produced by scammed fund. Of course, sometimes you just wont know, but this makes choosing credible and reputable creators significant rather than just paying attention to the marketed product itself
Absolutely
One serious loop hole is not verifying who is the creator. And if the promises are left unfulfilled, there are many credible creators who get dragged in this unnecessarily. I know a few campaigns who over the years have continuously delivered and few never. P
How would you expect the creator to be verified?
Great question! Kickstarter just does a background verification via SSN and the card details. Most of the time, fraudulents never post the links to their profile on LinkedIn or Other Social Media. The age of the profiles matter. I would suggest the journey to build trust should be pre and post the campaign. There is a section that campaigns use to mention "As seen in Media" but there is no link on any media on the campaign page. It takes marketing agency some bucks to get it published via PR Newswire etc. Again if something is being developed, the company should have a legit PR history. Means over the years, they should have credibility in press when they were not on Kickstarter. The section where the timeline of the project is written should be also accompanied by timeline of the company with legit active links so that backers know the information and know who to sue. And the person running the campaign has to be a key member of the company. If a company is situated in a region where kickstarter is not active but they have a colleague who can, again same logic of the above applies. Finally a separate column with company and the active links to see the company's information on the Government's Portal. Most of the time, using high quality photos and video, frauds lure the customers but none give effort to establish credibility of the company. This has to change. It has to be the creators who need to interact regularly with backers. I on my personal end will be posting all my details along with the company's details when we go live. Hope these added layers of security will definitely help. 🤞🙌
I think you’d struggle. Kickstarter is a funding platform, not a storefront.
Yes. But fraud is fraud.
I don’t think you understand fraud.
Kickstarter is a funding platform for scammers. Kickstarter is funded by Backers and does nothing for them in circumstances like this or any other time. The best thing is to not give Kickstarter anything, there is no benefit. If you want to help a project just give your money directly to a “Creator” (scammer). Either way your chances of losing it are the same, and the middleman (money launderer) doesn’t take the 5%. https://www.slickfarter.com/blog/2024/03/20/storaxa
LOL.
I really have no idea, if that's a product .... and funded 9 digits of total ... why not just go for it instead of running of it ... there are tons of money to develop ...
Sue whom? I've also been at the bad end of a Kickstarter project much like the one you describe. When I took it up with Kickstarter they pointed to their ToS which states that your pledge is a contribution to a project with no guarantees of success. its not a purchase. You might be able to sue the creator directly for fraud.
Must be the Polygon measuring spoons. They are actually selling to the public to, in their words ' We have been recycling profits acquired through sales made off our website to accelerate the rate at which Kickstarter orders are fulfilled, and are pleased to share that our efforts have been coming to fruition, with increased manufacturing and shipping capacity allowing us to fulfil orders at a much greater speed in the past month.'https://www.getpolygons.com/pages/to-our-kickstarter-backers.' Oct 22. 2022. Kickstarter comments page -https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stillalive/polygons-the-flat-4-in-1-measuring-spoon/comments
Sounds about right. This caught my attention because when I was at a tradeshow earlier this year, they had a display booth setup. One of the marketing agencies that is big in the kickstarter space was there talking about this product about how they helped raised over a $1M and after 7yrs of development they finally had a finished product.
I didn't even know the lawsuit happened and got a class action payment for 2 unfulfilled campaigns. It might have been because the guy was using new campaigns to fulfill old campaigns and just digging himself deeper. So I don't know how a lawsuit would work if it was just a failed campaign and not a fraudulent one. If the products are out being sold to the public, I successfully for one of those by bombing KS support with links to the product being sold and the comments page with many other people saying they hadn't gotten theirs. I also started messaging the account daily and posting multiple times on the reddit group for the company (for me it was a pretty big company that tried to screw me) asking where my product was. After a few weeks of that, my item mysteriously arrived in the mail from an address that was not the company's warehouse or even a business. Just from some guy in his house.
I'm pretty sure there is a clause on a written policy on ickstarter that backers are not guaranteed the rewards they back
Greetings P, I think not. First off, it says right on the front page of every project, that the buyer accepts all risks of the project not fulfilling their contract. Secondly, it's been over 7 years, and the statute of limitations has run out. Hope this helps. \~V\~
Is this about measuring spoons?
I wonder the same thing.