Summary of events if you don't want to read the entire comment thread just to discover what the heck the title of this post is talking about:
1. Kickstarter campaign for a new high-tech smart-watch launches. The creator, "Vak", responds to a few questions on the watch about specs and hardware in a noncommital, generic way that doesn't reveal a lot of details.
2. Skepticism increases when one customer claims that the watch is apparently identical to a Z3, a watch with similar specs, which they already own. They provide pictures and proof that indicate that the Vak may literally be using the Z3 itself in all the photos and just switching out the wristbands. [0]
3. A minor firestorm erupts in the comments; people accuse Vak of scamming them. [1]
4. Vak asks for time to construct a Kickstarter update, saying that the deluge of comments makes it impossible to respond individually.
5. A few days later, Vak responds to the points raised in the original accusation. [2]
6. ... and keeps responding with the same message, dozens of times. He (or someone using his account) repeatedly posts the same message, over and over and over, to the Kickstarter thread, in response to any skeptical questions.
7. Vak says "it wasn't me!" [3] Pretty much no one believes him.
LOL this guy is a fraud all around let's start with his linkedin profile:
You know someone is full of shit when their linkedin profile looks like this...
So he jumped from R&D Engineer | Marketing Dept
SMC Networks TO:
Founder/CEO
MedMania Inc
CEO/Founder
Campusbug.com (lol at this site)
Principal Partner
WebNative
Co-Founder
Pageable.com ( lol co-founded a site that isn't even up)
Chief Product Zen Officer
Pivot HQ ( look he is the CPO of this lovely company http://pivothq.webs.com/)
General Partner/Co-Founder
Bullear Partners (googled this and there isn't even a firm by this name)
Cofounder/Principal Managing Director
Techzulu.com (legit news site for socal but don't see his name anywhere on the website as founder?)
Principal Managing Director
Crushspot.com (is this his attempt to find a girlfriend)
Mentor and Advisor
FastStart.studio(I don't see him on this site anywhere as mentor?)
Founder
Rockfield Labs (who the fuck lists themselves as a founder of a meetup group? you organized a meetup group that has had 4 meetups in the last 2 years and you are some sort of founder?)
Startup Fanboy/Founder
Duocampus (This looks like a damn furniture store... co-work space? really? only thing correct in this whole resume is "startup fanboy" looks like he tries to make fake companies or ride the coat tails of real entrepreneurs)
Head of Technology
Concert BC (sorry but who ever is getting consultating from this company is getting ripped off if this guy can't even answer simple questions about specs on a product he supposedly made. http://www.concertbc.com/portfolio/vak-sambath-head-technolo...)
CTO/CPO
Deka (lol this guy is a joke look for him at 1:15 in the video... so he was the CTO/CPO of a failed indiegogo campaign)
President
Rock™ Smartwatch (let's see how this train wreck ends)
What an impressive resume huh? more like what a load of shit.
Googled him further:
Supposedly he has a 500,000 fund? "- Money. That’s right—I have partnered with a $500K fund, through Anonymous Angels, that is focused on mobile apps & games. The sole requirement is that you have been a current member of BLANKSPACES for a month. Thanks Vak Sambath!"
reference: http://www.blankspaces.com/blog/02/21/blankspaces-returns-to...
LMAO at this joke http://www.vaksambath.com/ ... save yourself time and scroll to the bottom and read that load of shit... with someone with many failed companies he tries to "crush others dreams" can we ban this guy from anything Tech or just in life general
This guy is pathetic "When asked what’s next for the app, Vak mentioned that they are developing RodeDog to work with various mobile providers. “We are building out the app for Google’s Android and Windows mobile and we hope to get the app in iTunes in spite of Apple’s restrictions.”" LOOK AT 0:31 on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Lt5U_pVCA He is the spokes person for ClipRoadie and then all of the sudden he is on the other team that conveniently won? Wait so did he win or did the 12 year old girl win... or are they the same person... maybe he is the 12 year old girl?
I should be a private investigator but I couldn't help but find more about this guy after reading this post.
Can someone from Orange County please go pay him a visit at one of his many offices or his cowork space.
Go have a meal with him lmao... this is quoted from his website vaksambath.com
"Let Me Crush Your Dreams Or Not...over a meal. Please :)
If you're why is any one of these, then let's do lunch. I love free meals. Not sure what's better though: eating the actual meal or the idea? Hehe. Jk. I'll be gentle."
According to this guy's LinkedIn profile, www.linkedin.com/in/vaksambath, he is the CTO/CPO of Deka which recently ran an unsuccessful indiegogo campaign, http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/deka-the-most-customizable.... Interestingly, Michael Sawitz of FastStart.studio who has been mentioned on this thread, commented on the indiegogo campaign! I must admit, this is all very interesting and I am intrigued.
Also, I cannot believe someone would seek $100000 for developing Bluetooth headset (as in indiegogo campaign), but just $50000 for a smartwatch development (as in kickstarter), especially someone who claims to have spent $500000 already for R&D!
Also it is very interesting how the story keeps changing. First version was that they developed the watch from scratch and a Chinese company stole their IP. Now the story is that they never developed any hardware, but only worked on the software. However they cannot even show any software properly working on a prototype.
I fail to understand how kickstarter has still left it open. Now the guy is saying that since kickstarter is allowing him to go on, his is a valid project.
This doesn't even look like the kind of standard hipster kickstarter page you'd see, it looks far more like quite literal spam you'd find on ebay auctions or something, crappy image tables, schizo bolded text..
I love the fake "we can't show the name or number of our patents because of IP concerns" excuse.
a.) If the patent is easy to work around then it's not worth the paper it's written on
b.) You can't be saying you don't want anyone to know the details because you're not going to defend the patent by taking legal action against infringers, because you've already published how the idea works
c.) If you're patenting it in order to stop someone else claiming the IP, then why care if everyone knows what the idea is ? Why not publish the idea online as a freely downloadable paper ?
They are using a generic watch manufactured by some Chinese company, which means almost visually identical watches already exist on the market. They value they are adding are the custom operating system, apps and connectivity.
They have a lot of shots of hardware design and testing that at most charitable strongly imply they built the hardware from the bottom up. Having done so and then being intentionally vague about any of the hardware is offsetting.
That's not to mention the fact that the ONLY stretch goals are about making more apps for the watch. If you're serious about building a smartwatch you better offer people a damn good reason to buy it, not sit on your ass waiting for people to pay you to make the thing useful.
I don't recall the name of the product but there's this little bluetooth bracelet you can buy that got big on kickstarter. Turns out that its almost identical to one at alibaba.com. The guy running the kickstarter said that they more or less copied the physical design but modified the internals a bit for better BT connectivity and to a newer version of BT.
This could be going on here with the Z3 watch. Instead, we have an out of control witchhunt. I think it makes a lot more financial sense to modify a proven design than to start from scratch. If you're on kick starter, you probably don't have deep pockets and an engineering department to begin with. Not to mention that hardware is kinda a commodity now. Good software is the hard nut to crack. Think CM vs Touchwiz on the same phone.
I could entirely believe that to be the case, but the creator's alleged responses on the comments page would seem to cast doubt on him at least telling the truth about that.
Ugly trying-to-be-slick graphics and pictures, page upon page of content-free typo-ridden copy full to the brim with marketing bullshit, and meaningless tech specs (ooh, an embedded microcontroller with a low power mode...never seen those before). This wasn't even a well-done scam.
EDIT: Also, Android on a Cortex-M3 (according to their video). Yeah, sure, whatever you say.
The bottom line with Kickstarter is that it's a great idea, but 1. It's vulnerable to gaming, and 2. There are financial rewards for gaming Kickstarter.
I conjecture that 3. It will become overrun with flim-flam projects if it does not change to correct 1 and/or 2. The stories are few and far between today, but inexorably there will be more and more scams. Why not? It's relatively cheap to put a scam project together, and the upside is tremendous.
We can argue about whether Kickstarter is or isn't a store until we've consumed all the oxygen in the room, but the real question is this: Are things going to get better? Stay about the same? Or get worse?
I say thing will get much, much worse unless they make changes of some kind.
I know Indiegogo is hard at work towards building automated scam/fraud detection systems. I work in this space (I build such systems for Eventbrite) and from my conversation with them it seems they're new to these problems but are making them a priority. Now Indiegogo has a slightly different model (campaigns can be created by anyone and are not curated) than Kickstarter that makes it more of a priority for them, but hopefully with the recent cases of fraud on Kickstarter they're putting more work into prevention as well.
All in all, I don't think it's an inescapable problem. It is perfectly possible to build scam-detection systems (we do so at Eventbrite, to prevent people pretending to be selling tickets for an event they're not actually organizers of), and although it's not easy as these crowd-sourcing grow larger they'll hopefully have more resources to put behind it.
I've been paying mild attention to Kickstarter for a while now.
I still don't get the "it's not a store" argument (well, I understand their positioning on it). I figured the SEC would step in by now.
You give some money, and you get some (generally speaking) 1-time tangible thing back. You don't get future profits, earnings, votes, etc. in the company that created the project. Sure, you can call the funds a "pledge", a "a donation", whatever. But you're not giving money to non-profit organizations, and you're generally giving the "pledge" expecting a specific thing in return for your pledge. This is very different than dropping $100 in a Salvation Army donation box (at least to me).
Kickstarter is not a store the way PayPal is not a bank, it's just that Kickstarter hasn't yet fully caught up to PayPal's level of anti-customer business.
It is a pledge. You are pledging to give money, but not actually giving it. If they are successfully pledged enough money at the end of the time, everyone is charged. However, that doesn't mean everyone is successfully charged. It's well established that there are people who pledge but don't pay. You could meet your pledge requirements, but still have less in funding that you needed (discounting the known cut KS and CC companies take).
Point is, it's a pledge.
> I still don't get the "it's not a store" argument.
What don't you get?
> You give some money, and you get some (generally speaking) 1-time tangible thing back.
Ahh. You are missing some parts. What you really mean to say is this:
"You pledge to give them some money in the hopes other people pledge as well so that they meat some minimum requirement. If enough is pledged, the company can then continue working on whatever project they were trying to fund. Things can and will change. You may eventually get something back. You may not. It make take years longer. It may be different from what you originally pledged for. It's not always a 1-time tangible thing back."
Legally and practically speaking, it's not a store because it is instead a marketplace. If we were talking about a flea market, Kickstarter would be the company that rents out spots, not the guy selling you a shady DVD.
It might be possible to set up something like a store using Kickstarter, and then to defraud people who participate. If I promise to try to build you a smartwatch and I was always planning to send you a brick wrapped in tinfoil, I've probably committed civil and criminal fraud. The court won't much care whether it's a "store," only whether I lied to get the money. But that's on me, not on Kickstarter -- federal law says that online marketplaces aren't (necessarily) liable for fraud. See the unsuccessful lawsuits against eBay, Google AdSense, and Orbitz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
It's certainly possible for an online marketplace to become party to fraud if it's sufficiently involved, and I have no idea where that line is drawn. I am not your lawyer and this is not legal advice. That citation above could be totally wrong and those cases were probably made up by rogue Wikipedia editors. Your intuitions will be closer, though, if you think of Kickstarter as the marketplace rather than the store.
(As a side note, let me repeat that the law doesn't care whether it's a "store"; the question is whether people are being misled about the relevant facts when they decide to put money down. When people say "Kickstarter is a store," the legal argument would probably be "projects hosted on Kickstarter tend to mislead people who contribute money about the nature of the transaction, and the website's design encourages that." I know legal definitions aren't everything, but good ones tend to be handy even in non-legal settings, because they strip away hard-to-define words like "store" and replace them with easy-to-define words like "transaction" and "website".)
I see no reason why backing a project requires any benefits or ownership and why the benefactors cannot turn a profit with that project. If you don't like it, don't back it. Federal regulation isn't at all necessary because the deal is clearly spelled out. You aren't buying a product, you're backing a project which you may be rewarded for.
> you get some _(generally speaking)_ 1-time tangible thing back.
I think this is the part where it is not a store. A store brings you something for you money. Kickstarter can cover the non "generally speaking" part where you can pledge money for nothing (you just want to push the project. i.e. $1 pledges are usually without any tangible return). I remember the Penny Arcade kickstater, where a lot of people pledge below the first tangible return, just because they liked the idea.
That's also what happens if you back an open source project, the tangible return might be highly subjective.
Remember that kickstarter is not a store. When you give somebody money on kickstarter you're not buying a product, you're supporting the producer. Businesses can fail, even when funded.
It's really sad. I'm sure there are also people on Kickstarter who aren't scammers, just ordinary folks who don't appreciate the full extent of their commitment. You run into a few obstacles, or your mom gets sick, and suddenly you're on the hook for $50,000 and can't deliver what you promised.
On the other hand, you hear stories about projects who offer too much ("I'll paint a portrait of anyone who donates $7!"), and all their money goes to servicing those rewards.
I don't mean to excuse anyone. Obviously, not everyone is capable of running a business, and Kickstarter makes it really easy for those people to get themselves into hot water.
I've seen this happen several times on Kickstarter with various products. Every time I've seen it though the project gets called out before the end of the funding period. I'm sure the Kickstarter people are aware of the problem, but at the end of the day caveat emptor.
A lot of backers for Kickstarter still don't understand that, years on. With the exception of some artistic projects, anyway, but even they are not immune (see any StarCraft doco for example). It's more like an investment in an idea, and people should treat it as such, but I think it's in KickStarter's interest to keep that confusion around...
This guy is now using the same excuse that he used on day 1 (the team are on holiday so I can't make specific replies). It's just a joke. 4GB of ROM and 4GB of RAM? The iPhone 5S has 1GB of RAM, what the hell would you need with the rest?
At least he's removed some of his claims (it is waterproof, oops now it's not; the screen is 1080p - with a 250 x 250 screen? WTF?). His last update focuses on the money going to software development (basically, the watch is the cheap Chinese Z3 watch that we bought in bulk from alibaba.com, but the apps are different).
He is just full of shit and avoids all the questions that he knows the answers to (the ones that he doesn't want to reveal publicly).
From the 'my account was hacked' spamming to the bullshit on his own website (want to make a quick buck? I'll show you how) his is a scam, 100%.
I've never liked Kickstarter. It's a nice idea and all, but there is so much room for failure and scam.
I'm sure they're motivated as hell to bring great products and on kickstarters site, they're motivated too to support those projects. But more often than not, there are people, without any knowledge on how to develop products, that i'm way to scared to give them any money.
Oh, and since a few big projects, it's only one piece of the marketing bullshit-bubble. Everyone tries to use Kickstarter as a marketing channel and people that want to solve real problems aren't mentioned anywhere.
I mean, why the fuck to rich people need to use kickstarter? There are enough examples, where people with huge piles of money try to finance their projects on kickstarter. Use your own money, damn it.
> I've never liked Kickstarter. It's a nice idea and all, but there is so much room for failure and scam.
It depends how you use it. If you use it as a store, yes (though the risk can be minimized by due diligence).
> and people that want to solve real problems aren't mentioned anywhere.
What are real problems? For me a real problem was (or rather will hopefully) be solved by the Hot Smartwatch.
> why the fuck to rich people need to use kickstarter?
It's a great tool to test the waters. If you don't get funded, you probably would have thrown your money down the drain. Also I don't see a problem with using KS as a marketing tool, though the extra attention KS gets in media will probably die down in another year or two (It's already not as effective as it was at the beginning).
This was a project I supported - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/796177777/tony. He's a talented, established artist so I trusted him from the get-go. $25 and I got a signed DVD and CD. I thought this was a fun way to produce a product that connects the artist to the fan and vice versa.
The intro video already has a few red flags to show that he doesn't know what he's talking about (or he's not being honest):
- He considers the 240x240 display an HD display
- He claims the watch has 4GB of RAM
His Kickstarter page is so full of BS materials that anyone with just a little bit of common sense and technical knowledge about smartphones should be able to tell this is not a legitimate project.
The comments are interesting. I suppose it's a "internet justice" thing: expose the scammer, so others don't make the mistake of backing them, and you get to attack someone you don't know. Win win? /shrugs, I would've just posted a comment saying that with the info that's come to light I can no longer back this, and pull my money out and move on. To each their own, I always find how people deal with things like this on the net really interesting.
[+] [-] jxf|12 years ago|reply
1. Kickstarter campaign for a new high-tech smart-watch launches. The creator, "Vak", responds to a few questions on the watch about specs and hardware in a noncommital, generic way that doesn't reveal a lot of details.
2. Skepticism increases when one customer claims that the watch is apparently identical to a Z3, a watch with similar specs, which they already own. They provide pictures and proof that indicate that the Vak may literally be using the Z3 itself in all the photos and just switching out the wristbands. [0]
3. A minor firestorm erupts in the comments; people accuse Vak of scamming them. [1]
4. Vak asks for time to construct a Kickstarter update, saying that the deluge of comments makes it impossible to respond individually.
5. A few days later, Vak responds to the points raised in the original accusation. [2]
6. ... and keeps responding with the same message, dozens of times. He (or someone using his account) repeatedly posts the same message, over and over and over, to the Kickstarter thread, in response to any skeptical questions.
7. Vak says "it wasn't me!" [3] Pretty much no one believes him.
8. Article gets posted to HN.
[0] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/253126792/rocktm-first-q...
[1] http://i.imgur.com/8IyxKTC.png
[2] http://i.imgur.com/Fa2101J.png
[3] http://i.imgur.com/Sy7BfL9.png
[+] [-] Vak-fraud|12 years ago|reply
You know someone is full of shit when their linkedin profile looks like this...
So he jumped from R&D Engineer | Marketing Dept SMC Networks TO: Founder/CEO MedMania Inc
CEO/Founder Campusbug.com (lol at this site)
Principal Partner WebNative
Co-Founder Pageable.com ( lol co-founded a site that isn't even up)
Chief Product Zen Officer Pivot HQ ( look he is the CPO of this lovely company http://pivothq.webs.com/)
General Partner/Co-Founder Bullear Partners (googled this and there isn't even a firm by this name)
Cofounder/Principal Managing Director Techzulu.com (legit news site for socal but don't see his name anywhere on the website as founder?)
Principal Managing Director Crushspot.com (is this his attempt to find a girlfriend)
Mentor and Advisor FastStart.studio(I don't see him on this site anywhere as mentor?)
Founder Rockfield Labs (who the fuck lists themselves as a founder of a meetup group? you organized a meetup group that has had 4 meetups in the last 2 years and you are some sort of founder?)
Startup Fanboy/Founder Duocampus (This looks like a damn furniture store... co-work space? really? only thing correct in this whole resume is "startup fanboy" looks like he tries to make fake companies or ride the coat tails of real entrepreneurs)
Head of Technology Concert BC (sorry but who ever is getting consultating from this company is getting ripped off if this guy can't even answer simple questions about specs on a product he supposedly made. http://www.concertbc.com/portfolio/vak-sambath-head-technolo...)
CTO/CPO Deka (lol this guy is a joke look for him at 1:15 in the video... so he was the CTO/CPO of a failed indiegogo campaign)
President Rock™ Smartwatch (let's see how this train wreck ends)
What an impressive resume huh? more like what a load of shit.
Googled him further: Supposedly he has a 500,000 fund? "- Money. That’s right—I have partnered with a $500K fund, through Anonymous Angels, that is focused on mobile apps & games. The sole requirement is that you have been a current member of BLANKSPACES for a month. Thanks Vak Sambath!" reference: http://www.blankspaces.com/blog/02/21/blankspaces-returns-to...
LMAO at this joke http://www.vaksambath.com/ ... save yourself time and scroll to the bottom and read that load of shit... with someone with many failed companies he tries to "crush others dreams" can we ban this guy from anything Tech or just in life general
This guy is pathetic "When asked what’s next for the app, Vak mentioned that they are developing RodeDog to work with various mobile providers. “We are building out the app for Google’s Android and Windows mobile and we hope to get the app in iTunes in spite of Apple’s restrictions.”" LOOK AT 0:31 on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Lt5U_pVCA He is the spokes person for ClipRoadie and then all of the sudden he is on the other team that conveniently won? Wait so did he win or did the 12 year old girl win... or are they the same person... maybe he is the 12 year old girl?
LOL maybe we should just give him a call... it only cost $1/min https://clarity.fm/vaksambath or we could socialcam him https://socialcam.com/u/Fk6y66Ob
I wonder what 103 domain names he owes lmao http://reversewhois.domaintools.com/vak-sambath
I should be a private investigator but I couldn't help but find more about this guy after reading this post.
Can someone from Orange County please go pay him a visit at one of his many offices or his cowork space.
Go have a meal with him lmao... this is quoted from his website vaksambath.com "Let Me Crush Your Dreams Or Not...over a meal. Please :) If you're why is any one of these, then let's do lunch. I love free meals. Not sure what's better though: eating the actual meal or the idea? Hehe. Jk. I'll be gentle."
[+] [-] semenko|12 years ago|reply
… has the model number (S2122B) of the SmartQ Z3 watch, too. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2501598
[+] [-] mumbo-jumbo|12 years ago|reply
Also it is very interesting how the story keeps changing. First version was that they developed the watch from scratch and a Chinese company stole their IP. Now the story is that they never developed any hardware, but only worked on the software. However they cannot even show any software properly working on a prototype.
I fail to understand how kickstarter has still left it open. Now the guy is saying that since kickstarter is allowing him to go on, his is a valid project.
[+] [-] dylz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathattack|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lyndonh|12 years ago|reply
a.) If the patent is easy to work around then it's not worth the paper it's written on b.) You can't be saying you don't want anyone to know the details because you're not going to defend the patent by taking legal action against infringers, because you've already published how the idea works c.) If you're patenting it in order to stop someone else claiming the IP, then why care if everyone knows what the idea is ? Why not publish the idea online as a freely downloadable paper ?
[+] [-] makomk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deletes|12 years ago|reply
They are using a generic watch manufactured by some Chinese company, which means almost visually identical watches already exist on the market. They value they are adding are the custom operating system, apps and connectivity.
EDIT: I encourage anyone to comment.
[+] [-] lanaius|12 years ago|reply
That's not to mention the fact that the ONLY stretch goals are about making more apps for the watch. If you're serious about building a smartwatch you better offer people a damn good reason to buy it, not sit on your ass waiting for people to pay you to make the thing useful.
[+] [-] Nursie|12 years ago|reply
They make claims to be the hardware developer, with lots of pictures of circuitry and apparent prototyping.
It smells like a scam.
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|12 years ago|reply
This could be going on here with the Z3 watch. Instead, we have an out of control witchhunt. I think it makes a lot more financial sense to modify a proven design than to start from scratch. If you're on kick starter, you probably don't have deep pockets and an engineering department to begin with. Not to mention that hardware is kinda a commodity now. Good software is the hard nut to crack. Think CM vs Touchwiz on the same phone.
[+] [-] estel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] austinz|12 years ago|reply
EDIT: Also, Android on a Cortex-M3 (according to their video). Yeah, sure, whatever you say.
[+] [-] raganwald|12 years ago|reply
I conjecture that 3. It will become overrun with flim-flam projects if it does not change to correct 1 and/or 2. The stories are few and far between today, but inexorably there will be more and more scams. Why not? It's relatively cheap to put a scam project together, and the upside is tremendous.
We can argue about whether Kickstarter is or isn't a store until we've consumed all the oxygen in the room, but the real question is this: Are things going to get better? Stay about the same? Or get worse?
I say thing will get much, much worse unless they make changes of some kind.
[+] [-] pyduan|12 years ago|reply
All in all, I don't think it's an inescapable problem. It is perfectly possible to build scam-detection systems (we do so at Eventbrite, to prevent people pretending to be selling tickets for an event they're not actually organizers of), and although it's not easy as these crowd-sourcing grow larger they'll hopefully have more resources to put behind it.
[1] Like this guy: http://www.onthemedia.org/story/new-kind-kickstarter-scam-ba...
[+] [-] brk|12 years ago|reply
I still don't get the "it's not a store" argument (well, I understand their positioning on it). I figured the SEC would step in by now.
You give some money, and you get some (generally speaking) 1-time tangible thing back. You don't get future profits, earnings, votes, etc. in the company that created the project. Sure, you can call the funds a "pledge", a "a donation", whatever. But you're not giving money to non-profit organizations, and you're generally giving the "pledge" expecting a specific thing in return for your pledge. This is very different than dropping $100 in a Salvation Army donation box (at least to me).
Kickstarter is not a store the way PayPal is not a bank, it's just that Kickstarter hasn't yet fully caught up to PayPal's level of anti-customer business.
[+] [-] jasonlotito|12 years ago|reply
It is a pledge. You are pledging to give money, but not actually giving it. If they are successfully pledged enough money at the end of the time, everyone is charged. However, that doesn't mean everyone is successfully charged. It's well established that there are people who pledge but don't pay. You could meet your pledge requirements, but still have less in funding that you needed (discounting the known cut KS and CC companies take).
Point is, it's a pledge.
> I still don't get the "it's not a store" argument.
What don't you get?
> You give some money, and you get some (generally speaking) 1-time tangible thing back.
Ahh. You are missing some parts. What you really mean to say is this:
"You pledge to give them some money in the hopes other people pledge as well so that they meat some minimum requirement. If enough is pledged, the company can then continue working on whatever project they were trying to fund. Things can and will change. You may eventually get something back. You may not. It make take years longer. It may be different from what you originally pledged for. It's not always a 1-time tangible thing back."
If that's your idea of a store...
[+] [-] JackC|12 years ago|reply
It might be possible to set up something like a store using Kickstarter, and then to defraud people who participate. If I promise to try to build you a smartwatch and I was always planning to send you a brick wrapped in tinfoil, I've probably committed civil and criminal fraud. The court won't much care whether it's a "store," only whether I lied to get the money. But that's on me, not on Kickstarter -- federal law says that online marketplaces aren't (necessarily) liable for fraud. See the unsuccessful lawsuits against eBay, Google AdSense, and Orbitz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
It's certainly possible for an online marketplace to become party to fraud if it's sufficiently involved, and I have no idea where that line is drawn. I am not your lawyer and this is not legal advice. That citation above could be totally wrong and those cases were probably made up by rogue Wikipedia editors. Your intuitions will be closer, though, if you think of Kickstarter as the marketplace rather than the store.
(As a side note, let me repeat that the law doesn't care whether it's a "store"; the question is whether people are being misled about the relevant facts when they decide to put money down. When people say "Kickstarter is a store," the legal argument would probably be "projects hosted on Kickstarter tend to mislead people who contribute money about the nature of the transaction, and the website's design encourages that." I know legal definitions aren't everything, but good ones tend to be handy even in non-legal settings, because they strip away hard-to-define words like "store" and replace them with easy-to-define words like "transaction" and "website".)
[+] [-] colechristensen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hrktb|12 years ago|reply
I think this is the part where it is not a store. A store brings you something for you money. Kickstarter can cover the non "generally speaking" part where you can pledge money for nothing (you just want to push the project. i.e. $1 pledges are usually without any tangible return). I remember the Penny Arcade kickstater, where a lot of people pledge below the first tangible return, just because they liked the idea.
That's also what happens if you back an open source project, the tangible return might be highly subjective.
[+] [-] stinos|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkuttler|12 years ago|reply
See also http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store
[+] [-] dagw|12 years ago|reply
I don't know anything about that particular case, but in general, what do you think Kickstarter can/should do about it?
[+] [-] pit|12 years ago|reply
On the other hand, you hear stories about projects who offer too much ("I'll paint a portrait of anyone who donates $7!"), and all their money goes to servicing those rewards.
I don't mean to excuse anyone. Obviously, not everyone is capable of running a business, and Kickstarter makes it really easy for those people to get themselves into hot water.
[+] [-] aristidesfl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zoomla|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dagw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] girvo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mikeb85|12 years ago|reply
Too bad the Kickstarter guy wasn't just a little more upfront about what clearly seems to be a rebranded watch...
[+] [-] JVIDEL|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rickinhk|12 years ago|reply
At least he's removed some of his claims (it is waterproof, oops now it's not; the screen is 1080p - with a 250 x 250 screen? WTF?). His last update focuses on the money going to software development (basically, the watch is the cheap Chinese Z3 watch that we bought in bulk from alibaba.com, but the apps are different).
He is just full of shit and avoids all the questions that he knows the answers to (the ones that he doesn't want to reveal publicly).
From the 'my account was hacked' spamming to the bullshit on his own website (want to make a quick buck? I'll show you how) his is a scam, 100%.
[+] [-] axx|12 years ago|reply
I'm sure they're motivated as hell to bring great products and on kickstarters site, they're motivated too to support those projects. But more often than not, there are people, without any knowledge on how to develop products, that i'm way to scared to give them any money.
Oh, and since a few big projects, it's only one piece of the marketing bullshit-bubble. Everyone tries to use Kickstarter as a marketing channel and people that want to solve real problems aren't mentioned anywhere.
I mean, why the fuck to rich people need to use kickstarter? There are enough examples, where people with huge piles of money try to finance their projects on kickstarter. Use your own money, damn it.
[+] [-] Semaphor|12 years ago|reply
It depends how you use it. If you use it as a store, yes (though the risk can be minimized by due diligence).
> and people that want to solve real problems aren't mentioned anywhere.
What are real problems? For me a real problem was (or rather will hopefully) be solved by the Hot Smartwatch.
> why the fuck to rich people need to use kickstarter?
It's a great tool to test the waters. If you don't get funded, you probably would have thrown your money down the drain. Also I don't see a problem with using KS as a marketing tool, though the extra attention KS gets in media will probably die down in another year or two (It's already not as effective as it was at the beginning).
[+] [-] plcancel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] locusm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izqui|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CervezaPorFavor|12 years ago|reply
- He considers the 240x240 display an HD display
- He claims the watch has 4GB of RAM
His Kickstarter page is so full of BS materials that anyone with just a little bit of common sense and technical knowledge about smartphones should be able to tell this is not a legitimate project.
[+] [-] aye|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PLenz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schenecstasy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] girvo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mxchael|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] abdelhai|12 years ago|reply