I have backed several campaigns on the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform. They do their best to do everything right – but they cannot do policing on everyone in every aspect – you need to do your own research and have realistic expectations on what your investment may or may not deliver.
Like all geeks, I am often an early adopter of tech, but as I get older, I am more and more cautious about being the first in line for something that may or may not end up being a paperweight or a doorstop in the very near future.
I have backed a lot of projects on Kickstarter and have been happy with most of them. I got one backer incentive item that did not work as they claimed or hoped it would – but I got it. It arrived and they really gave their best effort to try to deliver what their prototype managed to do. It was manufacturing issues in China that ate up their budget.
For those of you who never saw the 1967 film, The Producers, let me give you a quick synopsis… two stage play producers who are up to their necks in debt decide to perpetrate the ultimate con – they get a bunch of backers for a play that they design as a complete flop with no hope of success. The goal is to oversell like some gyms oversell memberships – their hope being that the play/musical will fail on its first showing, meaning all the investment money is theirs to keep. Are you seeing where I’m going with this? They get a deranged Nazi to write his love opus to his Führer and the big musical number is called “Springtime for Hitler.” The movie is a comedy, because the play becomes a surprise success – everyone loves it as a farce. The producers are ruined. On Kickstarter (as well as other crowdfunding platforms), there are some (albeit few) who ‘invent’ via clever video and Photoshopped images with the sole purpose of defrauding their investors. This isn’t comedy – it’s a crime – and the federal government is cracking down on it.
This scene from the 1967 film, “The Producers,” shows audience members aghast at dancing Nazis in what was designed to be a failure of a musical to bilk investors. The moral – you don’t want to be like one of these people. Do you research before investing.
I share a lot of neat Kickstarter projects on this blog and share said projects with my followers on Twitter and Facebook because I think they’re cool. Some I don’t back because I can’t afford to at this time, but I try to not share information on a Kickstarter that I think could be either a fraud or a train wreck because the designers/inventors aren’t asking enough for what they need to truly make their end product come to life – or perhaps they are doing other things wrong and despite their best efforts, you can tell they will fail before they begin. Please do your due diligence when considering backing a crowdfunded project. Backing such projects is a lot of fun. From responsible designers/inventors, you get regular updates on their project and you learn a lot about the manufacturing process and challenges you face. I personally never spend more than $100 on a crowdfunding campaign – to me, it’s like gambling. I enjoy the fun and excitement of what might be, but I go in knowing the person/company behind the campaign might fail and I will get nothing in return. That’s like casino gambling. Fun, but you don’t always win. The difference is, that when I go into a casino, I know that the state’s gambling commission is doing what it can to ensure that everything is FAIR. Some folks begin campaigns when they have no interest in having them succeed. They take The Producer’s approach to bilking people out of money.
Let me tell you about the bur that got under my tauntaun’s saddle. Oh – and this is a tauntaun… in case you’re some sort of weirdo geek that hasn’t seen “The Empire Strikes Back” 50 times – but then again, why are you here?!
So – you might be wondering what is prompting a more nerd than geek type of post here? Here’s the bur that got under my tauntaun’s saddle… I backed a Kickstarter literally an hour ago, and was planning on sharing it here on my blog. A really cool concept where you plug a finely machined aluminum gizmo into the 3.5mm jack on your iPhone to get the weather locally right on your phone via an app. I was going to share my clever find with you, my readers, when I realized they had no information about themselves anywhere. They were making an app to go with this gizmo. Their video implied there were several people involved in the research and machining of this item. For what they were promising, the requested funding seemed way too low. They had no website. No Twitter. No Facebook. Any group of geeks that can build a weather station the size of your pinkie finger can whip up a website in 5 minutes. It is seriously that easy to do. Further research showed that this was their second attempt at the same idea – and their previous Kickstarter was pulled (by them, admittedly) as other people began questioning this as well. They claimed that building a website was not high on their priority list. Why? Because you can track people down that way. They don’t want to be tracked down. I have zero proof that they are trying to defraud their backers… but educated guesses combined with research and common sense tell me that at best, it is not possible for them to succeed with this project. Even though they’ve doubled their financing goal, there is no way they can pull off what they’re promising. Getting the app developed to work with this hardware alone will cost more than that. I then canceled my funding.
So – here’s what I look for to check a Kickstarter campaign creator before I throw my money after shiny metal objects and blinking lights…
- Do they have a website? If so, when was it created (look up via public WHOIS on GoDaddy)
- Do they have a Facebook or Twitter account? If so, can you interact with them? What was their last post? Do they have friends?
- Does what they propose sound feasible for what they are asking? Sometimes they will blow your mind with what looks like a finished project, but do not explain how they got there, what they did to achieve it or what they are doing to achieve their goal of finishing at their made-up deadline. Don’t let techno-lust blind your judgment! If they are building a personal rocket ship to Mars for $900, something is up!
If you believe you’ve been taken advantage of by someone online who claimed to deliver something to you that you paid for, but never followed through, please file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center!
Not everyone is a marketer or logo designer. I get it if their marketing materials stink on ice and they don’t know how to use hashtags… but when someone claims to be inventing something pretty amazing and are with a team of young go-getters and there is nothing on social media – something in Denmark stinketh!
Please note that if I share a Kickstarter project or anything else on my site or on social media, I am doing so with the best of intentions. If it’s something I own or have used myself, I will tell you (and have done so). If it’s something I’ve personally backed on Kickstarter, I will tell you (and have done so)… and I will never intentionally share something bogus with you. If you EVER find something to be fishy, please let me know immediately. You can comment directly on this page if you wish to. I have nothing to hide… and if I’ve shared a story with you that turns out to be someone conning people, I will let you know. Keep ever vigilant, geeks. Don’t let con artists prey on your techno-lust.
If you feel that someone has conned you (they promised X and then didn’t deliver), you can file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at https://www.ic3.gov.